I've also discovered that kids change their minds about such things as favorite colors very quickly. This may be more true for girls than it is for boys (speaking from personal experience).

My point is that I wouldn't go overboard with one color (such as lavendar) since the next favorite color could be apple green as soon as next week! You might want to paint the walls a more neutral color, and use lavendar accents, along with the butterflies, etc. Of course, walls can be repainted without too much difficulty, but I certainly wouldn't invest in a lavendar rug, for instance. You could also limit the lavendar paint to the trim and closet door(s) which could be painted much more easily than the entire wall.

Limit the butterflies too. Again, don't invest a lot of money in butterfly fabrics (drapes, spreads, upholstery), but find some cute accents that can be changed without great expense, or stick up some butterfly wallpaper trim above molding, or around the closet door...

However, keeping those changing favorite colors in mind, the more variety of color you have in the room to begin with, the easier it is to "switch". Butterflies are good because a variety of color can be introduced. When Bethany doesn't like lavendar anymore, but likes blue or green or whatever, you can paint the trim that color, and it will still work with the butterflies!

The other really important thing to keep in mind is not to make any of the children's rooms too "in the moment" age appropriate; they'll outgrow it too quickly. Make both rooms just slightly more "grown up" than the kids may need now. They'll still have their toys, and stuff, but if you make their rooms too "cute", you'll be redoing them again by the end of next year!

Another thing I've found is not to jump around TOO much with different colors, from room to room. The house can begin to look like a patchwork quilt, and can be a bit jarring. Try to have a little continuity going on so that there's a flow... That doesn't mean you have to be boring. It just means that you need to tie things together with at least one element of the decorating, such as the carpeting, the basic wall color, or something like that.

The most important thing with the children, though, is to remember that they're going to be growing up very quickly, and what works this year might look ridiculous two years from now, so think "flexibility"...

And, that's my first round of advice. I'm sure that I'll manage to think of something else as soon as I've posted this! LOL...

I agree with everything moore said! When I was pregant with Gabi we were also moving. I went to paint stores and gathered up swatches and had each and every color picked out ahead of time. So that way after the baby and all the chaos, I just walked into the store and bought my paint. I love painting

I cant' wait to finish our basement, Ryan my oldest likes to sleep down there, so I'd like to build a room for him, then take his old room and turn it Chamo for Zach. Then Zach's room is blue, so I'll put a white bedspread for a guest room. Gabi's room is very pink, so she has a white spread with ballerinas. We still need to buy her bed frame, right now her mattress is on the floor, she's so tiny I don't want her to fall out

My master bedroom and bath have burgund accents, with some pink I love the colors

And we did green in our office. Two colors for our dining room and living room, we have an accent wall that really goes well withour furniture.

Benjamin Moore, if you have that there, has swatches that put about 4 coordinating colors together so you cant' go wrong. We already had our sofa, so we matched the color of that to the two colors for the wall and it turned out really well.

At my health club someone made a big mistake with colors, so I really recommend those little swatches that show you what goes with what!!

-- Edited by TinaLord68 at 11:10, 2007-02-10

Tina, I LOVE Benjamin Moore paint! I think that it's the very best... It stays "mixed" once you bring it home, and it's such good quality that one coat usually does the trick. For more depth, I will often put on a second coat, but I've found with this paint that it isn't always necessary.

Those little sample paints that they have come out with are pure genius! Check their website too for an idea of how many colors there are available in these little samples...

yes I think they have tons of colors, check out their website, you can get software too where you take a pic of your room, and test out colors!

OH wow Tina that is so cool. And jojo, that's so cute about your son's room.

I have found some very cute things for Bethany's room even if I don't have the colors set in stone yet. We found a tea set with a matching table and chairs at the local consignment shop and the whole thing is only 25.00. So we are going to snag that up. In fact the owner is holding that and a few other things for me until I can get out of the hospital and get in there. We buy so much stuff there it's crazy so she has no problem doing a few favors for us. Then I found some more stuff to go with her dolly day care, all in the same theme. Those are at Toys R Us so I don't have to worry much about running out. So we are going to have her Day care in a corner and teh tea set in another. I found some cheap 2.00 static clingy butterly appliques for the walls I figure you can't go wrong with that becasue it's cheap and if she decides she doesn't want them anymore we just pull them down and no painting or anything like that. I also found an adorable white dresser. Now it's a little plain at this time. But with a little bit of fabric, a needle, and thread, I can accent it with flowers on the nobs. I've even considered taking a few of her old dresses that she won't fit into and using them for fabric. Then the last thing i found for her room is a kitty condo. She and her kitten are inseparable. He sleeps with her every night and when her eczema has been flaring up lately he's the only thing that will really console her. In fact we had to put a matching bandaid on his elbow last night, and unbelievably, he just sat there and let us do it (good thing we invested in the no stick ace bandages that you can just wrap around your arm and it clings to itself instead of the skin or in his case the hair). The kitty condo thing is actually a gift from a family friend whose cat is too old to enjoy it anymore, and after learning about Bethany and her kitty love, she wanted to give it to her. So right now everything is shaping up quite well for her. I have one last item that i'd like to get for her, but this is going to be a big one, and it probably won't be purchased until she's a little bit older.

I want to get her one of the loft beds that I saw that has the bed on the bottom, with drawers on each side, and a book shelf on the other. It's in the shape of a doll house and has a place for her to climb up and a slide as well. Unlike the one Cody is pining over this one is made completely of wood, and is quite expensive, so I'm waiting to see if I can catch something similar on E-bay or maybe talk to my uncle who is a master carpenter and see if I could commission him to build a similar one for us. Heck the cradle he built for my mom when I was born has been passed down to every child since and is still in pristine condition.