A testimony from Megan
When we had our first child, Cadence, we knew that it was very important to us that her room always be hers. Growing up my husband and I were both raised in homes where money was tight and bedrooms were furnished with acquired odds and ends.
There was nothing wrong with living like this as we both completely understood then (and now) that having clean, functional items was good enough and was all that was manageable. As a child, though, it was sometimes hard to stomp on the green envy monster that would show up when visiting a friends home who had a fantasy bedroom.
Call it living vicariously if you want, but we really wanted to give our daughter that dream room on two conditions: we did not want to break the bank and we wanted to do it without acquiring any debt. So when Cadence turned 16 months old, we moved her into the spare bedroom in our home and slowly started turning her nursery into an amazing big girl room with hopes that she would be moved into it by age two.
How We Did It
We salvaged. My daughter’s twin size bed was given to us by my parents. The dressers were mine when I was a child. My husband made the bedside table and the headboard was purchased off Craigslist for $15.
We did the work ourselves. My husband did all of the renovations and furniture refinishing himself. He installed a new closet system and doors. He sanded, painted, and varnished all the furniture. He painted the room, made all the trim, and replaced the floors. We saved thousands by not hiring a contractor.
We asked for help. For our daughter’s first birthday, we let the family know what bedroom set we had chosen for Cady and made a Target registry with all the pieces we needed. Instead of receiving a lot of toys and clothes that she really didn’t need, Cady received almost every bedroom item as a gift for her birthday.
We got creative. We checked websites and chose craft items that we thought would make a huge difference in the room and set out to make them ourselves. I sewed stuffed owls and made a mobile from branches. We painted $1 birdhouses from the craft store to match the room scheme and used them as 3D decoration throughout the room and my husband whittled drawer pulls for the dressers he refinished.
We only bought supplies on sale or with coupons. Paint was purchased with coupons and rebates and flooring was purchased from an outlet store for $0.69 a square foot.
The Result
After all our labor, the end result was a gorgeous Magical Forest bedroom fit for a princess that was finished in plenty of time and well within budget (less than $2000). A renovation like the one we did would have cost nearly 10k if we had used outside labor. Cady moved into her new room and started sleeping in a big girl bed at 21 months old and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome!
Megan Carlisle is a homemaker and mommy to one little girl (and another baby due in January 2012.) She is married to David and they live happily ever after in rural Pennsylvania! In her spare time, she enjoys couponing, the show Criminal Minds, and that amazing feeling you get when all your laundry and dishes all done (for the moment!).
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
LOL! It looks like this room was furnished by a REGISTRY where they ASKED friends/family not for toys or what THEY wanted. Registries are the 21st century version of selfish parents/singles. Seriously, if people ASK you what to get the child suggest a gift. More often then not parents (aka Moms) ADVERTISE they have a registry. This article is laughable because the pieces were not obtained by the parents but via a registry.
We provide a wish list for birthdays and Christmas–because our families ask us for one! We live out of state and even though they visit frequently, they have no idea exactly what toys the kids already own. I browse Amazon/Target/etc with the girls and they help me make a list. Grandparents can shop from their computers and know they bought a gift the child will enjoy and doesn’t already own. We also love it when they give ‘experience’ gifts (zoo or museum memberships, dance lessons, etc)
We also just gutted and completely remodeled the bedrooms for our two children. We insulated the walls (there was NO insulation before); put up new sheetrock in the entire room, installed new electical throughout both rooms, new light fixtures, new closet systems in both rooms, new doors for closets and the rooms, new molding and painted. Both rooms cost us $1400 total since we did the work ourselves. It took us about a month with the kids sleeping in the livingroom but we feel it was money and time well spent, and not too expensive considering it was 2 bedrooms. We went to Target today to look for new bedding for my daughter since she is moving from her toddler bed to a twin bed, I loved the owl set but she didn’t like it 🙁 We didn’t end up finding anything there that she liked so we will have to keep looking! We have been slowly gutting each room of our house as we have the money to do it; the kids rooms were the last ones that we had left to do; and I am so glad that we did!
I think the room looks lovely! Your daughter loves it and you are debt free – which I think was probably your goal! I hope when people read the comments they will realize that their families financial and renovation goals are not the same as everyone elses – and that’s ok. That’s the whole reason behind living frugally and being able to do as your family sees fit.
I think it’s beautiful! Good job mom!
Hey everyone! I’m Megan – the one who wrote this article! Thanks for all the comments, I just thought I’d leave a note to clear up a few things and also to leave a link for more photos.
All of you who gasped about our budget are correct, if we have just been RE-DECORATING then my budget would be considered exorbitant, but we renovated. We tore out a closet (including the old brown, hollow doors), we took down drywall and replaced a few sheets (rather than patch), new electrical throughout, all new moldings (ceiling, chair rail and floor), new flooring, new ceiling fan, even new drawer slides for each dresser. That budget included every nail, ever scrap of fabric for projects and each piece of decor that we didn’t get as a gift.
We own our home and are slowly bringing it out of the 80’s. Every renovation we do, we do absolutely right with future resale in mind. The pictures on our daughters walls are decals. Peel them off and her room is suddenly just light blue and green with white trim and a wood floor. When she grows out of “enchanted forest” we will have very little work to do when it comes to making it more “grown girl” friendly.
My families budget and our priorities may not be the same as yours, but they work for us. What seems frivolous to you bring our family immense enjoyment. Our daughter refers to her room as the “wow room”. For my husband and I, that alone makes every penny worth it.
If you would like to see more pictures you can check out my blog!
http://cadyinthecorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-cadys-big-girl-room-first-brief.html
Very well said.
I think it looks great – the wall cover and furniture look to be quite neutral and the owls on the walls are wall stickers (I assume) so it doesnt seem that it would be all that hard to completely revamp the room by removing the owl stickers when she or her daughter get tired of them and going for something else. A simple change of bedding and wall stickers could make the room look completely different.
I love the owl theme. Currently, my 4 year old likes the owl theme as well. I too thought 2K was high for renovations, not because I’m being judgmental but b/c I know the going rate for things since I recently built a home. Now if she said she got all of her furniture from Pottery Barn, I’d completely understand LOL.
Those are some great ideas.
Love the fact she was able to find things second hand, do a lot of the work themselves etc.
I just did down payment on my Toyota Camry circa 2011. We were saving for it since long. good article!
I agree with Jennifer and some of the other comments, that if $2,000 is the budget they chose and they were able to stick with it without incurring debt than that is the main point and goal.
It is a beautiful room. I know I was able to change the wall paper in my childhood room once when I was around 10 years of age. Fortunately now with paint once again being the big decorating style, it won’t cost much to change the look of the room when she grows up a little more and decides on something new. But investing in flooring, electrical and a great closet are great choices. Nicely done!
That seems really high on the price and it really doesn’t look like anything fancy. We bought a hud home in MI, and flipped it including all new tile, wood laminate floors, a brand new bathroom, totally gutted and drywalled the 2nd floor, installed new closets, carpet, paint and everything through a three bedroom home, bought 3 new appliances for the kitchen and a new washer and dryer, installed heating in a basement, painted and put new carpet in and did all of it ourselves and that only cost $5500 for the whole house…..hmmm.
It totally depends on the quality of materials and appliances that you use and if you can get any at a discounted price. $5500 seems extremely low for the type of renovations done. We would easily spend more than that just on the appliances.
I love the idea to ask for decorating items for birthdays. I was just talking with my husband about how to handle gifts for our soon to be 4 yr olds party. You can respectfully ask for no gifts, but it’s just a part of parties and people want to bring one. (especially grandparents). I think it may be the perfect time to go pick out some bedroom decor at Target!
Am I the only one who thinks gift registries for kids birthdays are over the top? My daughter has come home with birthday party invitations that include registry info, and I think it is just so tacky. These are kids she goes to school with but does not consider to be close friends.
With close friends and family, if I’m not sure of a good gift, I’ll ask the parent for suggestions. For my child, our relatives and close friends have asked me for gift suggestions, and I’m happy to give them ideas, in different price ranges. But I would never use a registry. Weddings and baby showers okay, but not a kids birthday.
Just my opinion — I realize others feel differently.
I think it would just depend on the age of the child and if they have items they truly want. There are only so many barbie dolls, trucks, or balls that a kid can put to good use 🙂 Probably the most appropriate way to handle a registry would be to do an amazon wish list and send that link to the parents that ask for suggestions. That way you’re not offending anyone by putting it on the invite but you won’t get duplicates of toys the kids already have.
After the idea here of bedroom decor, I’m looking forward to letting our 4 year old pick out items he’s like for his room so that he will be excited to receive them at his party. Our parents are more than happy to buy gifts that are practical yet fun, and this will cut down on the amount of toys he receives but doesn’t end up playing with.
Read my comment below, same thoughts as you! This child doesn’t “need” this room just as she doesn’t “need” the gifts from friends and family 🙂 Registries are outrageous and NOT right, save weddings!
I agree. I don’t expect people to bring gifts to a party. If they can afford one its fine but if they dont its okay. I have also taught my children not to expect guests to bring gifts. They are just happy to have a party. So I would never do a registry for a birthday.
What a lovely room. I gasped at the price tag too, but then realized that much of the $2000 expense was for a major renovation that was probably needed anyway, regardless of the fact that the spare bedroom became a child’s room, or something else. Kudo’s to the author for being able to follow their dreams without breaking the bank.
We just did our entire bedroom for less than $900. That meant new lighting, flooring, electric, window treatments, furniture, throw rugs and bedding. It turned out GORGEOUS and we did every ounce of the work ourselves. I felt so happy when it was finished — what an accomplishment!
We did our daughter’s (and soon to be son’s) room for $700. That included everything mentioned in the room above except bedding.
Megan – what’s with all the haters?! It almost makes me laugh that people are discounting your dreams and efforts because they weren’t frugal enough. Well…my mom always said “small” people criticize because they are jealous and insecure. Your little girl will love having her own special place and will someday be so appreciative of the sacrifices you made to provide this to her. We’re remodeling our entire house ourselves and sometimes we’ve used a $10 light fixture and sometimes we’ve splurged on a $200 fixture. It’s our (paid off) house and we’ll buy what we want. Right? 🙂 Don’t feel bad about these comments because you’ve created an awesome “labor of love” and you should be proud of it!!!!!!!!
I just re-read all the comments and didn’t see anything hateful. Yes some people said they thought it was a lot to spend but I don’t think that makes any of us small or critical. We all spend money in different ways and I don’t see why the author would feel criticized when just about everybody told her the room was beautiful.
Beautiful room. It feels so good to finish a goal and be debt free. Good job!
Looks adorable! I am glad that she has a special place!
That is amazing-great job! I understand the desire to create a beautiful place for your child to call their own. Also, what I love about decorating our childrens’ bedrooms is that it is a one-time cost. If you can find the means to do it once, it should last until you move out (or until they become teenagers and insist on black walls or something crazy ;)). Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I respectfully disagree. All children I know, including my own, develop their own tastes as they grow up. I’m not talking about “black walls or something crazy.” They simply develop opinions and tastes of their own. The room is lovely, certainly, but all too soon it will become too “babyish” for an older child.
Which is not to say that parents shouldn’t decorate their child’s room, of course. My point is that we shouldn’t think that it is a one-time expense that will last a child through their teen years.
I do agree, however, that investing in good quality furniture is well worth it. I spent very little on “nursery” furniture because that time is so brief, but invested in a nice set of furniture that will last much daughter well into adulthood. It will be hers to take with her when she moves out on her own.
Been there, done that. At 6, DD was thrilled with pink walls and a pink comforter to match. By age 9 or so she hated pink, but very graciously lived with what she had. I repainted her room at about age 11- this time we went more neutral and can change out accessories as her tastes change. I know friends who have painted bedrooms more than once before getting to the teen years. Thankfully, none of us spent more than $150 in the process.
Hmmm….maybe I am naive to think that my kiddos will still be happy with their rooms in 5 years. 😉 I guess when I was a kid it just wasn’t a big deal in our house, so our rooms pretty much stayed the same until we had our own decorating ideas in high school. I guess I should prepare myself for deco requests before that! 🙂
I think my mom let me re-do my bedroom twice- in elementary school and again in high school. And by “re-do”, I mean change the wall color and maybe a few other decor items 🙂 So I guess that’s why my kids’ rooms are so bear now! Never bothered me as a kid.
Oops I meant bare 🙂
I want to see more pictures!
Love it! What sweet sacrifices you have made for your daughter. I was always jealous of my friend’s rooms too. I hope your little girl makes many memories as she gets older in her dream bedroom.
We probably spent around $1500 on my daughter’s bedroom but we literally built the bedroom ourselves. They maybe had some heavy constructions as well. Who knows? We took half of our very large living room and put up a wall to make her room. We had to build the closet as well. We had to pay to have wood specially milled to match the stain grade wood that was already in our 1940’s home. That was the most expensive part. For us, it was a necessity because the baby had to have her own room to sleep. We had literally tried everything else to no avail. Including giving up our room and sleeping on the couches. That got old quick.
Here’s a link to a few pictures and there are more in my blog if you scroll through the other posts around the same dates.
http://abcmurrahfamily.blogspot.com/2009/12/work-in-progress.html
http://abcmurrahfamily.blogspot.com/2009/12/two-kidstwo-bedsheaven.html
Hi! Thanks for the link to your pics! We did have some heavy construction. Our house was built in the 80’s and LOOKS it. Slowly but surely we are renovating a room at a time to make the house exactly what we want + make it look less dated for resale (faux wood doors, brass fixtures – yuck, yuck, yuck!). Anyway – we chose to replace some drywall as opposed to patching, all new trim work, new closet system and doors. Even new electrical – a lot of the money isn’t even in places that are very obvious, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that that room is absolutely correct from the studs out!
I absolutely love it! I think the room is adorable, and good job with saving the money for it and also doing the work yourselves.
I think the room looks great! The whole point in being wise with money is so you can spend carefully for things that matter to you.
It’s so adorable! I can’t wait until we can do that kind of stuff (we currently live in an apartment) to our home. More pix would be awesome, I’d love to see the rest. 🙂
I think it’s pretty, although I would like to see more photos! It sounds like you two did a wonderful job on your daughter’s room.
I also agree that your daughter will want more say in the decorating decisions as she gets older. As kids, we LOVED re-doing our rooms. For the cost of a gallon of paint, my parents taught us to paint walls (brush, roller, tape, stencils, drop-clothes…the whole thing). My mother and I painted murals too. We bargain-shopped for frames, fake flowers, figurines, window treatments, and anything else that fit our chosen theme.
Over the years we had dozens of different bedrooms! My room was purple with unicorns, then green with sunflowers, then yellow with white curtains. One of my sisters painted each wall a different color, and my athletic brother did his room in the school colors: light blue, dark blue, and white. When I was married, I got started painting as soon as I found some sales on paint. It’s great to have the freedom to experiment and learn new skills as a kid!
So keep up the good work! But don’t stress too much if your daughter’s idea of a dream room isn’t the same as yours. 🙂
We all spend our fun money differently. My house is barely decorated, we rarely eat out or buy fun stuff like video games or the latest tech gadgets…but we take our fun money and shoot for 3 vacations a year….real vacations, not the kind where you visit with family lol. It’s all about what is important to you. If $2k on a toddler room is what she wanted, then she shall make it happen. It looks beautiful and I am sure her daughter will love growing up in there.
Great point. It is completely about priorities, and EACH family needs to decide for themselves where their priorities lie. No one should be able to decide that for them.
It looks adorable. I had to laugh a little bit when I read that you love Criminal Minds…I’m watching it right now….its one of my favorites too.
Well said Jennifer! Let’s stop being so judgemental. It is a beautiful little girl’s room. I hope that she enjoys it!
Flooring alone can be very costly. Then it looks like they have chair rail, paint and who know what kinds of things they had to do construction wise. The point was they had a goal and they made it all in cash and that is fabulous! The room is beautiful.
I had originally toyed with the idea of naming our daughter Cadence and using Cady as her nickname! Love it…we ended up going with Avery and it suits her perfectly but I love the name still!
I think you’re right.
My original thought was “Are you kidding me?”
But, the point of being frugal is living like no one else so that you can live like no one else. Just because you watch your pennies doesn’t mean (for everyone) that you can’t have things that you dream. It means finding ways to make your dream come true without going into debt.
I think so many of us are barely making ends meet and so the idea of decorating a child’s room to this extent seems a little over the top to us.
Perhaps for someone else who is not in quite a precarious position, being able to do this debt-free is a reasonable goal and one they should be proud to achieve.
(I hope I worded that right and ya’ll get my point.)
Very well said. The end result was beautiful and debt free. Everyone’s budgets and goals are different.
I wish there was a “like” button here. 🙂
I agree with Jennifer. It looks great. (more pics please 🙂 )
Thank you all so much. This thread made my heart happy. We enjoy our home, we enjoys bringing it (room by room) to the vision we had when we did the first walk through before buying it. Our home is where my husbands overtime goes, what we save for, what our families personal sacrifices are for. As you all put so nicely – each family has its own goals. Thanks a bunch ladies for understanding where I was coming from with this article.
The room is adorable! Great job to you and your husband. Just a thought since my children are a bit older, for your second child, you may want to wait until he/she is a bit older like three or four so you can tailor the walls to his/her interests as some children love puppies, a favorite character, etc. Thanks for the post! It is a magical room!
The room looks so beautiful!
Cute bedroom!!
I wouldn’t spend that much on a kids’ room, but we all choose to spend our money differently!! I applaud you for creating your “dream” room for her within the budget you created!!
I am with Diane… $2,000 on a kids room is rather pricey. The room looks super cute but I would bet most of your reader couldn’t afford to spend $200 on there kids bedroom let alone $2,000! When my son was born and I had to do his nursery for $200 including the crib, dresser, changing table, all the decoration etc. Now that is money saving! Oh it was pretty cute too!
I agree–$2000 is a lot of money for a child’s bedroom. I guess the other thing that struck me was that the beginning of the article mentioned the desire to give their daughter her “own” bedroom. That is a great thing to do–but I would suggest that maybe readers would consider doing that for a child when they are old enough to make some of the choice (color, designs, etc.). Otherwise, it’s still really the parents tastes. I suspect the little girl is going to have that desire in a few years, which does affect how much was really saved in the long run.
Re-reading all the comments, I think I need to reposition my thoughts on here a little. I think we might appreciate the effort and expense that Megan and her husband went through if we could have seen “before” pictures. That’s probably why we all were surprised at the high price tag, when just getting a glimpse of the finished product. It truly is very cute, and will be a place of wonderful memories. And even if the Cady picks new paint out next year–the investment in the electrical and structural aspects are still intact. I think my comments sounded kind of harsh. I hope I didn’t hurt Megan’s feelings. 🙁
We just did our daughter’s room in this same design a couple weeks ago! I’m not sure if it’s allowed, but for those wanting to see more pics of the design I have them posted on my blog for viewing.
http://spotmyeye.blogspot.com/2011/08/emalees-room.html
Hope it helps for those of you looking for this design. It’s super cute. My friend and I are going to paint the room and add a few other designs on the walls in a few weeks to finish it all off!
So did we! We finished up (and set up the Target Owl Lamp) just last week. Our daughter’s room cost $1100, and that included a brand new complete double bed and furniture set and bedding.
Love (all of your) taste! We did the same this past spring with our tax return. I also got some pink frames from the $1 section at Target and bunched them together on her wall with photos of her favorite people. I was thinking about painting a picket fence on one wall.
I mean we did this same owl theme from Target. Super cute!
Here are more pictures of Cady’s room!
http://cadyinthecorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-cadys-big-girl-room-first-brief.html
I would love to see the closet system. That is a dream of mine.
I’d be more impressed if the budget was lower. 2k seems like a lot for a renovation for a toddler’s bedroom. I renovated my daughters bedroom and it cost well under $500. Elbow grease, imagination, refinishing old furniture and making the bedding myself.
It is beautiful! Congrats! We spent less than $1200 flooring 1000 sq feet of our house so that number still sounds high to me, but my idea of renovating a big kid’s room was using one can of paint to make it a pretty color. 🙂
I love the owls and would love to see how the mobile turned out! Sounds really cute. : ) Great job!
We started our basement this winter…our neighbors paid $20k for theirs. So far (we are up to getting carpet put in this week) we have spent under $5k all in materials for 800 square feet of living space (a bedroom/closet , playroom, workout room, storage room and family living area). Everyone laughed the day we brought the first lumber home and as we learned electrical and all that…I am laughing all the way to the bank as I got our new (used) van with cash this week.
Yes, more pics please! Looks cute!
That is awesome that you were able to do that. I was the same way growing up, never got a super nice room. However I think the envy monster just came up a little when I read you spent $2,000 on your kids room and you stay at home. Despite the fact I am a full time working mom I would never be able to spend that kind of money on my kids room, or on anything really.
I’m sorry! I absolutely did not mean to make anyone feel that way. I am very lucky to be able to be able to stay at home, and I realize that every day. My husband took overtime shifts and that is the money we put away for the room so that we wouldn’t need to touch our household budget. If he didn’t have the option of picking up extra shifts this project might not have happened or been so in depth.
So adorable! I love it. Good use of elbow grease and imagination.
Congratulations on a job well done! I love your creativity and commitment to doing something like this on a budget. Kudos to you!
Oh, and I would loooove to see more pictures! 🙂
how was it even 2k if the furniture was free, and the decorations and such were gifts?
and yeah, more pictures!
They still had to buy all the supplies, like flooring.
We did our entire downstairs hardwood floor for $2,000…we installed it ourselves. It was less than $3.00 a square foot..so $2,000 for flooring for 1 room is a lot.
Drywall, hardware, decor that wasn’t received as gifts, closet system and doors, paint, ceiling fan, all new electrical, all new trim and woodwork (crown, chair rail and trim), every craft, every bottle of glue and caulk – it all fit in BELOW our $2000 budget ($1800 ish) so it wasn’t just a floor. It was nearly a complete gut.
I want to see more pictures too!
http://cadyinthecorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-cadys-big-girl-room-first-brief.html
PICTURES!
$10,000 if you would have outsourced it? Wow, I would love to see more pictures. Sounds amazing. 🙂 Was it the furniture that would have cost that much?
My thoughts exactly. I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve made some big furniture purchases but that sounds like the price tag of a decent used vehicle. Yes, I would love to see the rest of the room too. 🙂
New furniture, electrician, contractor fees, allowing them to bring in supplies (as opposed to purchasing it ourselves when we found sales and discount places). The largest portion of that would have gone to paying for professional labor (since we gutted a lot of the room).
also! my blog has more photos!
http://cadyinthecorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-cadys-big-girl-room-first-brief.html