Replacing the Drona Boxes With Branas Boxes - Girls Room Post #2

Initially I bought the Drona boxes for the Kallax shelving unit, but at the time, Ikea wasn't offering pink Drona boxes in the US, so i bought half Dronas and half of some pink boxes I got from Garden Ridge. The Garden Ridge boxes were more expensive than the Dronas, and far, far inferior. They have since fallen apart, every last one. When I went to replace them, I could have opted for the pink Dronas, but I wanted something even sturdier so I went for the white Branas baskets instead.

You can see where I tried in vain to patch this one with pink floral fabric.

Horrible pink boxes from Garden Ridge that I tried to repair several times.

The Drona boxes held up better than the
Garden Ridge boxes but were still pretty
worn and bent.

The Branas baskets are much sturdier.

I started with these wallet-size frames that were silver and black

Spray-painted them pink.

Pulled off the picture stand from the back, leaving the hardware.

Then added in a picture and name of the toys in each box.

Ran some wire through the left-over hardware and wired them to the baskets.

Bella and Vivienne's Princess Room

Two years ago, for her fourth birthday, Eric and I redid Bella's room, in an attempt to get her to start sleeping in there. We bought an Ikea Kura bed and turned it into a little cottage, painted a tree on the wall and added a new light fixture that looks like the sun, and a rug that looks like a stream with rocks and grass. She loved it and played in there a lot...but never slept in there very often. Also, once, she was really tired and she fell out of bed from the top bunk, and that was really scary.

Since she never really slept in there and I was afraid of the height of the bunk bed, I decided to put all her decor on Craigslist and redo the room again. I didn't have the support of the hubs this time around because we had sunk a lot of time and money into the project before and he wasn't willing to do that again. So I hosted my own garage sale and raised the money to redo her room. I had a shoestring budget of about $300, which I exceeded, but I had a lot of the things I needed to redo it. 

I enlisted the help of my close friends Ashley and Davie, because they have a real talent for interior design. Ashley and I went shopping and Davie helped me pick out paint colors, and when it finally started to come together my husband admitted defeat and pitched in to help and cover the costs needed to complete the room.

Initially I painted Vivienne's crib white to match the decor, but then she grew out of it and so this Christmas we put Bella in her twin bed and gave the princess bed to vivi. I am still not done with it, because there's a huge blank wall near Vivi's bed. I painted the walls of the girls' room glittery pink. I used the disney color (I think it was Belle Bow Beauty or something like that) and their glitter top coat as well. I still need to go over it again with another coat to hide the roller marks, but honestly the girls don't care so it's hard to prioritize that. 

I found the dresser on craigslist for $25, and that will have to be a whole other blog because it was a wreck when I got it. I just changed out the Ikea Drona boxes with the Branas baskets, and affixed frames to the front of each to identify its contents.

The Pinterest-worthy pictures are not how the room is normally, so truth in advertising, there's really not enough space in that room for both the girls' clothes, shoes and toys, but the only other option at this point is to put them in their own rooms, and they still depend on each other's presence to be able to sleep.

As you can see, there's quite a bit more junking up the room, but it's still a cute room. And no, I will not show you the inside of that closet. (Scary music plays)