An inexpensive children’s solid wood bunk bed room makeover, without a lot of effort! Perfect solution for families with multiple kids or fun Twin Over Twin Bunk Beds at grandma’s house.

Learn how to take wooden bunk beds in a more feminine direction with these tips!

Girls bunk beds with floral bedding in a pink bedroom.
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A Feminine Bunk Room

I often take a laissez faire approach to decorating, allowing rooms to evolve over time. However, when we bought the lake cottage, I was anxious to get to create a dreamy bunk bed room for the girls at the lake cottage.

This modern lake house is the perfect home for us, with great views, an idyllic location and the right floor plan for our little family. However, when we purchased it, it needed quite a lot of updating.

I needed at least that one room to feel complete and homey! Read more about my favorite Lake House Decor.

I was also excited that moving quickly in this space gives me the opportunity to take you on the journey. Decorating the space from start to finish is really difficult to show when my typical projects tend to span over a couple years.

First, let’s take a peek at the before:

bedroom before
BEFORE

You can see that the space is tight and a bit dark, with just a single small window.

Quick update: we’ve now completed many of the rooms in the lake cottage. You can see the full before and after tour here – which is of course still in progress! You can also find more details on the bedrooms in this home here and here.

Girls Bunk Bedroom

I have a complete list of sources for the items used in this room at the bottom of this post. This will be helpful if you’re looking for a specific piece of information.

However, keep reading if you’d like to know more about the steps we took to accomplish this sweet bedroom with solid wood bunk beds!

Decorating this room was a little more challenging than some spaces, because I was planning from our home nearly four hours away. I neglected to take measurements when we were previously at the lake cottage and had to guesstimate based on a few snapshots I had taken.

A girls bedroom with wooden bunk beds and floral bedding

Where Do I Find Wooden Bunk Beds?

The very first decision we made in this room was that we wanted twin over twin wooden bunk beds. With three little girls in our family, we knew that this was a space where memories would be made for years to come.

I wanted it to feel like a slumber party all the time, and what’s better for sleepovers than bunk beds?

I wanted something simple, modern, and slightly raw and rustic feeling. I knew I could play up the more feminine details of the room for a fun play on textures and styles.

We settled on these solid wood bunk beds from IKEA. They felt sturdy and timeless. I loved the look of the raw wood, and I knew I could balance that more rustic wooden bunk bed style with feminine additions to the space later on.

The IKEA bunk beds are also inexpensive ($150) and relatively easy to put together (says the girl who enjoyed the lake while her husband and nephew constructed them).

A little girl standing in front of a blue dresser in a nautical bedroom.

How Do I Decorate With Rustic Bunk Beds?

  • First, start with a blank slate. Empty the room.
  • In our case we had to remove a dated wallpaper border and prep the walls.
  • Next, paint!
  • We loved this sweet light fixture but wanted a slightly different color. We painted it, too!
  • Bring color or texture into the flooring with a rug or patterned carpet if possible.
  • Bunk bed setup: this is a two person job!
  • Choose fun bedding. These duvets can be alternated because they have a different pattern on each side, which adds interest.
  • Add accent furniture. As a minimalist, I chose a pretty dresser that acted as both storage and bedside table.
  • Personalized wall art is the ultimate addition to help warm up your space and make it your own.
Girls bunk beds with floral bedding in a pink bedroom.

Choosing a Paint Color for this Double Bunk Bedroom

Having double wooden bunk beds consumes a lot of space. Pair that with a basement bedroom and things can appear small and dark. These two factors made choosing a paint color that works with the space even more important. 

Pro Tip: to make a room appear brighter and larger, choose a paint color with a high LRV (light reflective value) in eggshell sheen or higher.

As you know, there’s always a wide array of colors to choose from, including some very pretty pastels. While I certainly could have chosen a more high contrast color, I wanted this room to feel soft, pretty and feminine.

I’ve filled the walls of our home with pretty neutral paint colors, but for their bedroom at the lake cottage, I’m painting it a beautiful blush and accenting with a soft sage and french blue.

I narrowed it down to two pinks and tested swatches, opting for the slightly darker of the two, Grandad’s Girl. (from PPG Paints.) Isn’t it sweet?

An open can of pale pink paint.

To make the space feel playful, I used two additional hues – Pinch of Pistachio, which I used to paint the light fixture and a dresser I purchased in blue, which I color matched for you to UFO!

How Do I Color Match Paint?

Most paint stores have an online color matching system where you can upload a photo of the color you’d like to match.

Below, you can see the image I uploaded into this system, and the color that it directs us to as the best match.

This can be an excellent solution when you can’t bring the product itself (ie, this dresser, a wall color you no longer have the information for, etc) into the paint store.

A screen shot of a pretty blue dresser in a color matching program from a paint website.

Making Solid Wood Bunk Beds More Feminine

I stressed over what to put between the bunk beds – a chest, a bench, a dresser, oh my! I really began regretting that I didn’t take measurements before our last visit to the lake cottage, of course.

However, I took a chance on this beautiful dresser from Frontgate with the encouragement of a friend and I’m so thankful I did. It was just the right fit, in the most beautiful French blue hue, with soft closing drawers and a plug in for accessories that makes it double as a night stand.

It’s the centerpiece of the room. When we put it in the girls’ room, Chris asked if we could get one too. Win.

A soft pink bedroom with wooden bunk beds and feminine pink floral bedding.

Creating Layers

As you can see, in the earlier images of this room we used this large jute rug to hide the old carpet. It’s an inexpensive way to update a room when you’re not ready to replace flooring just yet!

We added this soft jute rug to minimize the carpet and add texture. While not everyone agrees with layering a rug over carpet, I find this to be a great inexpensive solution to warming up spaces throughout our homes.

This can be helpful if your carpet is tired and dated, like the one in this room. We weren’t ready to replace it just yet, and the rug bought us some time. (See the more of this room after we replaced the carpet, right here.)

Nautical Details

You may also notice that I incorporated a few nautical light fixtures as a nod to our lakeside location. These fixtures add charm, along with a map of the lake I commissioned an artist to create for the girls.

I selected a flush mount light with a canopy that draws the light down, to minimize the dated ceiling texture.

The nautical sconces are actually outdoor lights that we had rewired. You can also make them plug-in sconces with this tutorial from my friend, Jen.

The subtle green nautical light fixture. I purchased it bronze {rather than black or stainless} because it appeared to have a little more texture for primer and paint to stick to, then I painted it a soft green.

A soft pink bedroom with solid wood bunk beds and feminine pink floral bedding.

Patterned Bedding for Feminine Bunks

In addition to color, the patterned bedding makes the girls’ room feel playful. I had their pillowcases monogrammed to bring in a little detail and another touch of color.

The bedding was a budget-friendly find from Target (no longer available but this bedding is very similar and has great reviews), but monogramming the pillowcases takes it up a notch and really helps the room feel special.

A close up of feminine pink bedding next to a solid wood bunk bed frame.

Bunk Bedroom Art Work

The focal point is this hand drawn piece of art of our little section of the lake. However, since the artist is no longer in business, I always suggest searching for custom wedding maps on Etsy.

There are so many artists that do this kind of work and it makes for really affordable custom art work!

I have a lot of my art framed here. You simply send them a digital file or your actual artwork and they frame it to your specifications.

An inexpensive children's Solid Wood Bunk Bed room makeover, without a lot of effort! Perfect solution for families with multiple kids or fun Twin Over Twin Bunk Beds at grandma's house. #bunkroom #woodbunkbeds #girlsbunkbedroom #doublebunkroom

and the piece that this room and color palette – this sweet gift from my friend Tori…

Happy girls are the prettiest.

blue and pink girls bedroom ideas

Designing Around Solid Wood Bunk Beds

I have a simple technique for designing rooms when you’re not a designer! You don’t need any fancy design software – read all about it and get my tricks for visualizing a space.

A pastel bunk bed room design laid out in a design program.

See the above photo? It’s actually just a little something I created in Microsoft Word. I often use it to determine scale for my designs, especially since I’m planning from afar.

The dresser is 45″, so I snagged a photo from the brand’s website and resized it to 4.5″. I couldn’t decide how large the painting should be, so I snagged the picture from the website and resized until I was comfortable.  

I took that measurement and scaled it to order the exact size I wanted online. This way I can see what works and what doesn’t.

Girls bunk beds with floral bedding in a pink bedroom.

Bunk Room Source List

I’m so happy with the completed space and am contemplating our next project – maybe the cottage kitchen? That’s the fun of updating a dated home, right?

What’s your next project? Did this bedroom inspire your decorating? I’d love to hear from you!

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39 Comments

  1. The room is really girly and sweet but I had a really hard time reading about it around the Instgram box that kept moving in front of your words.