Since our youngest was 6 months old, our daughters have shared a bedroom. This is a conscious choice. It has had it challenges at time (but then parenting does!) but seeing them share and being considerate roommates is definitely worth it. This is their shared pineapple sundae bedroom in our new home.
I love decorating kids’ rooms as you can break all the rules in the book and be truly creative. Like most design inspirations, this room started when I saw a picture in a magazine. It was a retro California style bedroom and completely dreamy. I then started searching for the perfect pineapple chandelier and found this French antique beauty on eBay. I built the room design around it: pineapple, black, yellow and some pastels to balance it out.
Structurally I squared out the room by removing the built in cupboards (which turned out to be built in breeze blocks!) and by pushing the wall back to lose the box room and make the landing on the other side straight. This gives the room lovely balanced proportions and makes it actually the biggest room in the house.
I didn’t want to use wallpaper in this room as the mixed use of prints is enough but I wanted a statement behind the beds so I decided to paint gold pineapples. You can see how I painted them in this video. They have one each, along with a bedside table each for their treasures.
The pastel colours I added to the palette to balance the black and yellow are purple and teal. And the wall with the window is grey with matching grey linen curtains. It kinda shouldn’t work but as they are all the same tone, I think it does.
The girls wanted to have a dress up corner in the room. The old suitcase is my grandmother’s.
I love how the gold paint takes on different shades during the day depending on how the sun catches it.
I love my girls’ art collection and it grows all the time. From investment pieces, like the Rob Ryan prints bought with their naming ceremony money or the very cool painted lady prints by Jessica Harrison, to their godparent promises which have huge sentimental value. They are a great inspiration and talking point for the girls.
I love the corners of this room where the colours come together. And I love that our kind next door neighbour from Toronto sent the girls and I these hand made shawls which happen to be the perfect match!
As we shipped my old bed (which my daughter sleeps in now) from Canada and my youngest had to make the transition from cot to bed during the move, we had to get 2 IKEA MINNEN extendable beds for them to sleep in. They were perfect for our rented house in Oxford as the room wasn’t that big and we could have them at the shorter length.
In this bedroom, my eldest got her bed back and I got a full size mattress for my youngest (for anyone who’s changed sheets on the extendable beds you will know why I didn’t want to stick the the extendable mattress). But as we were left with one extendable frame and two mattresses, I decided to make a day bed for the room. The MINNEN bed frame has a higher frame at the head and a lower frame at the foot of the bed. I decided to have 2 high ends for my youngest’s bed and then have 2 lower ends for the day bed. I then had mattress covers made by a local upholsterer.
It is the perfect spot for bedtime stories and for sharing their favourite moment of the day. It also means they can have friends over for sleepovers.
The milk crate was ‘picked up’ outside of McDonalds on Pape Av, Toronto and it makes a perfect little bookcase. Bob the giraffe agrees!
Hope you enjoyed the tour!
