Bedroom Reveal

Ready? Before...

and after!

Again! Before...

and after!

I am so excited to share this room with you all. This is the first room in our house that I have been able to redo from top to bottom. Every surface had to be repainted/rewired/torn out all together. I am so happy with the results. I must put in a disclaimer though...all photography in this blog has been produced by an iphone 4s/5s camera, so the colors are a lot more subdued in real life than they look in these photos. You get the basic idea though. Anyways... ONWARD!

One of my favorite things about this bedroom update is the ceiling fan. It took me forever to find the one I wanted, but even more frustrating was the installation. This room previously had knob and tube wiring. This project was way beyond my know-how, so I asked by dad (who pretty much knows everything) to 'help me out'. And when I say 'help me out' I really mean have him do all the hard stuff and I can hand him tools or something. I can't thank my dad enough for his hard work, its perfect.

My second favorite feature of the new bedroom is the herringbone accent on the walls. I've always thought of herringbone as chevron's cool older cousin. I painted this using painters tape, keeping the pattern loose and fun (perfection is my enemy).

Besides retouching the ceiling, walls and trim, this room also gave me my first opportunity to experiment with painting floors. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I would love to someday refinish all of the floors in our home, but right now is just not the time. These floors have been damaged pretty badly over the last century and my skill level/budget isn't were it should be for a project of that magnitude. So I painted. It wasn't all that difficult, but definitely time consuming as I chose to sand and paint by hand (no rollers here!).

So far its holding up nicely, with the exception of one bad scratch from trying to move furniture by myself. Not very bright of me. Fortunately floor paint goes a long way and I still have almost have half a gallon left for repairs and starting in on the next room.

Because this was my first time decorating a room from top to bottom, I wanted to avoid setting a budget for myself. Instead I took my time and purchased things like paint on a week to week basis as the project progressed. Because I saved money on simple things like spray painting the old floor grate and borrowing items from other rooms, I was able to spend a little more on decorative items that really make the room shine.

Save:

Rather than replacing hodgepodge closet shelving, I pulled off the mismatched contact paper, cleaned the boards thoroughly and then covered them with a coat of paint that unified the whole closet. The full length mirror was leftover from my dorm room days. I gave the cheap mirror a coat of spray paint and now it doesn't look so bad.

Splurge:

Mounted antler necklace holder. How could I resist. (From Marshall's. I don't feel that guilty)

BTW, this phoot is more representative of the paint color in real life.  Hosta, Martha Stewart.

Save:

Runner to cover damaged floors. Nuff said.

Splurge:

The bedding. Yes, I knowingly bought an egregiously overpriced bedding set from Target. But I love it. And doesn't true love conquer all? I just hope it holds up in the wash.

Save: 

Pretty much everything else. Furniture is all hand-me-down. I broke the mirror on the dresser trying to move it by myself (hence the only scratch on the newly painted floors), but besides replacing that, they were completely free. Half of the artwork was thrifted/gifted. The beautiful watercolor prints were purchased several years ago at Art on the Green in Coeur d 'Alene and are by Dean Crouser from Mt. Hood.

Needless to say, the room isn't quite done. The lava lamp doesn't really work for the space does it? I'll be sharing a tutorial on the herringbone accent walls soon.

What? I have a blog?

So, it has been about a year since my last post (I know, shameful). I have been keeping busy working on my prerequisites for nursing school, so I really haven't had a lot of time for anything besides work and study. But I'm done for about six months (assuming I get accepted into the program). Literally right after my last final on Thursday I got back in the saddle and started up again. My current project: The guest bedroom.

We have three rooms upstairs. Two bedrooms, and a smaller room that is probably better suited as an office or craft room. We don't have kids yet, so the plan for now is to use one room as a guest room and have the other smaller one ready to convert into a nursery when the time comes. 

So here is a kind of before picture. I sort of forgot to get a real before picture because I wasn't even thinking about blogging. So this is just after I pulled the carpet up. Note the super awesome pink/purple walls and busted blinds. Yeah. We're that classy.

I was a little disappointed when I pulled up the carpet. The wood is in relatively good shape except two large rectangles that have been replaced with plywood. We aren't planning on refinishing the floors for a few more years, so after we do our "in the mean time" paint job I'm hoping we can cover them with furniture/area rugs.

The lighting is also going to be a bit of an issue. Our house still has a lot of old knob and tube wiring, and this room is no exception. For the most part I try to be respectful of things that are original to the house (for instance, we will never be painting over the dark wood trim downstairs) but this old fixture had to go. Our upstairs bedrooms get extremely hot during the summer and really stuffy and gross during the winter. We have a small ceiling fan picked out and I will update on how horrible the installation turns out to be.

I'm over half way done with the paint job (trust me it looks so much better!). In the mean time I'll leave you with a cute picture of my dog right after he got to open his nautical themed Bark Box. Here's to six more months of home improvement blogging!

Fixing the Floors, Part One

Its important to note that up until now my husband and I hadn't done any renovations to the upstairs. I'd been dreading it. I can barely handle the downstairs, but the idea of starting on the upper floor was just overwhelming. Besides the raggedy carpet, there is a bathroom with peeling paint and drastically outdated vinyl floors. Pink bedrooms, missing light fixtures, unlevel floors and... well, you get the idea. I'm not ready for all these tasks. I'm barely proficient with a power drill. I suppose I just need to remember to breathe and take it one project at a time.

We finally pulled the upstairs carpet this weekend. My husband and I had been putting it off all summer and we finally caved in after our plans for the lake were spoiled. What can I say, the two of us are truly gluttons for punishment. If you are thinking about removing your carpets I have one solid recommendation; Make sure you are up to date on tetanus shots. Seriously. By the end of the day my hands were covered in scrapes, pin pricks and blisters.

Technically speaking, removing the carpet and foam was the easy part. Pulling the individual staples and nailboards from the floor took the majority of the afternoon.

When we started this job we weren't really sure how bad the floors would look underneath. The entryway and dinning room carpets had already been pulled and didn't look too bad, but for everything we knew, the floors upstairs could have a great amount of water damage or any number of things wrong.

Here's what we found.

The stairs are in surprisingly good shape. Not a lot of deep scratches and it looks like there may even be some original stain still showing. the rest is painted in two different shades of brown. Maybe from a runner that used to go down the center?

The second floor is a little worse for the wear, but not completely hopeless. Its painted a light grey and covered pretty thoroughly with scratches and dents. Hopefully nothing that a heavy sanding can't cure. These aren't any kind of fancy hardwood planks (just pine I think), but with a little love I think It will turn out okay. Here's a closeup of some of the damage. Thankfully its not all  that deep.

Next step: sanding. Wish us luck!