Our daughter’s bedroom is full of fun!

Danielle converted her guest room into a bedroom for her daughter, Alice, filling it with colourful rainbows and prints to match her little girl’s bubbly personality

Danielle Lisle transformed her guest bedroom into a colourful space complete with rainbows for her little girl, Alice

With a baby on the way, Danielle Lisle and her husband, Andy, both 32, were keen to move closer to their relatives in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, in 2018. ‘My mum and dad came up with an ingenious idea,’ says Danielle. ‘They suggested we move into their four-bedroom townhouse. They wanted to downsize so it was perfect timing.’ The couple started personalising the house straight away, sharing their décor ideas on Instagram @atthelisles. ‘Our box room was turned into a nursery for Alice,’ she says. But, within three years, Alice had outgrown the space. ‘We had toys spread all over the house as she had nowhere to play.’ Danielle came up with the idea of moving Alice into the unused guest room.

STEP ONE ‘Alice wasn’t a brilliant sleeper and often woke up in the middle of the night,’ explains Danielle. ‘My idea was to give her a new-look room that was so alluring that

she would enjoy sleeping all night in there.’ The room needed to be multifunctional, with space to play and a fancy-dress area. ‘I wanted to create something for her that wouldn’t date, and we wanted her to feel settled in the space,’ she says. Danielle designed Alice’s new bedroom around the key principles of the Montessori method, where children learn and play in an environment that allows them to be independent. ‘It was about giving her independence, with a dressing area with hairbrushes and bobbles, a teepee, where she could play with her teddies, a reading nook, a hideaway with her music and fairy lights, and a fancy-dress area,’ she says. ‘It was like creating a little village in her bedroom with the bed as the centrepiece.’

STEP TWO Over the course of a week, they stripped the wallpaper and painted the walls in a fresh coat of white. ‘I kept the walls neutral, so if she did change her mind in the near future it’s easy enough to update.’ Splashes of colour were introduced with a hand-painted mural, and Alice even picked the rainbow paint colours herself on a trip to B&Q. ‘We let her be involved with the makeover process so she could get excited about the room in advance, which really helped.’ Using string and a pencil, Danielle drew out the rainbow by hand. On the other side of the room, using Frog tape, she masked out little houses. ‘It was tricky painting it freehand but if I made a mistake it was easy to paint over with white,’ she explains.

STEP THREE Looking to repurpose as much as they could to save money and be eco-friendly, Danielle upcycled old furniture. As Andy is good at DIY, he hacked an IKEA bed to create a house shape for Alice with a reading nook underneath. ‘I showed him a picture on Pinterest and then we came up with our own design.’ They bought the bed from Facebook Marketplace for just £40 and sourced wood from a local timber yard. The outside was clad, then painted by Danielle.

STEP FOUR After working most weekends, by early January they were ready to move Alice’s toys and clothes back into the room. Now, Alice sleeps all through the night and will happily play in there on her own. ‘It’s a lovely space for us to enjoy,’ says Danielle. ‘This room has seen her blossom and makes her so happy.’

Working on a small budget, Danielle and Andy did a lot of the DIY themselves. ‘We reused as much of what we had already as we could, and then invested in good-quality toys,’ reveals Danielle Before

Danielle has added several chillout zones for Alice, including a comfy nook under her handmade bed and a cute teepee filled with cushions and plush toys Encourage independent learning with a ‘getting ready’ area like Alice’s. It features an Aldi dressing table and a peg rail for bags and baskets to keep clutter tidied away Rainbow motifs feature throughout the rest of the house, so it was an easy choice to continue this theme into Alice’s bedroom. ‘I already had rainbow bedding from H&M Home, so it was the perfect fit,’ says Danielle

When decorating your child’s bedroom, get them involved by allowing them to pick the colours. Alice chose the shades for the mural and houses, which Danielle painted Danielle hung an IKEA shelf upside-down to use as a hanging rail for displaying Alice’s fancy-dress outfits. ‘She always wants to be the hero,’ smiles Danielle. A bunny mirror and a Toy Story quote print adds to this dress-up corner’s playful feel