Sprucing up the Master Bedroom Part 1 (of one million)

Have I ever posted about our master bedroom? I don't think I have. Hmmmm I wonder why?

Oh, right! Because it's (excluding the sunroom) the worst looking room in the house. Riiiiight!

That up there is what we've been staring at for an embarassing amount of time now. And before you say anything, not that you would, but...Yes, we have a TV in the bedroom and Yes, it is everything I've ever dreamed of. I watch Bob's Burgers on Hulu Plus from the comfort of my own bed and it's fantastic. Fantastic I say!

But I digress.

Let's begin at the beginning long before "cord corner" came to be!

When we first moved in this was what we were workin' with:

This was actually the first room we painted.

We also had that light fixture hanging very um...sideways from the ceiling.

We replaced both of the overhead lights in the bedroom with really simple porcelain ceiling fixtures and these pretty bulbs from 1,000bulbs.com

We also didn't have a headboard for the better part of three years...

(sorry for the pic. this was pre- space phone and apparently I was too lazy/ashamed to take a real picture.)

My mom and I remedied that situation with a few yards of fabric, some foam and a piece of plywood

When it came time to put something above it, I asked Conan to enlarge a slide photo that he had come across at work that I had fallen in love with (awkward pictures fascinate me). He asked the owner's permission, she said "sure!" and we had a frame made at a place here in town to put it in...

We also got these throw pillows when we bought our gray couch and they were this awful blue and silver and brown color so I bought two pillow covers from Hobby Lobby for $7 each and just shoved the whole dang pillow down in there. Success!

Which brings us conveniently back to the "cord corner" sitch.

About a month ago, I came across a little cabinet at the Goodwill for $5 and I bought it for this corner.

I wanted to paint it a really bright, bold color to go with the headboard but I didn't want to throw down $15 on a quart of paint for a $5 cabinet.

Luckily, my procrastination paid off. Kind of.

Last weekend, our local ACE Hardware gave away free quarts of paint (tinted any color you want) to each customer! I got up bright and early and went to pick out my color. Unfortunately, the paint they were giving away was FLAT ENAMEL. Womp womp!

Whatever. Free paint.

I picked the color "Fiery Coral"

and here's the damage after one coat:

It doesn't look that bad but the flatness was really bummin' me out so I put on another couple of coats, let it dry REALLY good and then put on two coats of clear polyurethane...

 I wasn't sure if it would work or not but it did fine! Flat enamel problem solved!

I spray painted the little knob things from silver to gold and then voila!

I was a little concerned about it being too orange-y while I was painting it in the sunroom but it looks great in the bedroom and the color is slowly growing on me.

My mom helped me install a cord cover for the mess that was hanging out of the TV and now it looks about ONE MILLION times better.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And the picture sitting there?

Another slide Conan found at work that I fell in love with and just had to have framed. It's a guy, giving his girlfriend a noogie next to a trash can in front of some mountains.

So if you ever want to give me a present, just remember that I like awkward pictures of women rejecting men's advances in beautiful locations...from the 1950's.

Ya' know, just FYI.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's almost 80 degrees outside and the exterior lights on the trailer WILL NOT work for some unknown reason >: \

Mega frustrating.

More on that at a later date, though.

Have a great weekend, friends!



What We've Been Up To Lately

Man, oh man! Have things been suuuuuper busy around here. I know it doesn't seem like it based on the blog but trust me, behind the scenes it's a flurry of activity. Mmmmm flurries... - it's also incredibly, incredibly hot here in the Midwest and it's starting to take its toll on my brain.

Meep, moop, brain melting. <-- See what I mean?

Well, something is better than nothing so I thought I would give you a very speedy catch-up on what's been going on around these parts the past week or so.

First off, our third anniversary was a huge success!

Conan made me the most beautiful card. Stand back folks, because I'm about to gush.

He is just so darn talented and sweet and thoughtful and I could go on but in the interest of time, I won't.

It was our "leather" anniversary and bless his little heart, he had been stalking Craigslist for weeks trying to find me a Chesterfield (my dream couch - I know, I have a couch problem). He couldn't find one so he drew one instead. It's for the best, we don't need anymore couches.

He also got me my very favorite flower in the world, a hydrangea. Can you believe that color? Gorgeous!

We went to this nice Italian place we'd been meaning to try and had some gelato afterwards. It was basically perfect.

And a nice little surprise? The Folio Society saw that it was our anniversary on the tweeter and sent us a really awesome copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I was tickled when I came home and found the box waiting for me. It will always be a special reminder of this anniversary and it looks right at home on our shelves.

Alright, now on to house stuff.

Many moons ago, Conan got this table for free from a Barnes and Noble and while he got his art degree, it sat in his studio. Ever since then? It's been in his dad's shed. Well, we finally decided it was time to go and get it. This picture really doesn't do the length justice (it's about eight feet). Our old table was part of a set my mom got a garage sale a few years ago and even though it wasn't a bad table, it wasn't as sturdy as I would have liked and it couldn't fit all of our families around it on holidays. Needless to say, that won't be a problem with this one. Now I just need to figure out if I want to stain it or paint it and what to do with this mish mash chair situation. Thoughts?

My dad came up earlier this week, walked in the door and said, "We're painting your fence today." So, there was that. I kid. It was very nice of him to come and *ahem* force me to do something I had been putting off for oh, two years now. But seriously, it looks ONE MILLION times better and brighter with a fresh coat on it.

Lastly, as part of my "We're going to have a grown up bedroom, dang it!" initiative I upholstered a headboard. Well, I should say, I upholstered it poorly and then my mom helped me take it all apart and do it over again much, much better. That's right. I did such a bad job that we had to take it apart and do it AGAIN. Whatever, it looks nice and that's all that matters. I took lots of pictures of the process and I'll do a separate post just about the bedroom at a later date.

Oh, a couple more things.

Thing one:

We've been invited to be in This Old House again.

They're sending a photographer and stylist out sometime in the next week to snap a few pics and such. I'm trying to pretend that this is NBD so my head doesn't shoot off into space as a result of trying to prepare for them to get here. Eeks.

We're very excited to see what they come up with and to soak up some free styling tips from a pro.

Thing two:

The best thing.

The coolest thing.

I can't say.

Sorry!

It's awesome.

Soon.

Promise.

Soon.

Before & After: Upstairs Hall Corner

We really haven't potsed much about upstairs but that's all about to change. It's kind of a mess up there what with the bathroom being torn up but that will be done soon (eek!) and we'll have pictures galore!

For now, here is a little before and after of the end of the hall near the front of the house. From left it goes Master Bedroom, Home Office, Guest Bedroom (which you can read about here).

As you can see from the "before" it was a pretty colorful house.

The office shelves were next and finally I got around to painting the guest room.

The guest room window is one of the few in the house we have actually re-corded and re-glazed.

It works like a dream and I'll post about that arduous process as soon as I can!

Also on the agenda:

a post about the office shelving

and for all you wood lovers out there, I'm stripping one of the hall doors that was painted white!

Stay tuned!

*The poster above our bed can be purchased at our Etsy shop*



New Lighting

So Katherine took a cue from Door Sixteen and had me order the same bulbs that Anna used for the wall sconces in their new apartment (here's the link).  Katherine wanted something very simple that would be in keeping with our very clean, very white bedroom, and she decided that those bulbs in ceramic fixtures would be perfect.  So while I was at work one Saturday, she and her mother replaced the hole in our ceiling with a ceramic base that Katherine found at the DAV for $1 and put the bulb in.  Pretty quick and easy, I suppose--I don't really know, it was done when I got home.

A keen eyed observer might notice that the room is a little messy in this photo and might also notice the black spot on the bed, which is:

A wiener dog mistakenly thinking that he's people!

Interior Tour

We had taken some photos on the walkthrough, but rather than post those, I'll show you some photos that I took the first week that we had the house.  We hadn't moved in yet, because we had to repair the flue for the water heater and patch a couple of leaky pipes in the basement--credit for this goes to Katherine's mom who brought over her plumbing kit and with a few dollars worth of parts from the neighborhood Ace Hardware got everything going.

This is our living room. The wood looks alright in photos but it was honestly pretty heavily stained and marke.  The floor, however, was evidently refinished sometime in the semi-recent past and was actually in pretty good shape; everyone that comes in says, "oh did you refinish these yourself?"  You can also see our beautiful old windows that still contain mostly original glass--nice and wavy.

Here you can see our fireplace and mantle. Through the door to the right is our dinning room which is painted a slightly darker shade of purple.  You can also see our very nice sort of knock-off Danish Modern chairs; the one by the fireplace was $19.95 at the DAV and the one in the dining room was part of a set for $40 off of craigslist.  

This is our main staircase (there's a servants staircase that leads up from the kitchen).  It's actually a little crooked due to the house settling a little over the years.

The view from our dining room back into the living room.  Note the doors.

Here's our kitchen.  You can note the water damage on the ceiling, which I watched closely for a few months after moving in without noticing any additional evidence of water penetration.  I believe at some point in the past the upstairs bathroom was partially remodeled after causing the damage here.   On the windowsill is a little plastic cow that we found in the basement, shrink-wrapped and covered in dirt.  All in all though, the kitchen is good looking so it'll do for now, but it's on the list of rooms needing a remodel.

Another view of the kitchen.  You can see the back room that eventually became our laundry room. The electric oven works well and gets very hot; however, when we moved in there was no 220V outlet for it, only a gas-pipe sticking up through the floor.

Here's a view from the upstairs hallway showing, left to right, the "master" bedroom, the future office, and the future guestroom. The hallway, like the future guest room, is also white but it appears to be just painted over with primer.

And here's the "master" bedroom.  I think it was originally two rooms and they cut through the wall and added that archway.  This is the first room we painted, and you can see Katherine knocking the dust off the walls so we could get started with the Kilz. 

And at the back of the house is the sunroom, which was the only room in the house that was still carpeted.  Katherine tore it up one day and we shoved it out the windows.  The floors are very rough underneath, but Katherine's got some plans for it.