Dream Room Writing For Decorating Tips, A Young Girl Gets An Answer She Didn’t Expect - An Entire Bedroom Make-Over

East Valley middle-schooler Dawna Stone was browsing through one of her mother’s decorating magazines last spring, hoping to find the cure for her mundane daylight-basement bedroom, when a plan came to her.

Taking pen in hand, she carefully wrote:

Dear Country Samplers,

I may olny be 12, but I like your magazines. Your bedroom ideas are good (my mom likes them to) - but what about KID’S bedroom make overs? See I think my room is a good exzampel because, it is small, 4 years old, and the closets not even finished. I was hoping you could help me make it look bigger, along with some maching ideas for closet finishing. I have a old dresser wich I’m going to use your idea on, April-1996 as your #1 fan did. I need some ideas quickley because I’m getting tired of waking up to so much purple. (Everything is purple.) Now I like blues & greens. Please write back wether you like my idea or not.

Sincerely, your #1 kid fan,

Dawna Stone

Her letter eventually reached the desk of Lisa Sloan, managing editor of Country Sampler’s Decorating Ideas magazine.

“We get many requests,” Sloan said recently from her St. Charles, Ill., office. “People are always sending us floor plans and descriptions of their furniture, wanting us to redesign their homes. We don’t routinely do that.

“But this letter just kinda touched us. For one thing, it was the first letter we’d ever received from a child.

“What also made it interesting,” Sloan explained, “was that she seemed genuinely interested in decorating. I remember at that age, the only thing I cared about was whether I had a pink bean-bag chair and posters of teen heartthrobs on my wall.”

Sloan realized Dawna was merely looking for tips. But, by coincidence, California Closets and several other advertisers had contacted the magazine, offering to donate materials for a room makeover.

So Sloan decided to ask Dawna and her parents if they were interested in participating.

Back in rural northeast Spokane County, the Stones listened to the message on their answering machine from someone named Lisa Sloan who wanted to discuss redoing Dawna’s bedroom.

Cathy, Dawna’s mom, was suspicious. So suspicious, in fact, that she didn’t let Dawna return Sloan’s call.

“I told her we couldn’t put out that expense, so just forget it,” Cathy recalled.

But Sloan wasn’t discouraged … and neither was Dawna.

After several more messages from the magazine, Dawna persuaded her mom to let her call back and see how much money was involved. The answer, to their surprise, was none.

All the Stones had to do was paint the room (and, as it turned out, repaint it when the initial color choice didn’t quite work), stencil the walls - a 12-hour task - then stand back as California Closets and photo stylist Donna Pizzi worked their magic.

Pizzi and her husband, photographer Philip Clayton-Thompson, arrived from Portland in early October for the all-day photo session.

“It took 20 minutes just to decide where to put the bed,” Pizzi reported. She finally settled on angling it in the corner “to make the room more interesting.”

Other embellishments included new linens and a comforter, new miniblinds and curtains, a lamp, plus hand-colored prints to liven up the wall.

Pizzi also enlisted cut flowers to create an instant rose garden outside Dawna’s window, and Clayton used umbrella-size reflectors to bathe the subterranean room in natural light.

The results are featured on a four-page spread in the February issue of Country Sampler’s Decorating Ideas.

All told, Sloan figures the makeover included about $2,000 in donated items.

Dawna seems to like the closet and window treatment … not to mention the celebrity treatment.

“At first my friends didn’t believe I was going to be in a magazine,” said the quiet seventh-grader, “but my mom told them it was true. Then they asked if they could be in the picture.

“Now one of my friends is writing to the magazine, asking for help with her room.”

She may have to wait in a very long line.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Color Photos