Before and After: A $750 Redo Turns a Bare Bedroom into a Modern Cottage-y Escape

You may not spend as many waking hours in your bedroom as in other parts of your home—say, your living room or kitchen—but that doesn’t mean that you can’t show your sleeping space some love.

Nicole Cantu (My Rustic Retreat) wanted to make sure that her daughter’s bedroom felt warm and welcoming. “The ‘before’ was a very boring, plain, builder-grade look,” Nicole says. “The house was built in 2019 and while everything was nice and new, the room had no personality and did not reflect the little girl living in it at all!”

Besides the lack of personality, there was also a lack of practicality. “There was little to no storage, no shelving, and no real storage system for toys, books, etc,” Nicole says. “The room had very little functionality aside from sleeping!”

“My daughter needed a place she could feel herself in, feel safe in, read in, study in, and just enjoy being home in!” Nicole adds.

To dress up the plain walls, Nicole chose a peel-and-stick floral wallpaper. “It was not only SUPER easy to apply, but it has all my daughter’s favorite colors,” she says. She kept the same bed in place and added some wood-toned shelving with baskets for easy storage, plus floating shelves above a wood-toned dresser for displaying favorite books and pictures.

Nicole placed an egg chair by the window so her daughter had space to cozy up with a good read. The old flush-mount light was replaced with a farmhouse modern 5-light chandelier—a huge style upgrade that still offers plenty of light. A new patterned rug over the existing beige carpet makes the whole room feel pulled together.

The whole transformation cost $750 to pull together, and the new space looks like a totally different bedroom. Rather than bare and dull, it’s a cozy cottagey retreat that’s just right for Nicole’s school-aged kiddo. “My daughter was over the moon thrilled when it was finally done and now she enjoys playing, reading, lounging in there all the time,” Nicole says. “It’s so pretty and functional now that it’s even inspired her to keep it clean! Now if that’s not a mom win, I don’t know what is!”

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