i guess i'm just a kid.

More images of this room makeover can be found here.

Apparently this is a little girl's room. But I don't care. I want it.

Isn't it one of the prettiest things you've ever seen? I can see myself curled up on the bed reading Little Women. Or maybe An Old Fashioned Girl. Or furiously scribbling in my journal.

It looks just like something I would have taken to my mother and said, with pleading eyes, "Please?"

During my growing-up years, I believe I redecorated my bedroom once every year. During the high school years, maybe once a season. I kid you not. I probably have the best mother on the planet. I would find inspiration online, or in a Pottery Barn catalogue, and my mom and I would get to work finding cheap bedspreads, pillows, blankets. We'd re-mat picture frames, cover lampshades, thrift, barter, and trade until the room looked brand new.

I started with a white daybed I begged for (it's a couch! and a bed!) and a blue bedspread covered with daisies.

Then I went all Parisian chic, convincing my mother that I wanted only black-and-white photographs of Europe adorning my walls. My uncle converted an Eiffel Tower clock I had into a monstrosity of a lamp (which I still proudly display).

I drew inspiration from a country bed and breakfast, and my bed was graced with a deep maroon comforter with a step stool leading up to where I'd lay my head. Only dark brown accents, please.

For months I saved for the Roman Holiday movie poster hanging over my bed; it still looks perfect. What can I say? I have impeccably good-- and timeless-- taste.

With each makeover, one piece was always prominent: the desk. I had the biggest desk you've ever seen, complete with a rolling top, until my father and I built and stained the one that still sits in my childhood bedroom. We arranged it so that it looked perfectly out the window, so I could be just like John Boy.*

During my college years, I came home to find my bedroom completely redone. Not like some poor freshman do, where in a fit of empty nest despair, they find that their parents have turned their room into a sewing room or home gym.

No, my parents redid my room with only me in mind. I'll never forget arriving from my tiny box of a dorm room (which looked fantastic, despite the cement block walls) to see the prettiest retreat awaiting my arrival. It still looks that way today. Green, with pops of blue and antiques holding clothes I haven't had time to move from the drawers.

A few weeks ago, someone came into my new apartment, shocked that we had accomplished so much in so little an amount of time. "I can't believe you already have pictures on the wall!" she exclaimed. "I still don't have pictures in our apartment, and we've lived there for years!"

To which I shuddered.

I am so grateful I was raised to make my house a home. There is no telling how much money my frugal parents spent over the years, converting my room from one dream into another. But I hope they know it was worth it. Worth it because it taught me to take care of my things, to make them my own, to never settle for something I don't absolutely love.

*If you don't know where this reference comes from, I can't help you. Say it with me: Lost Cause.