Bright and Colorful Girl's Bedroom

Designer Tracy Garfield uses vivid shades of the pre-teen's favorite colors, green and blue, and a polka dot theme to create a bold girly bedroom. We caught up with the designer to discover how the project came together.

Describe the homeowners' wishlist.

The homeowners wanted a new paint color and color palette for the room, including window treatments, furniture, bedding, lighting, artwork and accessories. They wanted a complete makeover of the room specifically tailored to their young daughter's style.

What were the homeowners' design problems?

The largest issue for this project was space planning. Before, the room felt out of balance and lacked a focal point. To change this, we created a new layout with the bed in front of the window for a higher impact upon entering the room. We also re-positioned her desk in the opposite corner, and now each piece perfectly fills its space and the room feels harmonious.

What was your biggest obstacle in this space?

Our biggest obstacle was finding the appropriate-sized furniture to fit the specific dimensions of the room. This layout had corner walls and a window alcove that needed to be filled accordingly, so finding the right-scaled furnishings to fit those spaces was necessary. We ended up finding every piece to scale, and they now feel like they were all meant to be there.

How does the end result match up with your original vision?

Luckily, this design did go according to plan for the most part. There were a few minor tweaks and changes we made at the very end when it came to selecting artwork and accessories. I had some pieces in mind but once the bulk of the room came together, we had to scale back our artwork selections for the room to stay in balance and not get too busy.

What lessons did you learn?

This project taught me that sometimes it pays off to be bold and embrace color. We used a strong blue and green color palette to celebrate the girl's favorite colors and it paid off with a fun and youthful spirit. I'm now going to keep pushing for clients to celebrate the colors that make them happy in future projects.

What are the "hidden gems"?

The polka dot pattern was my favorite detail, because we were able to repeat it throughout the room in fun areas and in different scales. The drapery fabric was our starting point with a small blue and green polka dot fabric that we then translated into a textural, puff-dot quilt on the bed. This then inspired our bean bag lounger which features a larger scale white and green polka dot print, which lastly related the motif to fabric-covered wall tackboards. This fun and classic pattern can be seen in all these different areas and sizes but we managed to keep it in balance.