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Photographs by Kevin A. Roberts
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SLEEPING SOUNDLY
While she’s been cancer-free for several years, Leann was still so scared that she slept near her parents—until now.
When she was in third grade, Leann’s legs started turning to rubber when she tried to walk. When she started seeing double, she and her mother went back to Walmart to see whether her brand-new specs were all right. They were—but Leann wasn’t.
Her doctor found a brain tumor and rushed her to Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “It was really scary,” Leann, now 15, says. “I went in every day for two years and put on a good face. That was the deal I made. I didn’t want the doctors to think I was scared or that I didn’t care.”
While Leann battled cancer, her younger sister, Sarah, fought phobias. “I was so scared about dying,” Sarah says. “Not just me, but everyone around me—my family, my dogs, everyone.”
Leann and Sarah live with their parents and five dogs in a house outside of Foley. Leann loves to sing. And she adores her Build-A-Bear creations: “They have been my best friend since I got sick,” she says. For the past few years, Leann has slept on the floor next to her parents’ bed, afraid to sleep in her own room.
Kim Taylor of Kim Taylor Interior Design volunteered to tackle Leann’s room (above left), while Dana King of Dana’s Design Studio took on Sarah’s (at right). They interviewed the girls to get a detailed wish list.
Leann wanted a room fit for a young queen. “I always wanted to be a princess,” she says, adding ruefully, “That didn’t happen.” Taylor’s challenge was working in the 300-plus bears Leann had collected during treatment.
Sarah requested a room that wasn’t too girly. She wanted white or yellow furniture and a color palette including turquoise. And she needed a lot of bookshelves—she loves to read and starts discussing The Hunger Games before stopping herself. “Now I’m going off topic,” she says.
For five days, 10 University of Michigan students on the Alternative Spring Break program, working alongside the designers, painted, did carpentry, sewed pillows and a quilt, chatted with the girls, and played with the dogs. They also pooled some of their funds to buy a desk for Leann and a chair for Sarah.
When the big reveal was made, Leann’s response, many times over, was “Awesome!” “Thank you so much,” she said. “I don’t recognize this room one bit.” Sarah smiled shyly.
Sitting on the dresser was a handwritten note to the girls from all of the Michigan students. “That will be there forever,” Leann says. “And I will have no problem sleeping here.”
A ROOM FOR NIJAH
Stuck in her room for months due to illness, Nijah was ready for lots of color, her own bed, and way more Justin Bieber.
When now–10-year-old Nijah came home from school with a fever, crying from pain, her mother, Stacey, rushed her to the emergency room. After removing a brain tumor, doctors told Stacey it was cancer. “I was stunned,” says Stacey. “I cried a little. We never know how [one gets cancer], but that was my first question.”
Nijah started rigorous chemotherapy for her Stage II neuroblastoma in July 2011, going in every three weeks until November, when she got a stem-cell transplant. During her recovery, Nijah complained that the bunk bed she shared with her sister, 7-year-old Ra’Niyah, was lumpy. Aleeza Granote, the social worker in oncology at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center, where Nijah was being treated, heard about the bedroom makeover program and signed Nijah up.
“We wanted a great tween room that was colorful, happy, and bright,” says Molly Curlee, owner of City Sprouts, who designed the room with Susan Block of The Designing Block. Twelve students from Virginia Commonwealth University on Alternative Spring Break worked on the room, did laundry and yardwork, and even bathed the dog.
Now the room has the pop feel of Tiger Beat magazine, with colorful horizontal stripes on the wall, a nightstand and twin beds from Rethink Renovations, and mattresses from Weekends Only. Before, an unusable closet had left the room full of clutter, but NewSpace donated fixtures to store everything from clothes to their singing Justin Bieber dolls and Monster High books.
“I wanted something someone can grow with,” says Block. “I thought it would be a great contrast to have all your fun color on the wall and then keep the beds simple.”
Carol House Furniture donated a dresser, which was painted white. The Love lamps are from The Designing Block, the flat-screen TV from Integration Controls, and Block’s friend Susan Callahan sewed the vibrant curtains. One of the VCU students worked for Liberty Tax Service; she contacted the St. Louis office, and it donated toys.
Nijah, who wrote to Justin Bieber from the hospital, really wanted a Bieber bedspread, but “they were so ugly,” Block says. Instead, she got Bieber sheets and throws and called a family friend who works for the singer, who sent a personalized autographed photo.
At the big reveal, Nijah entered, diminutive for her 10 years, with IV hookups still dangling from her arms (she still gets liquids and nutrients intravenously). She smiled shyly at the large crowd, pressing close to her mother while her younger, more rambunctious sister bounded forward and, spotting her name embroidered on her headboard, exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!”
FOR HIS EYES ONLY
After a grueling bone-marrow transplant, Kwesi came home to a clean, classic room—no fuss, no chaos, no pink.
Kwesi’s 9, but he has a James Bond sophistication about him. He likes his room “neat, not sloppy.” He speaks succinctly about the ordeals he braves. (“How do you feel about getting a bone-marrow transplant?” “Nervous.”) The only toys he cares about are LEGOs and Power Rangers; mainly, he loves books and movies.
He is also precise about his favorite piece of furniture: “My big, comfy chair. It’s a mushroom chair, but it doesn’t even look like a mushroom.” When the designers asked his preference of hue, he suggested blue, “because blue used to be my favorite color, and it is again.” He made no other requests of them. Only at the end of the conversation did his worries tumble out in a rush: “I hope it doesn’t look like pink all over the world. ’Cause I am just a boy.”
Retta Leritz and Laura Elzemeyer Murray of Hip & Gable Interiors accepted their mission with a salute, and they gave Kwesi back a room crisp enough for the British Royal Navy. His black corduroy non-mushroom chair (a cozy circle that enfolds him) would remain. Because he also loves to sprawl on the floor—and the wood was a little chilly and hard—they went to Urban Outfitters and bought him a big rug striped with gray and white chevrons. Then Leritz, who’s quite good with a brush, looked up at the off-white ceiling with a gleam in her eye. The next thing Murray knew, her partner was up on a ladder with masking tape, a yardstick, and pale gray paint, crossing the ceiling in wide diagonal stripes.
It looked so good, they kept going, painting Kwesi’s cherry-wood dresser a high-gloss navy and adding silver knobs. They kept the clean white nightstand.
“Because of some of his prior treatments, he has short-term memory loss,” Kwesi’s mother told the designers. So they found him a new bed at Rothman Furniture, with a built-in compartment that doubled the small room’s storage space. (They covered it in blue linens with a subtle white pinstripe.) Beyond Storage donated a closet system with shelves and pullout drawers to make organizing easy; there would be no more frustration, because everything had a clear and obvious place.
As far as Kwesi is concerned, the best part is having bookshelves. Before, he had to keep his “chapter books” out in the living room. Now he can keep them all close by. Before the transplant, his favorites were Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Now, they might be Young Bond.
CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF THE ROOMS, REVEALS, AND VOLUNTEERS.
VIDEO: ROOM REVEALS
AT HOME Foundation for Children With Cancer Room Reveals from St. Louis Magazine on Vimeo.
DONORS
Leann’s Room
Labor: University of Michigan students Jordan Fenner, Jack Fernbacher, Kyle Hager, Olivia Hodgkiss, Katerina Katsoulis, MaryJane Miele, Shoko Mori, Zach Miller, Rohit Nallani, Shelby Sauer, and Brennan Schiller
TVs: Integrated Controls
Closets: NewSpace
Furniture: Rothman Furniture
Carpet: ProSource
Carpet Installer: Cat’s Meow Flooring
Paint: Benjamin Moore, through Paint & Decorating Depot
Designer: Kim Taylor, Kim Taylor Interior Design
Window Treatments, Bedding, Lamps, TV Console, and Desk Chair: Kim Taylor Interior Design
Glass-and-Iron Desk: University of Michigan students
Lighting: Metro Lighting
Carpet: ProSource
Artwork: Karen Heyse
Bears: Build-A-Bear
$100 The Limited Gift Certificate: Joe Olivastro Exercise
Sarah’s Room
Designer: Dana King, Dana’s Design Studio
Artist: Carey Johnson, Mountjoy Designs
Carpentry: Jon Quist, Apex Construction
Quilt Fabric and Instruction: Fabric Nosherie
Fabric: Anatol’s Fabric Outlet
Desk Chair: University of Michigan students
Nijah’s Room
Designer: Susan Block, The Designing Block, and Molly Curlee, City Sprouts
Labor: Virginia Commonwealth University students Katie Blankenbaker, James Denison, Bobbi Finkelstein, Crystal Greene, Christina Hartley, Taylor Kiskamp, Shanequa Lewis, Jaclynn McKay, Karthik Murthy, Andrew Riddle, Juhee Sharma, and LaToria Todd
Closet: NewSpace
Beds: Rethink Renovations
Bed Monogramming: The Initial Design
Dresser: Carol House Furniture
Paint: Sherwin-Williams
Accessories: The Designing Block
Bedding: City Sprouts
Kwesi’s Room
Designers: Retta Leritz and Laura Elzemeyer Murray, Hip & Gable Interiors
Labor: Christian Brothers College High School seniors D.J. Buchholz, Chess Hudson, Andrew Huebner, and Nate Griffin
Bed: Rothman Furniture
Closet System: Beyond Storage
Paint: Benjamin Moore, through Paint & Decorating Depot
Lighting: Metro Lighting
By Jeannette Cooperman, Rosalind Early, and Christy Marshall
