Ella's Room

When we bought this house last year, Ella's room was the only room I didn't find completely offensive. Oatmeal walls and clouds on the ceiling were much more tolerable than stenciled bears and cabins like the ones lining the den. Ella, however, did not agree. She thought the clouds made it a "boy room." She would complain that she didn't like sleeping "under skies." And since the squeaky wheel (aka Ell) gets the grease, I painted. Eventually I want to replace the carpet and all the woodwork. But until then, I had to be creative with paint alone.

I kept coming back to a specific blue color but since she is my only girl, I told myself I couldn't paint her room blue. Unfortunately, there wasn't another color that I really loved. My solution was to pull out four colors, the blue I loved, a green, a pink and a yellow, and let Ell choose. She choose the blue (like mother, like daughter). So that is what we went with.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The hardest part was working around all of those large robotic animals that she can't live without (but never plays with). She got Butterscotch the horse for her birthday a couple of years ago. She turned her on twice and that was it. The following Christmas she asked for Biscuit the dog. Santa decided to go with Snowball the cat because she was much, much smaller. On Christmas morning, she ran out to her presents, scanned the room, looked everywhere, and then said, "Santa has made a big mistake. I know he got Biscuit for me because I am really good, but he forgot to leave him." All through the day she would say, "I miss Biscuit." So, look who showed up for her birthday. Cory is a real sucker for that girl.