Reveal: A Refresh of the Kids’ Room in the Mountain House

Welcome back to our two-day stretch of MORE mountain house “reveals” except they’re all kind of “refreshes.” The kids’ bedroom was actually the first room in the entire house that we revealed back in March but it was styled and shot for Target using their Pillowfort collection and after some living, there needed to be a few updates…for two reasons: 1. the kids now share a king-sized bed and 2. I felt that the white headboard could be more playful and exciting.

Here’s what it looked like when we first revealed it:

I loved it all (especially that DIY canopy), but the twin bed thing just didn’t last (for now). We ended up shoving them together so we could read together and FINE, maybe I’m bad about resisting the urge to go in there in the middle of the night when they call. They’ve got my number and at least four nights a week, I ended up laying with them for a bit or hours if I fall asleep. I was sleeping in the crack so uncomfortably and was like, this is ridiculous. We bought one of those kits that puts them together and fills the gap (and as you can see we still have two twin bed frames because we know that this situation isn’t forever).

Plus, for renting this out, this could be another grown-up room, and the memory foam carpet is honestly soft enough that you can literally put a sleeping bag on the floor for kids, if needed.

Days before the reader event, I looked at this room and just thought that headboard could be better. We found THE PERFECT fabric from Minted by artist Beth Schneider and Emily Bowser and Julie spent a day DIY-ing that long headboard wall by reupholstering over the white canvas.

Emily Henderson Kids Room Update Headboard Process Side By Side

Because the headboard is so wide, they had to spend time carefully finding a way to pattern match, which is far more complicated than you think (hot tip: if you plan on doing something like this, always account for more fabric needed for the pattern repeat because there is waste).

We had bought those nightstands as options for the upstairs guest room so we tried them in here and loved how they modernized the space. They popped off the busier headboard in a graphic but playful shape and tone. And we switched out the bear for the moose because the dark brown was feeling heavy.

We had to switch out the bedding because the green blankets were twin (and the pirates couldn’t live with the animal headboard, duh) so we kept it calm but playful with that Rebecca Atwood blanket, long striped lumbar, and tiny delicate striped shams.

I loved how it turned out.

But there was still something on the other side of the room that was bugging me. This is how it looked when we originally revealed it:

It always bugged me that there was nook on nook and that bottom nook was meant for a custom pull-out closet that we never executed due to budget (the renderings are here if you want to see). It just felt busy to me.

So the day before the reader event (nothing like a last-minute deadline, huh?) we thought, what if for now, we just put a white curtain with leather pullbacks there? So day-of, Julie (bless her) figured out how to make that work and this is what she came up with:

It did help, I promise but we all agree that it’s not necessarily permanent. I think I want to get someone to make two white cabinet doors for now and turn it into a secret cupboard. If we wanted to call it a closet, we could even install a rod somewhere.

We had leftover fabric and Julie had the sweetest idea to sew a pillow for this nook.

She stayed up the night before the event to sew it—hopefully with wine in hand. THANK YOU JULIE. It really did help bring that side of the room to life and work well with the other. Then I found that bunting at Lulu and Georgia and those colors worked perfectly with our new animal print.

There we go. An update on a room that wasn’t quite there when we shot and revealed it originally. As we live in the house, we realize what tweaks need to be made because designing a home isn’t necessarily a start to finish process. I still need to tackle the dining room back cushion and light situation and I might play musical rugs downstairs… Ooh also we aren’t done with the play attic, which we spend SO much time in and as soon as we are I’ll show you.