How To Create a Beach Themed Bedroom

At the beginning of last year, I knew my daughter’s room was in dire need of a update. I was so excited to do this revamp and create a beach themed bedroom.

We have officially lived in our home now for 3+ years. It’s a record! The last place we stayed for more than 3 years was back a decade ago when we lived in a house for about 10 years. I finally feel settled enough to put energy into fixing up our foreclosure. Remember the front flowerbeds? (Or also known as our Welcome to the Jungle themed landscaping LOL) Or how I fixed up a closet that literally had been neglected since the house was built about 15 years ago?! This past year, I spent a bunch of time painting the main living areas, hallway, and our master bedroom. And at the end of this year, the upstairs giant bedroom over the garage.

My daughter picked the paint for her room and this was a huge starting point for the overall theme…

That’s right. She literally picked the Pantone 2020 color of the year in the fall of 2019 before it was announced. Eee! Do I have a budding Interior Designer? We were at Lowes looking at the display of color swatches and this is what she gravitated to. Made my heart so proud. I really thought she was going to go with a pink hue. Nope. Blue all the way. We picked up about 4-5 gallons, paint rollers, trays, tape, hole filler, and regular brushes. And in light of color choice, the beach themed bedroom was born!

There was more than putting color on the wall that we needed to take care of before even thinking of decorating. The carpet. Ugh the carpet. It hasn’t been updated in our home since it was built long before we purchased it. It had to go. And in it’s place, I found peel and stick planks to put in it’s place. The hardest part of the install was cleaning and prepping the subfloor (aka sheets of plywood). My husband also repaired some floor that had rotted near the window. I always wondered if there was an issue because when we purchased the house it looked like the window had leaked a bit. It took him a whole two days to tear out the rotted wood, frame up underneath the window and subflooring to make it work, and build back part of the floor. Good thing he is a master carpenter among his many other talents. After he fixed up the subfloor, I spent a day moving all of her furniture out of the room – some stored in the attic, some stored in the living room, and this old cubby hole to the curb.

Removing the carpet was one of the best thing I have gotten to do in this room. I can’t stress how much I hate carpet and all the allergens it holds. If you ever tear up your carpets and carpet pads you might just gag from all the dirt and debris that is hiding underneath.

It took a lot of work prepping the floor, cutting the planks just right, and starting the first line of planks in the middle of the room and going out from there. After all that work, it felt sooo good to have a solid surface floor! Strong enough for dinosaurs like this even! LOL

Now that the biggest parts of the room were tackled (after painting and flooring), it was time to decorate! This is my favorite part! Before even starting I had been on the hunt for things I thought could work in a beach themed bedroom. My daughter had purchased a Pusheen poster at one of the school’s book fairs and that was the inspiration for purchasing a large Pusheen mermaid for her bed. I scored a sample curtain panel in a hemp/earthy type fabric that gave off an airy beach feel. It was from a local design shop having a clearance sale on all last season’s samples – a bargain for 65% off. At home had a metal wall sculpture of starfish which was also on clearance. I ordered the wall shelves I had been eye’ing with my gift card for my birthday to Amazon(thanks so much Aunt Cherie!). I reused lots of my daughter’s wall art and the grand gold framed mirror that was her great-grandmothers; it looked like something I could imaging being in the Captain’s quarters in a pirate ship. A framed piece of coral was purchased through Craigslist.

I definitely jumped the gun with decorating before even getting all the large and important pieces like a new bed! For this, there were a couple important issues that needed to be addressed. First, we needed a bed large enough for more than one person to sleep in. Unfortunately for my daughter, her bedroom doubles as a guest room so we need a place for grandparents to stay while she either picks the couch or top bunk in my son’t room. Next, it had to be a quality mattress and frame. I’m hoping this will last here into at least her mid-twenties so when she goes out on her own she has furniture pieces that will work for her. I’m putting together a whole “How To” article about assembling the frame and opening up the crazy mattress packaging so be sure to check back to see how easy it was to do.

The furniture and large pieces that we kept were the cradle my grandpa made when I was born that held my kids and now my daughter’s stuffed animals, the doll house that was constructed jointly by my parents & my husband and I, and her dresser that we added beached themed knobs to… (it’s amazing how small details like this can help a room feel even more cohesive)

Other furniture for the beach themed bedroom included a nightstand, small bookshelf to use as her other nightstand, a set of rolling drawers for craft supplies, desk chair, and a craft table/desk/keyboard holder. I found the rolling drawers over Black Friday weekend at Micheal’s and these happened to fit perfectly under the craft table that I ordered from Amazon along the the adorable chair. She’s already putting this area to good use… (and there are two of the wall shelves from the 5 pack)

Last, but not least, is the castaway cork board we made with scrap wood. We happened to be in Lowes looking for wood planks and were near the back of the lumber area. I spotted a cart full of what looked like scrap wood and sure enough it was! An associate said they were from the pallets that the boards are packed with to stay square. So I asked if I could have them. It was like an “AHA!” moment for what to do with the cork board for her room…. a raft!

Two 1″x 1″ boards were used for the base and then the scrap boards were screwed to those. I spray painted everything – the cork board, the scrap wood, the grass… LOL! Then I added the cork board to the base and added a metal crab and metal anchor decor that used to be in our living room two moved ago. Eventually, these will get a wall color paint wash so they stand out more. So glad I hadn’t gotten rid of those. And tah dah! The Cast away cork board –

And here is another view of the room…

I am so happy that her room is completed in the beach themed bedroom! We might get a fancy mermaid duvet soon but it’ll be one of the more expensive things for her room (even more than the mattress cost) so I’ll have to wait a while. Other than that, her room is completed and she’s happy. And that makes me happy!