First, she said she had outgrown the dark stained, youth-sized captain bunk bed her dad had built years ago. She wanted a pastel daybed.
We went shopping and found day beds that either looked too fragile for any left-over ‘tomboy’ activity or were out of the family budget.
Then she moaned, “My room isn’t as pretty as …”
I looked at the displays cluttering the periphery of her room. Pound puppies and kittens with matching books. Strawberry Shortcake doll with quilt, puzzle and book. The book shelves overflowed with well-loved children’s book for all ages. Any extra storage space held her brother’s abandoned building sets and her hamsters.
The top bunk had been converted into her personal tower of refuge. Quilts, sheets, blankets and towels had transformed the bottom bed into a four-poster with curtains.
Finally, she wondered why Grandma had never made her a quilt like …
Later, as I talked with Grandma, she happened to say, “I need a project for the winter.”
“I know a granddaughter who would love to have a quilt made just for her,” I said. By spring the granddaughter had a charming handmade quilt
Before the quilt came, father and daughter had begun designing and building a captain style day bed. the final product, a delicate peach color, decorated in multi-colored heart shapes, coordinated with the quilt Grandma had made.
We put the bed in her dark paneled bedroom. It looked awful.
It needed to be in her youngest brother’s bedroom with the white painted walls. He said, “She can have my room, if I don’t have to help move her.”
I do not usually move furniture, but when another brother came home from college, he said, “Come on, Mom, let’s do it.”
“Well is shouldn’t take more than a couple hours,” I said and walked into the biggest moving job of the decade. Before we were through we had moved and spring-cleaned two bedrooms.
We sorted through childhood leftovers, setting aside favorite dolls and toys to store in the attic. The rest went into piles to donate or dump.
As we emptied floor-level drawers, I discovered ‘how’ she always cleaned her room so quickly of candy wrappers and papers. Besides trash the drawers held out-grown clothes and miscellaneous toys with missing parts.
The pile to get rid of grew.
The college brother moved the clothes, books and toys she kept into the high school brother’s room. (He was at camp when we moved him out.)
For 12 hours we sorted, moved, re-arranged and stripped walls in both rooms of posters and left-over tape and ticky-tack.
We vacuumed, dusted, washed and decided the old curtains would have to go.
For months afterwards, my daughter and I shopped for acceptable room accessories: Wall hangings, shelves and tables.
Piece by piece the boys room has been transformed into a young lady’s bedroom. It took more than a couple of hours, but it was worth it. The room shows off the bed and quilt as the works of love they are.