DIY Tween Girls Bedroom Makeover Reveal

Well, again, it’s been a while since I posted. With this seems-to-be ever lasting quarantine in place, we have had multiple projects going at any given time, which means none of them get completed quickly enough for my tastes! But we finally finished one of our many ongoing projects, the DIY Tween Girls Bedroom Makeover of my daughter’s bedroom! So, I’m finally posting that project today!

This project was an unplanned quarantine-inspired renovation. We were supposed to go to Disneyworld and Universal Orlando at the beginning of April, as it was my daughter’s birthday (she entered the double digits, yikes!), which also fell at the beginning of Spring Break this year. We had enough points on our travel credit card to cover almost the entire trip (thank you to our Chase Sapphire Preferred Card ), so off to Orlando we had planned to go for a fun week away with Mickey and Friends, and Harry Potter and Hogwarts…. But, as with everyone else in the world, COVID decided to rear it’s ugly spikes and viral RNA (sorry my microbiology nerdness pops out every now and then) and thwart our fun. As a consolation for not getting to go to Orlando to celebrate her entry into the tween years, we decided to do a renovation of my daughter’s room and let her pick out the colors and decor.

Before I show you the complete DIY tutorial, here are some pics of what we started with. We moved into our house when my daughter was 8 months old, so the paint color was what we had painted when we first moved in, back when beige was the “in” color. The carpet was the carpet that was installed by the previous owner when they decided to sell, it was very cheap carpet that was matted down from walking on it. The closet had no doors on it, and still had the blue trim around it (the room was originally ALL baby blue, trim and walls….) The only upgrade we had made was the built in window seat with drawers that I built a years ago. You can see that project here.

DIY Tween Girl’s Bedroom Makeover Tutorial

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First, we had to remove all the furniture out of the room, and anything that was on the floor of the closet, in addition to removing all items from the walls.

Once the room had been completely emptied, the next step was to remove all the baseboards and trim around the doors and windows. I used a prybar and hammer, using the hammer to gently tap the prybar behind the baseboard and trim peices, and then pulling the prybar forward to pull the baseboard/trim away from the wall. Once all the baseboards and window/door trim pieces had been removed, I used pliers to remove any brad nails that remained in the wall.

Next, time to remove the carpet. I pulled back the carpet and pad from next to the walls and removed the tack strip, again using a prybar and hammer. Once the tack strip had been completely removed, we used an exacto blade to slice the carpet and mat into ~18″ wide strips. We then rolled each strip up and wrapped duct tape around the roll to hold it in place to make for easy disposal.

We had the same issue in this room that we had in our office if you saw the DIY Office Remodel post from a few months ago. The floor was very creaky in this room, although not squishy like it was in the office. So, as in the office, the Hubster decided to dig deep into this room as well. If you recall from the office post, our house is on a raised subfloor. So, Hubs removed the particle board that was on top of the floor boards using a hammer, chisel, and prybar. He used the chisel and hammer to get through the particle board, and then used the prybar to pull up the pieces of particle board that were nailed to the subfloor.

Once the subfloor was exposed (our subfloor is composed of tongue and groove boards), Hubster used a chalk line to mark the locations of the two beams beneath the subfloor that outlined the area of the flooring he wanted to remove to be able to provide more support under the house to prevent the floor from creaking.

He then set his circular saw blade to the depth of the boards so he would cut through them without cutting the beams underneath. He cut along the chalk lines across the room, and then between the two chalk lines to create a rectangular cutout in the floor. Once he removed the subfloor boards, he lifted out the insulation that was under the flooring and stored that in the garage so it could be reused once the new subfloor was in place. He also removed the chicken wire that was holding in the insulation.

He found that the original beam was not attached to the new beam that was placed under the house when the previous owners had to reinforce the ground underneath that side of the house due to poor soil compaction, and had to have a new wider and thicker beam placed under the house to reinforce it (see the full story under the office remodel post mentioned above). Anytime anyone would walk in my daughter’s room, the top beam would bounce on top of the newer beam, causing the floor to creak. In addition, there was a large distance between the support beams under the house allowing the subfloor to move quite a bit when people were walking. To fix that, hubs added new 4×6 cross beams spaced 4′ apart and attached them to the existing beams using 4×6 joist hangers.

Hubs also placed metal brackets between the top and bottom beams to attach them together and stop the movement between them.

Once the beams and supports for the subflooring were complete, Hubs reinstalled the chicken wire and then placed the insulation back in place. To replace the tongue and groove subflooring boards, he used 1 1/8″ 4×8 subfloor rated tongue and groove plywood sheets.

The hole that was cut in the floor was 8′ wide, so the first few sheets we put down did not need to be cut. Hubs used liquid nails construction adhesive to adhere the subfloor plywood boards to the underneath beams, followed by 3″ construction screws.

Once the subfloor boards were all in place, we used 1/2″ plywood to cover the subfloor. Again, we used liquid nails and 3″ screws to adhere the top layer of plywood in place.

Once the floor boards were all securely in place, my daughter and I painted the walls of her room with the color she had picked out, a really pretty and bright teal color called Aqua Fresco by Behr.

Once all the walls had been painted (we didn’t paint all the way to the ceiling because we planned on putting up crown molding), we began laying the underlayment and the Pergo Waterproof laminate flooring that we purchased to use throughout our entire house. We chose Pergo Portfolio with Wet Protect waterproof laminate flooring in Timber Oak for the whole house. Since we live on property where there is a lot of natural vegetation (aka dirt, weeds, rocks, stickers, etc), and have a kid, dog, and cat, our floors can take a bit of a beating. We decided to go with a waterproof laminate for this reason.

Once the flooring was down (you can see the Office Remodel post I did for more detailed instructions for how we installed the Pergo flooring), we began installing all the trim boards in the room (door trim, window trim, crown molding and baseboards). Prior to cutting the trim boards to size and attaching them to the wall, I used my Homeright Paint Sprayer to paint all the trim boards, as well as the bedroom and closet doors, which we also replaced. I used Behr Ultra Bright White paint for all trim boards and doors.

Once all the trim boards had dried, we worked on the trim for the closet. First hubs added 1×6 trim on the inside left, right, and top portion of the closet opening. He had to shim the trim boards in a few locations to ensure they were level and straight. We used 2″ finish nails and a nail gun to install the trim boards.

Once the inner boards were nailed in place, we added the trim to the outside of the closet opening. For the left and right trim boards on the sides of the closet opening, we used 1×4 trim boards cut to the height of the closet on each side, then we put up a 1×6 board directly above the closet opening, cut to a length that is 1″ wider than the distance between the outer edge of the two vertical trim boards. Above the 1×6 board, we nailed a 1×2 board that was cut to 2″ longer than the 1×6 board, overlapping the edge of each end of the 1×6 by 1″. The 1×2 was placed with the 3/4″ side of the board facing outward. Lastly, we cut a strip of cove molding and used brad nails to attach it just under the 1×2 board at the front and on the left and right side. The cove molding was mitered at 45 degrees at each to connect to the side cove molding pieces.

Once the trim around the closet had been completed, we repeated the process with the entry door opening to the bedroom. We also hung the new solid wood 4 panel door that we purchased to replace the ugly flat and hollow brown wood door that had been there.

Once the closet and entry door trim had been installed, it was time for the baseboards. We cut each length of baseboard and attached them to the walls with 2 1/2″ finish nails into the wall studs. We mitered the ends of each baseboard to seamlessly connect the corners.

Once the baseboards were all attached to the wall, we then cut and hung the painted crown molding, again attaching it to the wall using brad nails, and making sure to shoot the nail into the studs in the wall.

Once the crown molding was up, we began the work of replacing the windows. Like with the office, we purchased double pain windows with a grid from Home Depot (Jeld-wen brand). The middle window slides upward to open, and the two side windows don’t open.

We had already removed all the trim around the inside of the windows, but had to remove all the siding and trim around the windows on the outside of the house. We also plan on replacing the removed plywood siding with Hardi plank siding and trim, eventually replacing all the siding on the entire house little by little. But first, the windows!

We removed the old siding and trim using a hammer and pry bar, in addition to some brute strength! The trim along the windows had not only been nailed in place, but they had also used a ridiculously strong adhesive to hold it on (seriously the adhesive properties of this stuff was quite impressive!).

To remove the windows, Hubster removed all the screws from the old window flanges and cut along the caulking along the window with an exacto blade. We then were able to lift the old windows out. Once all three windows had been removed, hubs had to add some shearing to the front of the house, and then hang Tyvek moisture barrier over all exposed areas.

He then cut the Tyvek to expose the window openings and put window flashing at the bottom of each of the window openings. When placing the new windows into the openings, we had to shim the windows in a few different spots around the window to ensure the window was straight and level inside the window opening. This step is important to ensure the window will open properly. We purchased the shims we used at Home Depot.

Once the window was level in the opening, hubs drove screws through the flange to hold the window in place. He then put window flashing around the out flange of the new windows.

Next, it was time to add the trim around the windows. We decided to trim the entire area inside the bay window area, and then to also trim out the area around the opening of the bay window section to match the trim design around the closet and entry doors.

First, hubs added 1×3 boards to the inside edges of each of the window openings, using shims to ensure the boards were straight and level in the opening, and using 2 1/2″ brad nails to hold the boards in place.

Once the inside edge boards were all up, we cut a 3/4″ thick piece of MDF board to the dimensions of the top of the bay window area. Hubs used the circular saw to cut the mdf board to the correct size. He then used 2 1/2″ brad nails to attach it to the ceiling of the bay window section.

Next, hubs cut four 1×6 boards and and two 1×4 boards to the length of the wall next to each of the windows. All of the boards had to be beveled using the table saw to match the angle of the wall in the bay window area. He also cut a 1×6 board to place above the bay window section of wall, cut 1″ longer than the length of the bay area window section, overhanging by 1/2″ on each side. He cut two 1×4 boards to the length of the 1×6 and 1×4 boards that line the sides of the windows and used brad nails to attach these boards on the outside edge of the bay window section of the wall.

Once all the vertical boards were put up, we cut and placed the horizontal boards above and below the window. For above the window, we used 1×2 boards cut to size, and below the windows we used 1×3 boards cut to size. We also added the trim around the bottom window seat section and added new boards to the front of the window seat. We removed the old trim that was at the top front of the window seat. In place, we attached a 1×4 board to the front top of the window seat, above the drawers. We then added a 1×4 trim board to the sides of the window seat, in line with the trim boards around the bay window area.

Once all the trim boards were up, we caulked all the seams between boards and any gaps. We filled all nail holes with Patch-n-Paint and then touched up the white paint on all the trim boards. In addition, I repainted the window seat, drawers, and cabinets to match the current white paint. I previously had painted with Behr Swiss Coffee paint, which isn’t as bright white. I also replaced the door and drawer hardware on the window seat to black matte hardware to match the door handle we chose for the entry door, and the handles for the closet doors. I forgot to get a picture as soon as the whole area was painted, but here’s a pic once we started moving furniture back into the room.

Lastly, we hung the new bi-fold closet doors and added small matte black door knobs and moved the furniture back into the room (including some new furniture that was added, including a refurbished desk that we purchased off Facebook Marketplace (this project will show up in a future post…) and a cute reading nook for my daughter to have a comfortable spot to curl up with a book. I also created some wall art for above her bed, that too will be a future post. Here are the finished pics of our DIY Tween Girls Room Renovation!

My daughter’s room is so much cleaner, bright, happier, and fun than her previous room, which always felt a little dull and boring. I wasn’t sure I was going to like the bright color my daughter picked out as I tend to gravitate towards neutral paint covers (grey is currently my fav wall color). But I do LOVE the color now that the room has all come together and it makes me smile when I walk into her room. It has a very happy feel now! If you’re curious about any of the items we used to furnish her room, the duvet cover was purchased at Pottery Barn Teen, but the rest of the items were purchased on Amazon. Here are links to some of these products: