Eco friendly ideas for a teenage bedroom makeover

The last year or so has been hard for most people and for teenagers it’s probably felt like the worst. Stuck in home studying for lots of the time and unable to socialise with friends. So when one of our colleagues here at Celtic Sustainables, decided to cheer up their daughter with an eco friendly bedroom makeover, we thought it was a brilliant idea.

A relatively small room, they were hoping to keep the costs down whilst keeping their renovations as environmentally friendly as possible. We think they came up with some great solutions, so here’s their story, including some great teenage girl bedroom ideas for small rooms on a budget.

Choosing Eco friendly paints…

At the start of any decorating project, it’s good to decide on products you’re going to use in advance, so that you can make sure you cover what’s needed in the preparation...

Originally carpeted, our teenager’s bedroom room was emptied and made ready for prepping…

Our teenager’s bedroom was going to have new paint on the walls, ceiling and woodwork, the old carpet was being replaced with a coordinating painted floor and the existing wood furniture was to be repainted to fit in with the new colour scheme.

For this, they decided on the following Eco Friendly paints…

For the walls -  Earthborn Claypaint. An ultra matt emulsion that has virtually no VOC’s, is odour free (so no yucky paint smells) and because it’s resistant to static, there’s no nasty dust build up either.

For the ceiling -  Auro 327 Anti Mould paint. Made with all natural ingredients and again practically no VOC’s, this naturally white paint is highly resistant to mould.

For the skirting boards and floor -  Eico Ican Grepp V Primer. A waterborne primer and sealer with great stain blocking properties providing extremely good adhesion.

Also for the skirting boards, floor and some wood furniture -  Eico Floor paint. Made in Iceland using hydropower and geothermal energy, this super tough paint has very low dirt pickup and since the skirting boards, floor and some of the furniture were going to be painted the same colour, it was the perfect choice because it’s suitable for both concrete and wood.

For the door frame and some items of furniture –  Earthborn Eggshell No17. An oil free, Eco friendly wood paint that has no unpleasant smells or emissions.

A tip on choosing paint colour…

• Choosing colours can be a tricky thing at times and often colours can look different once you get them in your intended room. This usually comes down to a few different reasons.
• Colour cards are a great starting point but the swatches on them are usually very small – transferring this to a larger wall area can sometimes look surprisingly different. Combine this with the amount of ambient light in the room and the sheen level of the paint (for example a paint with a gloss finish is more light reflective than that with a matt) and again it may not look as expected.
• Finally, the colour temperature of any lightbulbs in the room, will also have an effect on how colours look when they’re switched on.
• For these reasons, it’s always recommend to test any paint colours in the room that you’re decorating, before splashing out on big quantities of paint.

A great idea for keeping budget costs down, is to look at what you’ve already got to start with

Our colleagues teenager still really liked the existing wall colour and since the bedroom walls themselves were in pretty good shape, they were able to save themselves both time and money, by simply freshening up the walls with a single coat of paint – (they had Lily Lily Rose from Earthborn’s Classic Collection).

Make sure you’re completely happy with the colour before splashing out on big quantities

For the skirting boards and floor, their teenager was undecided between two shades of mauve. Luckily, both colours fell within the same colour pallet, so they tinted the primer to the lighter shade of mauve. Their teenager was then able to decide on the final colour once she’d seen the primed floor colour in the room.

Not only does testing save time but it can also save lots of money, should you decide that you don’t like your first choice colour when you see it in the room.

Preparing and painting the woodwork

The skirting boards had been painted with gloss paint in the past which, as a shiny surface, isn’t great for over painting, so the first step was to give them a quick sand down to remove any sheen. This provides a good “key” for the new coats of paint to stick to.

Priming the floor and skirting boards with lilac tinted Eico Grepp V primer

Preparing and painting the floor

The floor in the bedroom was concrete but surprisingly, when the carpets were lifted, there was a small strip of chipboard around 20cm deep, running from the outside wall into the room...

“you only learn these things when you lift the carpet!” said our colleague.

Since the floor was being painted, the gaps around the chipboard would be visible if left as they were, so they filled in around the edges with Osmo gap sealer to hide any join for when the floor was later painted.

The rest of the concrete floor was pretty sound, except for a small area of wear in the doorway where it had become a bit friable over time. They swept and mopped the entire floor to remove any dust then applied a thin coat of primer. This covered well and even seemed to stabilise the friable area, “although time will be the biggest test for this” said our colleague.

Depending on the substrate, painting can be a really good and economical option for revamping a floor and can make a big impact for relatively low cost. (Check out our post on ‘How to paint a concrete floor with Eico eco floor paint’ for more details).

After the floor was primed, their teenager reviewed the colour again and decided she preferred the darker mauve colour instead - it just goes to show how useful it is to test your colour choice first.

First coat of Alterior Floor Paint in the darker mauve colour going onto the skirting boards and floor.

They used just over half a 2.25L tin of paint on the floor (around 8.75m²) leaving plenty of paint to add some coordinating touches to parts of the furniture later….

Refreshed walls and painted skirting boards and floor. Close up of the small area in the doorway which showed signs of wear seemed to cover well, although the uneven surface is still visible on close inspection.

Consider eco friendly bedroom furniture options

The most environmentally friendly furniture is the furniture you already have. With this in mind our colleague and her sustainable teenage daughter decided that they could revamp their existing furniture to create a new look. They decided to use the “eco-chic” technique, to fit in with their bedroom makeover decor.

The eco-chic look is created by co-ordinating colours and painting a smooth paint finish on the wooden furniture. Alternatively, it you don’t like that idea why not try the “shabby chic” look? For this worn, vintage style finish, the painted surfaces are lightly sanded once the paint has dried, to reveal layers of paint and wood.

To give their furniture the eco-chic look…

Our colleague had 2 sets of existing wooden draws which they painted in coordinating colours, to fit in with their updated colour scheme…

Our teenagers revamped desk and draws.

Painting furniture you already have is really simple a great way to keep costs down while revamping for a new colour scheme

The handles were removed from the draws so they could be painted separately and woodwork was given a light sand to make it ready for painting.

The draw fronts on the small desk drawers were painted ‘White’ in Earthborn’s Eggshell No. 17 and the main body of the desk, draws and handles were painted with ‘Inglenook’ Eggshell No17. The back of the desk, now it was visible in it’s new position, was then painted with some left over floor paint.

For the large chest of drawers, the main body and the handles were also painted with more of the floor paint and the drawer fronts in ‘Inglenook’ Eggshell 17 to match the desk.

Tip – draw handles are easy to paint if you push them into an old cardboard box to hold them steady.

To finish things off, the wooden bedframe and door surround were painted in ‘Inglenook’ Eggshell No17 and the door was finished with a coat of Lily Lily Rose to match the walls.

Using the same colours and finishes across multiple surfaces (whenever possible) helps to keep the bedroom makeover costs low and on budget, environmentally it ensures less waste and of course helps create a totally co-ordinated bedroom makeover for a small room.

Our teenagers finished bedroom with refreshed walls and updated floor, ceiling and furniture.