DIY: Jasmine's Space

Jasmine has been sharing the large bedroom with the boys for several months now. While it could be worse, she really needed her space away from boys and boy things. I decided that the landing at the top of the stairs was just the right amount of space for a young girl . . . with a catch.

One of the agreements I made with my parents was that I would help them get the house we are renting from them ready for other renters. That means helping update the house and clean out mom and dad's things. I knew that I was committing to a lot of work but sometimes I wonder if I'm slightly insane or something.

So, the first order of business was to empty out the space for Jasmine to use. This meant two days of organizing, packing, moving and cleaning.

I took the first picture after packing and cleaning a day. The second picture is halfway through day two and I had dug out enough to work on the closet area.

I repeated over and over to myself that it would be worth it. Jasmine would have her own space and everyone would sleep better and argue less.

Packing, packing and more packing . . . moving, sweeping, cleaning.




You can see my big helpers here cleaning the floor.

Finally, we hit a point where we had basically everything out from upstairs, everything off the walls, the closet swept and mopped and the walls ready for prepping.



In case you have never prepped walls for painting, part of that is filling in holes. It's not hard really. Grab a putty knife, slab on the wall patch and scrape off the excess.

The walls were covered with holes so this step actually took quite a long time. *sigh*



The next step I did was to paint the bottom of Jasmine's walls. Jasmine loves Tinkerbell, fairies, princesses, butterflies and any thing that is cuddly or pretty. She has a comforter that is a sky over grass with flowers so I loosely imitated the blanket. Here's the first coat of the bottom green.

The top we did in a light blue. For the paints, when Menards had the free after rebate gallons of white paint, we bought as many as we were allowed. When it came time to paint Jasmine's room, I found the colors I wanted then I picked the color at the bottom of the sample card and bought a sample of that color. When I got home, I mixed a gallon of the free-after-rebate paint with each color sample. Two gallons of paint ended up costing $5.00 after tax.

I bought a Tinkerbell boarder and it divides the room really well! The fairy stickers Jasmine enjoys tremendously and is a nice touch to finish the wall. They aren't organized like I would prefer to have them, but they are Jasmine's so I let her arrange them.

One addition the space desperately needed was a fan. In the summer, it gets stuffy in this area because of poor insulation and the lack of a duct vent.

I didn't take any pictures of the process but I cut a hole in the ceiling, ran wiring to the wall, encountered many problems in the wall getting the wire to a power source but eventually, I had the wiring ready and I hung the fan. It is the perfect size for the room and adds light where Jazzy needs it.



There are a few more details I am working on like adding a rod so Jasmine can hang clothes and finishing the painting in a couple areas but you can see by Jasmine's smile that she's a happy camper in her own space!

I'll update with more pictures once I have all the details in her room sorted out.