The precious things started piling up outside my daughter’s bedroom door weeks ago. They weren’t the worn-out shoes or the outgrown clothes. They were my grandmother’s framed embroidery samples that Claire unhooked from her wall, the bedside lampshades with little pink pompoms I had glued around the rims, the grand Victorian picture of frolicking children that had moved from my childhood bedroom to hers.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Mom,” said Claire, who just turned 11. “But it’s just not me.”

I had been hearing this refrain for more than a year. When I first decorated her bedroom almost a decade ago, I thought it looked classic, timeless. But to Claire, it was “old-fashioned.” She wanted it to be “cool.” Night after night, bedside chats we would flip between planning her birthday party to sketching her “tween” dream room. And every layout included a shag rug. (Did I mention that the antique Persian rug on her floor belonged to my grandfather?)

I knew the time would come when sentimental heirlooms would be stowed away, when her room would need to grow up with her. I just didn’t realize it would come this soon – or that the first symbol of her independent style would be a “Text Messaging Glossary” poster taped to her closet door (just to be ready for the day she actually gets a cell phone.)

When we moved into our home in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood, just five blocks from where I grew up, Claire was just a toddler, but her room was one of the first to get real attention. We actually — gulp — hired a decorator. I remember Linda McFalone of Lulu Pom in Los Gatos saying the custom-made, dusty pink, raw silk bed skirt would “look like a ball gown.” While my husband, Chris, complained that our master bedroom looked like a dorm room, without even a headboard for our bed, Claire’s room had become a “temple to Girldom.” Through my eyes, though, it was the perfect setting for the years of charming tea parties to come. Claire would sit on a little green rocking chair (that was mine as a child) and invite Chris and me to sit on the floor with our teacups in hand and pinkies in the air.

Claire outgrew the rocking chair years ago. But when she recently gathered up her assorted tea sets and dispassionately announced she was giving them to our 5-year-old neighbor, Kiley, I knew we had closed a chapter for good.

It was time for (sigh) a trip to Ikea. My mother joined us — as if her presence would somehow sanctify this right of passage and perhaps diminish the pain of the embroidery samples so unceremoniously discarded. I laid down some rules first, of course. We were not repainting the room (our entry hall needed it more). And we were keeping the rug and the old iron bed frame I brought back from Wyoming and, yes, the expensive pink ball-gown dust ruffle.

Unlike the last time, this was going to be a redo on a budget. Nothing lasts forever, as I had painfully discovered in the heap outside the door, and I didn’t expect this next bedroom incarnation to endure half as long.

As we did the first time we decorated the room, we used the Persian rug as an inspiration for the palette. But instead of sticking with just pink, we pulled out the black and the ochre green — colors I had seen paired in trendy shelter magazines.

At Ikea, Claire picked out a white shag rug for $50 — a throw rug to layer on top of the Persian. She chose two green pillows for $12.99, plus a matching fleece blanket. Since Claire had dismissed her flower-shaped ceiling light fixture as “weird,” she gravitated to Ikea’s white artichoke-shaped pendant lamp. The $24.99 lamp was inspired by the Le Klindt light that sells for $435. That stylish update was easy for me to swallow.

At the Alameda Antique Market, I found an old shop sign, black with silver writing, that said, “Claire’s Fashion Salon.” For my daughter who loves to sew tops and purses for her friends, it was a perfect gift. The wicker love seat survived the transition, but a black-and-white fabric remnant covered the pink flowers. We pulled in the round, hot-pink chair from Limited Too that Claire earned for getting good grades last spring. And with a $19.99 zebra stripe satin sheet set from Burlington Coat Factory, I whipped up a trendy duvet cover with my below-average, straight-line sewing skills. A five-armed lamp from Target and a few fuzzy pillows from Ross Dress For Less added some youthful fun. A dress form that Claire received for Christmas showcases her latest fashion creations.

With a helpful hand from my friend, Amy (who is startlingly confident with a staple gun), a little bench got a new, striped fabric top. And my neighbors, Dhelia and Maria, came over to fluff and puff and re-angle the love seat. Claire pinned a newspaper photo of pop singer Taylor Swift on her bulletin board, plugged in her iPod boombox, and invited in her friends.

From downstairs, I could hear them squeal when they entered.

I still feel a pang when I think about the Victorian picture and the little pink pompoms. But not all signs of Claire’s little-girlness are gone. When I tuck her in at night, she still keeps close her Teddy and hippo and blankie. And when I kiss her good night under the zebra-striped covers, I love the confident, independent tween she has become.

Here’s my shopping list:

1. White Shag Rug, Ikea _ $50
2. Antique Store Sign, from Alameda Antique Market (a splurge) _ $75
3. Zebra-striped sheet set for Duvet cover, Burlington Coat Factory _ $19.99
4. Five-headed Lamp, Target _ $19.99
5. Three throw pillows for loveseat, Ross Dress for Less _ $5.99 a piece.
6. Two green throw pillows for bed, Ikea _ $12.99 each.
7. Framed Shoe Picture, Beverly Fabrics _ $3.99
8. Dress Form _ Santa
9. Fabric Remnants, thrift shop _ $15.
10. Ikea pendant lamp _ 24.99

Related Stories:

From Little Girl to Tween’s Room
Updating Kid’s Playhouse to Tween’s Club House
Alameda Pointe Antiques Faire
Spanish-Style Bungalow Gets Soho-Chic Kitchen

Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here and the tips here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 12:05 am and is filed under Home Decor, Inside Stories, Inside Story, Interior Design, Julia, Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.