How to create a beautiful little girl’s room

This sweet room has everything for a perfect kid’s space: lots and lots of storage, cozy places to hang out, play, daydream, create and watch the world go by. It has so many cute details, lots of personality and some serious DIY projects. Today, I’m sharing all the details of our little girl’s room!

To be completely honest, our daughter had the hardest time with the move to the new house a year and a half ago. She was six at the time, and would not forgive us for “selling her room”. She loved her old bedroom in our previous home and missed it the most.

This is just one little corner of her old bedroom – it was dreamy and I don’t blame her for missing it as much as she did. So, it was imperative that we create something equally sweet and lovely for her at the new house. First thing we did was paint the new bedroom Sherwin Williams Abalone Shell, as sweet muted shade of pink.

I’ve always loved the idea of a window bench, there is something so romantic and sweet about it! We also had very specific needs for this space: it had to be comfortable, cozy, functional, with lots of storage; a space that looks great now and would grow with her as she gets older and her needs change. After trying out a couple of ideas, I ended up with this sketch of what I wanted the window wall to look like.

I’ve never built anything like this before, so I relied on many shortcuts along the way. I started with this dresser from IKEA. It was the perfect size to fit to the left of the window. The butcher block countertop was from IKEA as well. We’ve had it for several years, and the finish on it was starting to look dated. I sanded it down and re-stained it with this Minwax stain in Weathered Oak to give it an update.

Then I cut it to size to fit on top of the dresser, knowing the other part of it would be used for the desk to the right of the window.

I built the frame for the window bench out of 2×4’s and ran this vent extender under it.

Another shortcut I took were these drawers in the window bench. I found them in the closet organization section of my local Home Depot. After they were installed and the frame was built around them, the whole thing started to take shape.

I built the bookshelves out of plywood, and filled the backs with shiplap for a little interest. I used 1×2 pine boards for the face frame, and 1×3 for the top piece. I love how adding this detail elevates the look of the bookshelves.

The rest was just figuring out the hardware, crown molding and adding the finishing touches.

Once everything was wood filled, caulked, sanded and painted, this was the result! To this day, I can’t believe I took on this project, let alone finished it!

Another thing that adds a sweet touch in this space is this wallpaper on the ceiling. I’ve never wallpapered a ceiling before, and I’m here to tell you: it’s not a project for the faint of heart. The process is messy and discouraging at times. There were two days in January of 2021 when wallpaper glue was my hair styling product of choice. However, after the first strip of wallpaper was up, I knew it was worth the struggle.

I replaced the ceiling fan with this beautiful light, the corded blinds with a linen Roman shade, added a French mattress style cushion to the bench, and honestly, I still can’t believe the transformation!

This room has everything we hoped it would for our little girl! The built-in desk is perfect for homework, play, crafts and doodling.

Those bookshelves offer so much additional storage! We keep arts and crafts in the baskets, so they are easy to reach, but are not all over the place. The shelf at the very top has more baskets with books, notebooks, and other things we don’t use as often.

The window bench has four storage drawers for smaller clothing items, and the dresser has deep large storage drawers.

I can’t tell you how many hours are spent here, reading, playing, daydreaming, watching the rain.

These sconces are not hard wired (that’s outside of my skill level;), but have remote-controlled magic lightbulbs in them. They are plenty bright for reading at night, hold the charge fairly long (about a week) and are such an easy way to add task lighting just about anywhere!

The rest of the room was decorated with a lot of input from my daughter.

This sweet nightstand has been in her old room and moved with us. She loves the additional book storage! The butterfly mobile and the bunny have been hers since she was an infant, and we can’t bring ourselves to let them go.

That arched floor mirror is the perfect size for the space, and the bronze finish fits perfectly with the rest of the room.

All these little details add up to the sweetest, most beautiful, cozy little girl’s room.

We love the way this room turned out, and hope our girl makes many wonderful memories here. She is already planning a change: she wants to paint the walls, but hasn’t decided on the color yet. Stand by for updates;)