Master Bedroom Updates

So, last week I was talking about all the things on my to-do list. And how before company comes we always flip into high gear and simultaneously our to-do list becomes a mile long. Well this past weekend it was only family, but thankfully (yes thankfully), the list still kicked into gear so we could get a lot done. Especially since it was the first time my dad/brothers came to visit and I wanted them to like the house. Of course, the wall paper I started stripping wasn’t even completely done, but at least the deck got pressure washed. The house was clean, and the sun broke out of the clouds here and there, so all in all it was a great weekend. We saw the sights, got rained on, enjoyed the beach, went out to eat and just spent time as a family again, something we haven’t been able to do with all of us since Christmas. It was time.

Since the pressure washing was really on Bryan’s to-do list, and getting the wall-paper down in time and re-painted wasn’t feasible if we wanted to sleep at night (we did), I tackled things like actually getting some decorations up on our walls. Welcome to the slightly decorated, definitely in progress, master bedroom.

First up you can see the wallpaper removal in progress, a pair of new lamps (anniversary present from my parents, thanks Mom and Dad!) and matching side-tables, originally my great grandparents passed on to me from my Aunt. Things that still need to change? Hm, the wall paper has to go. Maybe we could move some of the outlets? There are a million of them and they are spread out to fit a king bed in between them. Hence the ridiculous amount of wires and cords hanging around. Something’s gotta give. Thankfully we are getting pretty good at dealing with outlets and moving light fixtures, just remember to turn off the power!

Did you notice the lovely hooks that are hanging at super crazy heights? I have no idea what hung there, but they will too be coming down. Then all those holes will be filled and we will be on our way to a better bedroom. We need some sort of eye-catching feature behind the bed. Something to help fill the space and make the large room, with our proportionally too small bed, seem right. Curtains? A painting? Who knows. We have our eyes peeled though. Our cheap eyes peeled. This is to be a cheapie renovation.

Next up? That fan on the floor? The noise it gives off helps me get to sleep at night. But it’s not a visually appealing fan. Maybe we can do something about that. And the gray board you can just see behind the headboard? We ripped it out of the closet and are going to cut it up and re-use it in there. We took it out because it was chopping the longest hanging area of the closet completely in half height wise and hanging clothes there was impossible. (I needed all the hanging space, yikes!) But we still have a 4 foot section of the closet we can’t really use. We are both too short to reach the high bar and could use more shelf space. So for now, to prevent further damage to the house walls, we are just living with it where it is. And when we have some time to saw it up and make some brackets to support it (in the next few weeks) it will be going back to the closet.

This is the wall of doors to our bathroom and closet. Yes I know, you haven’t gotten to see photos of the bathroom yet, but you aren’t missing much. Think dated fixtures, wallpaper, and bad grout. It’s ok though. We bought the house knowing we would want to fix it up. This way we can save up our pennies and fix it the way we’d like. Oh, and ps, the door that’s you can just tell is open at the far left is the door to the office/library.  Anyways, back to the wall as it stands now, we have some wall sconces, a wedding present from Bryan’s cousins, a needlepoint from a sweet lady from my home church in PA, and the present I gave Bryan for our anniversary. I’ll have to write-up more about that later. The hamper doesn’t usually stay there and we still need to take out the electric baseboard on the left hand side of the wall as the furnace in the master works and it’s not needed anymore. Not to mention the lovely crack from settling that has been there for eons…there are at least three colors of wall paint trying to cover it up in the closet, bizarre. You’d think spackle would be a better way to fill a crack then paint, but some people are crazy.

Next up is my dresser. I’ve had this dresser (and the entire bedroom suite) since I was a little girl, luckily it expanded from a double bed to a queen so we saved a little money that way. Maybe someday we will actually decide on a suite for ourselves and move this to the guest room, but for now, it works great in our room and isn’t so feminine that Bryan doesn’t like it.
Back to decorating the dresser, I really like hats. Did you notice? And I realized that rather than living with the dresser empty and barren of anything interesting, I needed some art. And what’s better than free, no-effort art?

What was my solution? Hats. I only grabbed the bigger, statement hats and added a few framed prints from Home Goods of fashion drawings featuring girls in hats. It certainly adds some life and interest to an otherwise dry side of the room. Plus, it helped that part of my anniversary present from Bryan was the vintage hat box on the left, it totally adds some vintage charm to the room. To fill in the rest of the space on the dresser are some cherished photos from the wedding, and pre-wedding shots of me and my parents at their favorite places (mom with the beach, and dad with the ski slopes). Of course my precious moments cake topper/nod to my beloved mommom, and my perfume bottle collection are cherished mementos I couldn’t bear to stash away. Along with my happy green fern, that side of the room feels so much more homey. All it needs now is fresh paint, a comfy chair, maybe more plants? Or more hats. I just love hats. It must have been all the ones Mom put me in as a kid. Eventually. (that’s my new motto).

Here we land on Bryan’s dresser. I stashed one of his favorite engagement pictures, in a dark ‘manly’ frame on top of the pewter ‘James Bond-esque’ tray that holds his sunglasses, cologne, wallet, watch, and Blistex. He’s never without his Blistex. A man that loves sailing and the water as much as Bry has to have some nautical things on his dresser too, so an old compass we picked up at an antique store fits the bill perfectly. His sorts of plants are the aloe vera and the orchid that adds some height to the otherwise flat display on top of the dresser. We have to at least hang the framed photo but we will get there before next year I’m sure.

I can’t talk about the small changes we did in here to get ready for my parents without talking about the one big, expensive change we have made to the room so far. Also on the wall with Bryan’s dresser, at the foot of our bed, are these new fabulous glass sliders. The doors that came with the bedroom had lost their thermal seal, were very foggy, and made the room fluctuate so much according to the temperature outside. Our energy bills thank us. And so do our wallets. I have plans for these curtains though. The cats love to try to climb them, and have succeeded in bending the support bars down just enough my OCD eye notices them. I’m planning to screw the brackets into the ceiling, and sewing some coordinating fabric onto these curtains to make them fit the space better. Then the curtains on this big 8 foot slider, and the two tiny 2 foot wide windows we have on either side of our bed will relate better. (Those curtains will be getting edited as well!)

These little changes took hardly any time, and since all of it was stuff we owned pre-purchasing the house, except the gifts (came from a different budget) and the two pictures from Home Goods, our grand total for money spent on decorating this room so far rings in at $20. A number like that makes this budget-conscious girl happy. And that’s a perfect number when a pair of newlyweds (yes I’m still clinging to the term) saved their pennies, and the gifts they received from the wedding to buy their first house, a house that may be more than a ‘starter’ home. A house we can pour our blood, sweat and tears into (and already have!) A house that needs work to get it to where we want it, but we are happy to do it. To take this crazy, contemporary house and make it a home, something most contemporary style homes struggle to ever become.

What do you think? I think it’s come a long, long way. There still is a long way to go. But the journey and the progress makes us happy. Thrilled actually. To save your fingers from scrolling, here is a soon after we moved in picture (with the addition of our furniture, curtains from the rental bedroom, and the kitchen fan which we swapped out with the dining room esque light in here. Oh, and a cat.)

Yikes am I glad we have moved on from here! What’s your bedroom style? A calm, warm, relaxing haven (what we are trying to accomplish)? Or an anything goes, it’s my bedroom and the guests hardly come back, here the door stays shut, function over form approach? Something in between?

Adventure Days

Today in an effort to curb my boredom since there is only so much house I can clean in one day, and since I’m unable to work on any more of my furniture overhaul projects (mainly sanding and spray-painting) due to a massive rainstorm that’s been in the area since 8 am I’m going to let you all in on one of our favorite date ideas. We do it every so often, and we started it in college. What is it you ask? Adventure day. (you probably deduced as much from the title)

The simple logistics: pick any Saturday. Set a budget. Scour craigslist for garage sale listings, and pick 4-5 to hit in a morning, making sure they are near enough in proximity to make the driving worth the gas. The criterion for selecting the sales (for us at least) are that the ads list something we are interested in (basically anything other than clothing and children’s items), and we like to head out in new directions to see more of the country (only really necessary if you are relatively new to the area. The use of a smart phone is infinitely helpful on the go as you can search in the area for thrift stores and antique/consignment stores to check out as well. And of course, since it’s a date, lunch on the go is often part of the day.

Just like grocery shopping we start with a list. This past Saturday our list included: a shuttle, a mirror or two, books, decor items, a pair of lamps, dining chairs, art supplies, and any other odd or end that met our fancy.

We started off early, another reason, besides the budget that we don’t do this very often! Our first stop was an estate sale, which always kind of creep me out, but they had several key words in their ad that met our fancy. We found a mirror(check!) and a very old brass key (decor item, check!) for a couple of dollars. At the next place we found an air conditioning unit (perfect for the guest room!) and other art/decorating things that we liked, but stuck with a necessity for guests visiting and left with the air conditioning unit, leaving the other things behind. (That budget means we are selective.) Our next stop took us to some cheap art supplies for me, and a bit of a cool rock collection (I have a brother’s birthday coming up, and he loves rocks! Hopefully he thinks this is a great present.)

Of course you don’t always find stuff at every place you check out, but that’s part of the fun. It’s a grown-up treasure hunt. Our last planned stop was a cool old hole in the wall thrift/pawn shop run by a very friendly Turkish couple and we really hit the jackpot. I mentioned to Bryan I liked an old mirror, the owner insisted it was a gift and we should take it (it’s in my pile of things to fix-up, but it shouldn’t take much work.) He also had quite the collection of National Geographic magazines, he’d take a dollar an issue. I asked what if we took them all, and he said 50 dollars for all of them. (Feeling that was a good deal, but steep, I said we’d think about it.  With that he said he’d give them to us for 40 dollars. We agreed and walked out of his shop with 120 pristine issues at .33 cents each.

Along the way we found some great old cloth-covered hardback books (also not smelly!) and some old oil lanterns to add some character to our built-in shelves in the family room, without it being cluttered. That shuttle we found at a three story antique store downtown, it the perfect size for my loom, and then I’ll really be in business. The lamps and chairs were a bust, but there’s always next time. Besides, there is a pair of lamps I’ve got my eye on at a consignment shop just down the hill. If they are there in a week or two maybe they will be picked up. Of course, they probably won’t be there. One bonus find, besides the rock collection, and the air conditioning unit was an old stool for the kitchen, and a steam powered boat for Bryan to tinker around with. Guess the loom last week and the boat this week were our unofficial one month married presents to each other. It certainly gives us something to do on a rainy evening.

The good news? We finished up with 1/5 of the budget still in our wallets. A successful day and quite the haul without even breaking the bank, and we were home shortly after lunchtime ready to set up, clean our new acquisitions and play house. I love adventure days.

The first mirror is already in use in the entryway, adding a bit of depth to the walls, the Nat Geos are on the shelves and prove to be good reading, and the old books and lanterns are adding some library/New England charm. The shuttle is wound and ready for me to weave, and Bryan’s already got the engine running on the boat.

Now that my house is clean, and this post is written I’m thinking it’s time to start working on that free mirror and seeing what I come up with. Then I’ll have to start taping of the master bedroom to get rid of that dreaded peach color. Bryan will be happy about that.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!