Blog by Beebe Cline, PREC*

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This Teen Girl's Room Has Total Grown-up Appeal

Word spreads fast among teenage girls. And that’s just fine with Sari Sunshine. The Roslyn, New York interior designer created a crisp, modern white room for her teenage daughter, whose friends saw it and begged their parents to hire Sunshine. Then those friends’ friends saw those bedrooms and asked their parents to hire Sunshine to do their bedrooms, and so on and so on — to, like, infinity!

Anyway, Sunshine’s latest is a true-blue modern bedroom for her cousin’s teen daughter. Working with limited direction — “blue” was basically all Sunshine was able to pry out of the high schooler — she transformed the room from something akin to a guest room in your grandma’s house to a blue, white and reflective room from which the teenager rarely emerges.

The update certainly elicits envy from the teen’s friends, but the original Roy Lichtenstein on the wall will have art aficionados asking for a visit, too.
AFTER: Now the only deviation from the color scheme comes from a vibrant original art pice by Roy Lichtenstein, which belonged to the girl’s grandparents and hangs over a fold-out futon. Sunshine went to the grandparents’ house one day and was allowed to pick out one piece of art from their collection to jazz up their granddaughter’s bedroom. She felt this piece was just what the room needed.

“It’s a little much for a teenage girl, but since she and her friends don’t really sit on the furniture but on the floor, they don’t get too close to it, so it’s pretty safe,” Sunshine says.

She spent $5,500 wholesale on the furniture, carpet and bedding and $3,000 in construction costs, which included gutting the space, redoing the closets and hanging a flat-screen TV.

“She loves it,” Sunshine says. “She doesn’t leave the room now. If she had a bathroom and kitchen in there, no one would see her again. And the amazing thing is, she keeps it clean.”

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