I am going to preface this post with a question. Do your children have their own bedroom, or do they share with their siblings?

For most of Remy’s short life, she has had a room to herself. We had hoped that when we moved from our last home that we would be moving into one with multiple bedrooms. While our current house does have four bedrooms, only two are on each level. That means in order to sleep on the same floor as our young children, they have to sleep in the same room.

Remy and Wilder’s bedroom was actually only Remy’s room up until two weeks ago. After spending weeks making it over, we finally transferred Wilder’s crib into her room, thus making it a shared room for a boy and girl. Not an easy design feat! This is how we did it …

We initially began with a blank beige slate. See above. These pictures were ones that I saved from the MLS listing for our home. Once we moved in we only added a few necessities.

With neutral walls, a white bed, white rug, white dresser, and no window treatments (we embarrassingly hung a blanket in her window for months), we had so many options to make their bedroom into whatever theme we wanted to! Because the bedroom is not an overly large one, I knew that I wanted mostly white walls in order for it to appear bigger than it really was. That said, Remy’s last bedroom had four white walls and even though I loved it, I did want a bit of a change. Cue the accent wall!

With a mental image of three white walls, we now had to come up with one colour that would be bold yet gender neutral, yet childlike, and be able to tie the entire room together. The only problem was that Wilder’s crib was blue. That immediately left blue out of the equation. Yellow? Too dated? Grey? Not playful enough. Black? Already in our room. Green? Yes! Now to decide on a shade of green.

After bringing home paint swatches, Geoffrey and I fell in love with a medium-dark green. However, right before going to Home Depot to buy it, I felt like it might be too dark. I chickened out at the last minute and instead purchased a light green shade called Frosted Jade that I felt would still compliment a blue crib. I was wrong.

I came home, put up two coats, and hated it. It was a pretty colour in itself but on their wall looked institutional. Wanting to salvage what I had done, I painted a Harringbone pattern overtop of the green that was highly inspired by a Swedish wallpaper company that I followed on Instagram. I thought that it looked better, but was more suited for a modern condo bedroom and not the rural room that I was going for. Frustrated, I went to bed.

After talking it over with Geoff, the next morning we took one of Wilder’s crib rails into my favourite Home Hardware store with a mission to pick out the darkest green that we could find. He promised to repaint it for me since I had felt like a complete failure. We found the perfect shade that had hints of blue in it called Atlantic Waves. We played in the store for a bit, then bought it, and left. Then we came home, and Geoff started painting. It was done by the end of the day. It looked beautiful.

Now that their wall colour was finally sorted, I had the fun task of buying items to complete their room! I turned to Amazon for most of it. There I purchased white curtains and a gold curtain rod, pony bedding for Remy’s bed, and seagrass baskets for their books (that haven’t yet arrived). Everything was very inexpensive.

I also bought the cutest white floating shelf from JYSK that we hung between their beds. It was on sale for $7.99.

I brought in the antique storage unit that we were using in our laundry room as a boot rack. I believe that it used to be in my mother’s hair salon and was a bright shade of red. I scrubbed it down, painted it white, purchased five wood crates from Michael’s, and put their toys on it. I love the way it looks so much, and it certainly has a lot of memories attached to it.

We were finally able to hang all of the pictures and artwork that I had been storing in the closet for the past year! Remy’s side has her three sonogram photos, a three-month photo, a picture of her as a toddler from my pregnancy reveal, a “be you” sign from a Canadian company, and a ceramic elephant vase that I have had for years.

Wilder’s side has his two sonogram photos, a baptism plaque that was given to him by my in-laws, a deer head that had belonged to my Gedo, and a “wild & free” banner that I had purchased while pregnant with him (and not knowing that he was a boy that we eventually named Wilder).

We decided to reuse the rug, shelving, and mirror that was in Remy’s room prior to this makeover. I also didn’t buy a new light fixture because I can’t decide on whether to hang a modern ceiling fan or a trendy bamboo light. Which one would you choose?

All in all, we spent less than $200 dollars turning this girl’s bedroom into a shared boy and girl room. Everything in their room holds so much sentiment and meaning (including the toddler handprints on the mirror). It certainly was a labour of love, from both Geoff and myself. I honestly love the way it turned out, and I know that Remy and Wilder enjoy sharing it together as well!

Emory

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