Good morning! As promised, today is "reveal" day for Lou's newly updated room. The key, while reading this post, is to have the refrain "everything is purple" playing in your brain to the tune of "Everything is Awesome." I'll wait while you refresh your memory. Ready? Great.

We've talked a lot about this room. It was a labor of love, low budgets, and lots of DIY projects, of varying degrees of intensity. There are a lot of photos here - bear with me!

Clockwise, you can see a recovered lamp, a purple-ized L and art wall, the hand painted heart pillow and Swiss cross paint treatment we talked about last week, and a cute and cheap purple polka dot garland made by punching circles out of an appropriately-hued gift bag. I also (finally) painted Lou's locker and art table white, which made such a huge difference for those pieces to disappear into the room and make the whole space feel less busy. Would a "before" image help here?

There's nothing wrong with how Lou's room looked before, though I did think it felt a bit busy, and I'm always striving for a bit more calm, especially in this tiny room. The shot above shows the dark table and blue locker, and the original art wall, which stayed mostly the same in content, but got purple-y updates through some little test pots of purple paint.

I had those pots of paint, and it was so easy to paint the frames and mats of a couple pieces to change the whole thing up without replacing the actual art.

The lamp was just a cheapo thing that I recovered with swatch from a shower curtain that I'd already made into a valance (for the double upcycle win).

I'm not particularly pro at the lamp recovering thing, but it's not rocket science, and saves some cash over a new lampshade, or even new lamp.

In addition to the projects, we bought a few new things, which I shared in our inspiration board a couple weeks ago. The rug is two rugs from Burlington Coat Factory for $30 each. They are so soft and cozy, and make a perfect place to play (everything except necklace beading. Then they are a vicious hiding place for fugitive beads whose only mission is to pop up under your feet, or worse, your knees. But I digress). The purple blanket at the foot of the bed is a $10 table runner from Marshall's, and the curtains are from Ikea, for I think $30. The pillow cases are both from the dollar store for $2 each.

Overall, we love this little purple room. I've said it before, but it makes Lou so happy. I think she really feels like it's for her, in a way the other room wasn't. I still have two things to complete in here: I need to sew together the two rugs, and I need to paint Lou's bed, which is still unfinished wood. It doesn't bother me that it's unfinished, but I think when it is painted, the whole space will feel a bit more cohesive.

Here're a couple parting shots, with different views of the room:

If you're curious, check out more about the projects we've done along the way - the general organization and dress up wall, the compact play market, and the rain gutter bookshelves, all of which made this tiny space less of a toy dump and more of a haven for Lou.

Thanks for checking in! Now that Lou's room is pretty much done, I'm turning my sights toward the nursery. Wish me luck!