Ever since we bought our fixer upper in mid-2018, my kids have been asking us to paint their rooms. At the time we closed on the house, were inundated with remodel decisions and decided to paint the entire house a neutral light grey. We like the color, but I understand why my kids want their rooms to be a little more fun. So my husband and I decided to surprise them with an early Christmas present and added some color to the walls of their room using Curator paints.
This post was sponsored by Curator. All opinions expressed in the post are my own and not those of Curator.
About Curator
Before we jump into kids’ room design, I want to chat a little bit about the Curator brand. Yes, there are a lot of companies out there that make paint. However, Curator truly does things differently than the rest. They consider their paint family-friendly since all Curator paint is a durable and water-based with low odor and low VOCs. It is suitable for every room and surface in the house, is easily washable and does not contain any harsh solvents or heavy metals.
Here’s the crazy thing about the Curator paint – it honestly doesn’t smell like paint. As soon as the paint in my kids’ rooms dried, there was no lingering smell of paint what-so-ever. The Curator brand was created in Ireland and all their paints meet the EN13300 European standard for interior paint quality.
Curator has an expansive color palette that was designed to ensure that all schemes will find their complementary colors, tones and shades within the collection. The carefully curated collection includes 144 colors inspired by Ireland’s native Design Community. This Community, featuring artisans from crafts and design to art, all derive the colors from their surroundings in Ireland. Every single one of the 144 colors has a story behind the color, which is available on the Curator website.
The Design Process
Alright, let’s jump into the fun stuff – the design. Both of my kids’ rooms already had an established theme prior to starting this paint project. It made it easy to get this project done quickly because other than purchasing the paint and hiring the painters, I didn’t purchase a single thing to update their rooms. Everything you see in the photos below were in the rooms prior to adding the fun colors on the walls.
When we converted Kenzie’s room from a nursery to a big girl room a few years back, we ended up going with a modern rainbow theme. I selected colorful, textiles, artwork and accents that 100% reflect her vibrant personality. She’s been begging me for a pink bedroom since we purchased our fixer upper. We decided to give her the pink walls she’s always wanted on three of the walls, but also added a diagonal striped accent mural behind her bed. I looked around her room and took inspiration from her bedding and accent pillows before choosing the following Curator color scheme:
Rose Mantle is the perfect color for any little girl’s room and was inspired by Elaine Madigan. Elaine runs a family business with her husband Richard, in their studio in the countryside of Kildare in Ireland. This subtle dancing pink was inspired by cashmere knitwear and carries Elaine’s passion for Irish design, quality and luxury into any space. The accent colors in the mural also have amazing stories behind them and have deep Irish roots.
Like a lot of little boys, Carter has had a ball in his hand almost non-stop since he was born. When he is done playing baseball, he asks to go play basketball or football, so the sports theme came naturally. While I know a sports bedroom seems a little cliché for a boy, we decided to use a mix of retro and modern pieces to make him happy but still have a cool design aesthetic. We used items like old wooden golf clubs, chalk boards and retro lockers, which not only look trendy, but are amazing for storage.
Carter’s favorite sports team just happens to be none other than The Ohio State University. He loves the Buckeyes almost as much as his Dad, so we decided to add some color to his room by taking inspiration from the red, white and black stripes that adorn the grey helmets worn by the team. I love that it looks classy, but still is a meaningful nod to OSU.
After checking out the Curator color palette, Merrion Square, Washed White and Six Sods were the perfect choices to add the accents to Carter’s room. Not only did Merrion Square match the red on the helmets, but it is inspired by the red Georgian doors seen on the famous square in Dublin City. As an unrelated side note, I’ve actually had to cancel two trips to Dublin in the past decade for various reasons. One was because I found out I was due with Carter three weeks before the scheduled trip. I’m dying to visit Ireland and can’t wait to go see these memorable doors myself one day.
Kenzie’s Room Reveal
All I can say is this rainbow room is every little girl’s dream. We hired painters we’ve used on several occasions before and they 100% understood my vision. I’m SO IMPRESSED with how perfectly the stripes came out. For both rooms, they used caulk to secure the tape lines so the paint didn’t seep through on the adjacent color.
The stripes are 100% a statement and we all agreed it would be too much to do something this big on all four walls. I love how the color Rose Mantle creates a soothing vibe around the rest of the room to allow her girly imagination to run wild.
I wish you could have seen her reaction when the painters were working on her room. It took the painters 2 afternoons to complete the project so there was no way to keep it from her to make it an epic surprise. However, she kept running into her bedroom and spied on the painters about every 20 minutes. She proceeded to run back and give me minute by minute updates of what colors were going up on the walls. It really was fun watching our rainbow mural vision come to life.
Carter’s Room
Onto Carter’s sports room. Being totally honest, Kenzie’s rainbow room takes the cake, but Carter’s room turned out pretty amazing as well. Here’s the thing. Carter never said he wanted to paint all his walls, he just said he wanted a Buckeye room. We considered painting the walls blue, but after a lot of consideration, we realized leaving the walls the existing grey and adding Ohio State stripes was an easy way to stick with the OSU colors and still spruce it up.
In these pictures, you can see how the stripe on the helmet perfectly resembles the stripes we added to the walls. Especially since we live in Arizona, I love how the stripes are a subtle way to honor our Ohio roots without sticking on a giant logo. It’s still classy but 100% Carter.
Curator paint is sold in specialty paint stores across the US and is now carried at the Dunn Edwards Paints store in North Scottsdale on Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. Check out their store locator to determine if Curator is sold in your area.
What do you think? Do you love how the colors turned out as much as I do? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
