Little Girls Room Floor to Ceiling Transformation

When we purchased our home we thought the first floor space was a good fit for us. With 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on the main level and tons of extra space in the basement, we figured everyone would have their space. But when we decided we wanted to grow our family we knew that would mean putting a little in the basement(uh no!) Or bunking our 2 oldest together! Luckily our secondary bedrooms are large and can accommodate 2 beds. So when we found out we were expecting again I started planning a joint little girls room fit for sisters. I wanted a cute feminine little girls room that was mature enough to grow with them with little to no changes. The first thing I did was take inventory and measurements of what was in the room and what needed to stay.

Where it started

This is the listing photo of what the room looked like before we moved in. The room was paint grey from the chairrail down and red up top. Before we set up her room, we let our daughter pick the top paint color she went with a bright pink of course and we kept the grey below. We swapped the light fixture for the brushed nickel chandelier we brought from our old house and called it a day. And we haven’t done much else to it in the 2.5 years we’ve been here!

The Little Girls Room Plan

I started with a list of wants and priorities. This is the last room in our home with carpet. Kids and pets plus carpet just does not work for us so we knew we needed LVP. I also knew that if I was removing the carpet this was the best time to remove the popcorn. I have been slowly removing it room by room as we renovate so this was just the next room on the list. Some of the other priorities were having 2 beds(since 2 kids would be here together) and keeping the dresser and cube toy storage. I also knew a closet renovation was priority as we made it a touch smaller with our linen closet addition. So we needed a closet system with lots of storage! With the measurements and priorities determined, we set out to make this project happen!

Emptying the Room

Our first step was to get everything out of the room so we had a clean slate to work with! After removing all of the toys, clothes, and furniture, this is what we were left with.

Popcorn Removal

Then it was time to start removing the popcorn. The process is simple. It’s messy but effective and best done when the carpet is being removed too. It can be done when you are keeping the existing flooring! Check out my post here where I did the kitchen and hallways all with the existing flooring! I began by spraying water and letting it sit for a minute or 2 and then scraping off the wet popcorn. By working in small sections I was able to make sure the popcorn didn’t dry out before scraping. It took me almost 2 hours to scrape the entire ceiling. This room is about 13 feet by 13.5 feet so that equated to around 175 sqft of popcorn removed.

I used joint compound to make any minor repairs to the surface after scraping the popcorn. There weren’t many so this only took about 30 mins. Then I let it dry over night. The next day I sanded the entire ceiling to ensure I had a smooth surface.

Then I wiped the ceiling down with a damp rag. This will get rid of the light layer of dust left over from sanding and ensures paint adhesion. The paint will not stick. if there is dust on the surface.

I put 3 coats of paint up total. This was coat #1.

Adding Board and Batten

Working between coats waiting for the paint to dry I started the board and batten.  We already had a chair rail board so I based it off of that. I put an additional board 9″ above the first board and used the wainscoting calculator on Inch Calculator to determine the width between each board. All I had to enter was the length of the entire wall, the width of the board I was using, and how many panels I wanted on the wall. Originally, I thought 6 would be good but then I saw it was 23″ between panels I realize that was too much space and went with 8 panels instead. I started with the 9″ top vertical pieces, then laid the top horizontal piece on top. Finally I added the bottom vertical boards based off the top ones! I finished one wall while the first ceiling coat dried.

Next, I put the 2nd coat on the ceiling and continued working on the board and batten.

This was when I ran out of boards. I realized I dramatically under estimated how many boards I needed so with a plan to head out the next morning to get more, we decided to keep making progress.

Carpet Removal

We finished off the night by removing the carpet and padding! We also started playing with the paint sprayer to see if this would be the best technique for a fast easy even coat.

Paint

After a quick lowes run, I got back to work. I cut the rest of the boards to size and got the board and batten finished up.

Then I got a 3rd and final coat of paint on the ceiling.

While this coat dried I went through the room and remove the tack strips from the carpet we removed. Then we began spraying the board and batten with semi-gloss white trim paint.

It took 2 even coats to get full coverage then we worked on the upper pale pink color. I used the behr color iced cherry paint.

Flooring

When we had completed 3 coats on the upper portion of the wall we began laying the flooring. We started off by lying the underlayment perpendicular to the way we would be laying the floor. Then we got to work installing each plank. The best advice I can give a first time flooring installer is that your walls are not even!! We spent so much time with our first install trying to get the board straight against the wall and account for the expansion gap. And this resulted in a lot of time lost and a lot of planks not laying properly. Make sure the first row is level and use shims to space them away from the wall. This will make the rest of the install go much smoother and faster.

Then, I installed quarter round to cover the expansion gap between the floor and baseboards.

Closet Reno

The closet doors were a sore subject from the beginning. I put cute little bat stickers up one Halloween and they permanently adhered themselves to the paint getting these things off was no joke! It took a lot of scrubbing and scraping and a little bit of damage but I finally got it all off! I could give a quick coat of white paint and be done but I wanted the doors to make a statement!

I started with 2 coats of brown latex paint. While this dried we installed the closet organization system.

Finally, I layered a gel stain over the top and wiped the excess off with a rag in the direction of the wood grain. This was the result!

Super cute faux wood doors! This was a lot cheaper then buying new doors and I really loved the look of them!

Little Girls Room Reveal

And here is the little girls room complete! It was a very long couple days with some VERY late nights but we got it done! I emptied the room on Tuesday and we did the reveal Sunday afternoon. So start to finish this was 5 and a half days of work! Check it out!

My little girls are so in love with their new room and I am so proud of all we accomplished and how quickly we got it done! Thanks for following along!