Decorating a Bedroom Inspired by "The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" | Before and After
In The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe, four young children are evacuated to the English countryside during World War II. The Pevensie family find themselves, somewhat unexpectedly, living in the sprawling mansion of an eccentric professor. While exploring the house one day, the youngest child, Lucy, accidentally discovers that the large wardrobe in one of the rooms is actually a door to another world called Narnia. Many grand adventures ensue, and the Narnia Chronicles have become a beloved story for generations of readers.
Back in 2017, I created a Narnia-themed bedroom at The Storyteller's Cottage, and had a fantastic time recreating a cozy, vintage space that looked as though it had been lived in by generations of children. This room became a multi-purpose space, functioning as an escape room game called The Legend of the Fairy Queen, a place for magical-themed summer camp activities, and even a space for Fairytales in the Forest, a story time/tea party club. Let me show you how I did it!
BEFORE: This bedroom was just a simple square, with windows on two sides.
BEFORE: Looking in the other direction, the opposite wall featured a door to the hallway at the left, a strange cutout in the wall, and a door to a walk-in closet on the right.
I found an antique armoire on Craigslist that fit perfectly over the door to the closet. We took the back off the armoire, attached it to the doorframe, and this became our portal to Narnia. Check my previous posts for all the details about how we modified that armoire, and how I transformed the closet behind it into a Fairy Forest!
As you can see, we added a tiny door to the strange cubby to turn it into a cabinet, along with a fantastic dragon's head handle to signify that something magical happens in this space.
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is set in the 1940s, so I knew the Pevensie's bedroom needed to have a vintage feel to it. I really wanted this space to make visitors feel like they had just walked into their grandparent's old farmhouse, and were settling in for a summer of old-fashioned fun in the room where their parents and aunts and uncles had all stayed when they were children.
I covered the walls with a charming pale yellow wallpaper featuring an ivy print, and found these velvety sage green drapes to soften up the hard lines in the room. Both the drapes and the pair of corner bookshelves came from Craigslist.