Yes, teen-adult …
My daughter Lucy is 18, still a teenager but also an adult.
Her style, like most this age, is a little more grown up than unicorns and glitter, but still young and fresh.

Her room was tired and cluttered. She had a mish-mash of all the pieces of furniture that was left over from another house and we hadn’t bought anything new for her room. Her bed was actually the first bed that my husband and I bought together over 20 years ago, it had a fresh coat of paint, but was still not the style we were going for.

So, what style did we want to achieve?
That’s the hard part … Lucy is a typical teenager where she didn’t know what she wanted, but she did know what she didn’t want (yes, you might need to re-read that sentence to make sense of it)!
She did not want bright colours, wallpaper or excessive patterns.
I know, she’s no fun at all! This are all the things I love to decorate with and everything I showed her she assertively disagreed.

So basically, I kept putting this room to the back of the queue because I knew we were going to have a hard time agreeing on anything … Until I showed her this bedhead that I’d fallen in love with and she loved it too.
HOORAY!

While I’m talking about the bedhead, let me tell you what a joy this company was to work with.
The Bedhead Co. have an amazing range of ready-made design to choose from, or they can custom make your very own piece of art in one of 9 different bedhead shapes, with a fabulous range of quality fabrics.
We chose the Napa in Ticking for it’s timeless shape and classic stripes.

Finally we had a starting point to create a room around, and don’t tell Lucy, but she just broke one of her own rules and let me use a pattern – stripes. True, it’s probably the most neutral of the pattern family as it works with anything, but I was thrilled to have a little pattern!

I ordered a simple Oak bed base to pair it with. I also ordered a pair of Oak bedside tables, but when they arrived I was also giving Orlando’s room and update and I liked how they looked in there and decided to hunt for something else for Lucy. She also decided she needed extra storage, so we found a beautiful set of white bedside drawers. They have 3 substantial sized drawers and gorgeous details such as the blackened ring pulls and hand carved details.

Next up was linen, if you know me at all you will know that I change my linen often and I get bored easily. For Lucy’s room we decided to choose a doona cover that would allow us (that would be me) to mix and match different throws and cushion and achieve a fresh new look as often as we like. We chose a textured doona cover in a light grey. When I said textured, it actually has has a decorative spotty type pattern throughout the pure cotton fabric.
Haha Lucy, no patterns …. now we have stripes and spots!

Next thing we needed was a rug. Again, I ordered a beautiful blue and white herringbone wool rug for her room but it arrived while I was doing Orly’s room and it didn’t quite make it out of his room, sorry Lucy!
Luckily, when the grey linen arrived I had a lightbulb moment and remembered I had a grey and aqua blue striped rug in storage. I showed Lucy and she shook her head NO! I decided to try it out while she was at school and couldn’t protest. It doesn’t want to sit flat, probably because I had it folded, but I’m hoping it will relax after a little while. I popped a couple of aqua blue cushions on her bed to tie the colours together.
I loved it and patiently waited for her to get home … She loves it too!
YIPPEE!

The bedside lamps bring another little touch of feminine pattern to the room. Shhhh, dont tell Lucy, she either hasn’t noticed the pretty blue floral or she has given up …. maybe I can sneak the wallpaper in without her noticing?

I haven’t sourced any art for the walls yet as I’m still trying to convince her to let me (or sneak in) wallpaper. She has agreed to consider it as long as I find one she likes. So we are currently doing the wallpaper dance and hopefully we’ll find one we can agree on soon.

The gorgeous starburst mirror was a gift from one of my best friends Mum’s many years ago, I love it and always find a spot for it.

Lastly, and probably the biggest change to her room was the window coverings. Lucy’s room had cedar shutters, I understand that they are expensive and sought after window coverings, but they also restricted the light and gave it an overall dark vibe. We removed them and replaced them with beautiful 100% linen sheers, the amount of light that streams into this room now is incredible.

This room is not perfect, it has been achieved with a limited budget and it is still a work in progress, but I think the best spaces evolve over time. I’d rather wait and find the perfect pieces and let the space grow with Lucy as long as she’s still living at home.

Apparently they don’t leave home until their 30’s these days, WHOA!

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reply with a message, send an e-mail or pop over and say hello on Instagram. I’m always happy to share.

Hayley x