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We currently live in a two bedroom apartment. My daughter is currently in one bedroom and we are expecting a boy in September. We cannot afford to redo the whole room or even purchase a lot of pieces. How can we make this more neutral for both? The quilt is brand new on her bed, so it needs to stay. What would you do? There are burgundy shades (also can't be torn down since it's a rental). I forgot to mention I'm not allowed to paint.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
That quilt is beautiful! It is very girly so what I would do is to add accessories in blue and green matching the blue and green from the quilt. That way it downplays the pink a little. Also move the flowers on the wall to her side of the room , and find something similar but boyish for his side of the room. Again, try to find them in blue and green, so you don't introduce new colors.
That would be my advice. Hope it helps :)
Are the burgundy shades the type that you can hang curtains over them or are they like roman shades where they are more like curtains?
If you can't paint, then I would do some gender neutral wall decals. I might try to do a tree or nature theme on the wall, since her quilt has flowers on it, and then your DS's bed could have something complementary in boys colors. I think brown accents would be pretty with the pink of your DD's bed and then you could have blue, green, or yellow on your DS's bed. The nature theme would tie the two beds together. Here are some decals that would work:
http://www.amazon.com/RoomMates-RMK1...6580914&sr=8-5
http://www.amazon.com/Large-Tree-Dec...581012&sr=8-17
http://www.amazon.com/Kids-Line-Cute...6581059&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/RoomMates-RMK1...6581094&sr=8-1
ETA: I see there are framed pictures on the wall. I would put the pictures in brown frames and make a really pretty fabric matting around them. You could use a gender netural fabric, like maybe a green plaid or you could use girly fabric around the pictures on your DD's side of the room and boyish fabric for the mats on any pictures on your DS's side of the room. Having similar picture frames in a gender netural color would tie pictures on both sides together. Here is a link to making fabric mats--they are easy to make and really make pictures look designer. With smaller pictures, you could do a fairly big mat to make the framed pictures really stand out.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/fabr...a-pizza-109818
http://www.marthastewart.com/272389/fabric-mats
The shades are curtain like and installed just inside the frame of the window. I noticed that there are hooks for hanging a pole above the window.
Would this work with her quilt?
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/produ...ursery-bedding
I would just do her side for her and his side for him. It's a rental, you don't need or want to invest in too much, kwim?
One thing I love is name letters above the bed. That would be cute for each kid on their side. Very easy to personalize cheaply. I got plain white (primed) letters at hobby lobby for like $1.50 each, and used scrapbook paper and mod podge to make letters for my kids. They each have their names on the wall over their beds in their rooms and I love the personal touch it adds. And they are easy to redo as they grow. I just redid my oldest DD's when she moved into her big girl room 2 years ago.
If the shades are clashing with things you may want to see how they attach. The last time we got new blinds we just re-used the old clips. It may be possible to just slide off the old blinds, pop in something neutral and cheap and then store the darker blinds until you're ready to move out and need to put everything back together again.
I love the Hungry Caterpillar bedding. It is adorable! What pieces are you planning on getting for the crib? The colors in the Hungry Caterpillar bedding (primary colors) are very different from the colors in the quilt (brighter versions of pastels), but if you aren't trying to match the two beds, the caterpillar theme with the flowers on the quilt is really cute. If you are trying to color coordinate the two beds, then I think you might want bedding with colors more in the palette of colors in the quilt.
If you can hang curtains above the window, this is a cheap and easy way to change the look of the room.
We took down the blinds in our rental, bought cheap white blinds from Lowes and put their landlords blinds in a box in the storage space. We will re-insall them when we move out. Any chance you are allowed to and can do the same?
I like the bedding you linked to!
Thank you everyone for the ideas. I'm about eight weeks away from having my son. We separated the room and did flowers on her side and animals on his using the colors blue/green from the quilt. The room is divided by an expedit with books with a stick-on blackboard above it that says "Love, Laugh and Learn." Over their beds (in his case his crib), there are other stick-on blackboards with their names on them in chalk.
We used these on his side: http://www.amazon.com/HALO-SleepSack...lo+bedding+set in the blue zoo animal theme with a wallies set like this http://www.wallies.com/zoo-baby-prod...p?page_id=2849. The animal stick-ons frame the blackboard over his crib.
On her side, I added some flowers in a pattern on the wall. These are the flowers: http://www.wallies.com/pretty-stitch...php?page_id=16. Flowers frame her blackboard over her bed.
I'll take a picture at some point in order to make it clearer. I haven't actually set up his bedding yet.
As for the shades, I left the shades alone. We're considering blackout curtains over them in the coming weeks.