Category Archives: Master Bedroom

How to turn a crusty old shirt into a lovely stylish runner

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I’ve got one of my favorite types of projects for you all today- quick, easy, cheap, and no sew!

For the past few months I’ve had  $10 Ikea sheepskin rug  serving as the runner on top of our bureau, and I loved it. But now it’s spring (so they tell me… all I see is snow…) so I wanted to trade it out for something a little lighter.

I went to the Salvation Army in hopes of getting something lace, but that’s not what the thrifting gods had in mind for me. I ended up with an old, lightweight beachy shirt and worked my magic to make it awesome.

PicMonkey Collage

I don’t have any how-to pictures because it was really trial and error but this is how it went:

  • I cut off the collar and the seamed sections where the buttons are. Then I cut off the arms and set them aside. Then I cut at the seam to separate the back from the two front panels and set those aside too
  • I laid the back on top of my bureau with the frayed edges tucked under, then I layered the two front pieces on top of it with the frayed edges tucked under.
  • It still looked a little thin so I cut the cuffs off the arms and layered them on top too

So no sewing, just tucking the cuts under so it looks like one cohesive piece. Just keep manipulating it around until it looks how you’d like.

My bureau is impossible to take a good picture of because the window just blows everything out- I tried morning, afternoon, night, sunny days, and dark days. So this is the best I’ve got:

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I think it looks perfect for summer, the fabric goes well with the burlap curtains and is a nice light color, close to the color of the slipper chair, so the gold candle holder and the picture frames can do all the standing out.

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I like the look of it being layered, and it can be moved around and stretched out- and it was $6. That’s probably my favorite part.

 

Have you switched out any of your wintery stuff yet?

 

 

DIY Remote Pouch

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Today I’ve got a realy quick and easy project for you all: a DIY no-sew remote pouch.

We have 3 remotes in our bedroom- one for the tv, one for the DVD player, and one for the Roku box. All of them have been stored on the bookshelf we use as a tv stand, and that was really messing with my ability to style those shelves so clearly something had to be done. I decided to make a pouch to stick on the side of the bed so we could store the remotes there instead.

To do this you will need:

  • fabric of your choice (and actually, a cloth napkin or placement would probably do the trick)
  • velcro
  • hem tape

To make:

  1. Lay out your fabric with your remotes on top and cut enough so that you can fold the fabric up from the bottom and completely cover the remotes, then give yourself an extra inch or two to create a flap
  2. Iron your fabric to get rid of any wrinkles then using your hem tape iron in the sides to create a fray-free edge
  3. Once your sides have been hem taped, fold your fabric up (leaving that two in flap out of it) and use your hem tape to attached it all into a pouch
  4. Fold the flap over and iron it to create a seam- don’t hem tape it, you’re just doing this to train the fabric to lay flat
  5. Add velcro to the back and stick it to the side or back of your bed!

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I designed the pouch so the remotes could either stand up straight or lay on their side, it’s only about 6 or 7 inches long and a bit wider then that. I didn’t take any measurements or take care to make the lines all absolutely straight because this is going to be hidden anyway.

 

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If you don’t already have velcro strips lying around your house I recommend you buy a big ol’ box of them. I use velcro for freaking everything- even hanging pictures sometimes. It’s DIY gold.

 

 

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I didn’t take care to make this particularly gorgeous or perfect because it will always be hidden by the comforter when the bed is made, but it does the trick and Matt loves it.

 

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It doesn’t make the prettiest pin, but it does the trick :)

How I Showed My Closet Who’s Boss: Part II

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Yesterday I shared with you how I took out my nasty closet door and hung up a sheet instead… and left you with a picture of Matt drilling into the ceiling right next to it. Get ready a post full ‘o pictures all about what we did next:

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Quality Control Inspectors Zsa Zsa and Dutch waited patiently while made made not one but TWO holes in the ceiling. He drilled holes for anchors, lightly tapped them in with a hammer, then screwed hooks into them. And what was to go on those hooks? A hanging shelf DIY’d by our good friend Scott.

To measure out the holes we just used our level, which is a few inches wide so by default that’s how we decided how far out from the wall to make them- no real science there. And the required drill bit for the anchors and screws came with them, which made that pretty simple as well.

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The shelf is just a piece of wood with four holes drilled into it (two on each edge) and some rope knotted through the holes, to make what I call a swing shelf.

At some point in time I might paint the shelf, or maybe just the bottom of it, but right now I’m digging it au’ naturale.

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The shelf is super thin- it doesn’t stick in your way when you walk in the room because it’s also where the door opens into. But it does a great job at filling the gap between the lazy sheet-for-a-closet-door and the edge of the door.

Let’s see that bad boy up close:

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For now on the shelf I’ve got 2 pieces of a 5 canvas painting, some empty jars form my hoard, and an old tea tin my grandmother gave to me. But you know that could change any day. I love that we’re finally getting to use at least some of that painting, unfortunately it doesn’t really have a place in this house to hang somewhere in its’ entirety. If you’re interested, it’s this unbelievably amazing piece - check out the seller’s whole shop really because she was lovely to work with and incredibly talented.

Life. Is. Good.

Life. Is. Good.

The closet door update is kind of meh, but with the addition of the shelf that side of the room is looking WORLDS different from where we started. Let’s not forget though, it’s not the stuff in the house that matters- but the people (and pets) you share it with. :)

And just for reference, here’s a shot of the other side of the room so you can see how it all works together:

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So what do you think: would you paint the whole shelf? Maybe jazz up just the bottom? Leave it bare?

Other DIY projects in this room: hand stamped tv stand // spray painted bureau
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Polkadot Pretties   Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

How I Showed My Closet Who’s Boss: Part I

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Most of the projects I do around here get done because I just can’t stand to look at something any more. Such was the case with my closet… one morning I just woke up and absolutely couldn’t take it anymore.

Here’s why:

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When we moved into the house one of the mirrored doors was just leaning against the closet, not attached at all. I threw it in the trash because mirrored doors sucked anyway. But then we got a puppy and so I put this gate thing I found in the shed up against the closet door so he couldn’t get in and eat all my shoes. And it’s stayed that way for a year and a half. It’s disgusting, you’ll notice in other posts about the bedroom I shoot around it because I hate it so much. Finally, I couldn’t freaking live one more day with this monstrosity.

I brainstormed all day at work about how I was going to take this mother down and what I would put up to replace it- with a budget of $0 because that’s my budget for pretty much everything. When I got home from work I went through my hoard and marched upstairs with a screwdriver, a bedsheet, and a curtain rod. In a dreamworld I would have bought lovely doors for this closet, but those aren’t free. So after I took out some screws from the door and added some different screws in the wall I ended up with this:

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The closet door was literally only attached with two screws, it took under 5 minutes to get it off. The sheet is actually the sheet that goes with our bedset, but we’re weird and only use comforters so it’s just been used to protect our couch from dog paws. The curtain rod was leftover from our old apartment.

The sheet was queen sized so it had to be hemmed up about 16 inches, which I did with stitch witchery (no sew adhesive, see here). Then I just cut a hole on either end of the top pocket and slid it on the curtain rod.

But obviously while I was at it I cleaned my closet as well:

ooooh! ahhh!

ooooh! ahhh!

  • I moved all my excess duffel bags and totes into the guest room closet.
  • On the top shelf of the closet are totes and purses I use regularly and all my long sleeved shirts.
  • On the rod are, in this order: black pants, jeans, brown pants, summer pants, cardigans, button ups, dusters, dresses, zip ups, suit jackets (Note: I highly recommend you all go out and buy layered hangers for your pants- like these ones)
  • The floor from left to right has: sneakers (can’t see them), a tote for hats and scarves, a three draw chest (nylons, knee highs, and socks), another three draw chest (corkscrew open toed shoes, regular open toed shoes, flip flops and ballet flats), and a three shelf metal thingy that has been rearranged since this picture (black and brown shoes, color shoes, black boots)

And yeah, I still have a full bureau of clothes and an entire second closet downstairs with the rest of my shoes and all of my jackets. Yiikes.

But anyway, closed up the closet looks like this:

welcome to blahdom, population: this wall.

welcome to Boring Town, population: this wall.

The curtain is obviously less than ideal, but it does the trick and it matches the rest of the room. But you KNOW I didn’t leave that whole sad wall empty for long….

There's my main squeeze, drilling into the ceiling.

There’s my main squeeze, drilling into the ceiling.

Come back tomorrow to see what else we did!!

That’s right friends- A CLIFFHANGER!!

It’s Curtains for You

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In my One Year Later post, I left you with a bedroom that looked like this:

It was ok, just sort of average and doing it’s thing without commanding any extra attention.

A few days ago I hand stamped our tv stand and I was particularly careful to crop the pictures because I also (as you may have guessed) got new curtains! I had about a million sets of Big Lots curtains, acquired over years of apartment living, and now we are officially a fancy curtain only household. And by fancy I mean either my  Nonna sewed them or I spent more then $10 per panel on them.

I’ve been wanting new bedroom curtains for oh, about a year now but it’s really hard for me to spend money on something like that. Curtains are  expensive. My new curtains were $25 a panel, and we needed four. But it was oh so worth it for this basket woven goodness:

Texture! Sheen! Burlapy!

I am in love with how they look in the room, and when it comes down to it, it was worth spending the money to really love how it looks in a room I spend a lot of my time in. Also, I plan to have these curtains for years so $100 on something I’m going to enjoy everyday for many days seems pretty worth it.

Originally I super wanted gold curtains, I actually had my hand on gold zebra striped curtains and really had to talk myself out of them. At the end of the day I want the bedroom to be unique, but also serene. And gold zebra stripes don’t really say “serene.”

I went with a texture instead of a pattern because we’ve already got patterns with the chair and the comforter set and one more would have just been too much (even for me).

Also, I have a really hard time photographing my bedroom because the light is so orange-y in there and I just have a point and shoot camera, but trust that it looks lovely in there. Also, moving the lamp from next to the bed to behind the chair made an unusually large impact on the room. It’s much less cluttered and easier on the eye when you walk in and now it looks more like a little reading nook then a random chair in a corner.

They have grommets! Man I love grommets! The living room curtains and sun room sliding door curtains have grommets as well (metal circular hoops instead of a fabric pocket).

The curtains go all the way down to the floor, which wasn’t really necessary but it’s what I could find so I went with it. Also, I would normally recommend hanging curtains about 5 or 6 inches above the window to elongate the room, but our ceilings are really low and we’re not able to do that.

What a difference new curtains makes! I don’t hate this room nearly as much as I used to anymore, and Matt was on board with the change as well so that was encouraging. It’s just so much cozier and warmer in the room with heavy fabric, and the burlap look really ties in well with the navy dresser.

Happy Friday!! :)

Sponges: The Anti Stencil

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Man, I love the look of stenciled walls. I long for a stenciled wall. Alas, I am absolutely not capable of stenciling. I’m not going to stop trying to, but I am going to recognize that the problem is me and not the paint, or the wall, or the stencil, or anything else I try to blame it on.

ANYWAY since I did not make it to the top 10 of the Vintage Revivals Epic Room Makeover (my entry is here) I’m taking it upon myself to make my bedroom epic. I already customized my bureau and I felt the need to customize my tv stand as well. I thought I’d try a stencil-like look without the chaos of a stencil.

Here she is before (& blurry, sorry):

Just a regular old Target tv stand we bought two years ago, I think it was around $60

Inspired by this post over at Vintage Revivals, I thought I’d try to use a sponge to fancy this stand up a bit. First I took a regular kitchen sponge, traced the circular bottom of a candle onto it with a Sharpie, then cut out my circle. I chose a candle only because when I walked around the house looking for things that were circles, the candle was the size I liked best. My method is highly technical.

Next, I took some leftover paint from our half bath and a painters tray and did a few test stamps on a piece of paper. It looked awesome. So I cleared out the shelves and put painters tape around my borders:

Boom!

This method is supposed to look imperfect, it’s how I got around the whole inability to stencil thing.  I went up and across stamping rows of circles with my sponge:

Sometimes I went top to bottom, sometimes I went across. Basically, the amount of paint on your sponge determines the look of the stamp and I wanted varied and random application.

I just dipped the sponge in the paint, wiped the excess off in the painters tray, and then stamped 4-5 times before reapplying new paint. Sometimes I pressed the sponge on hard with the palm of my hand, sometimes just around the edges- this method, and rotating the stamp as I went along, got me the look you see above.

The side wall circles don’t go all the way in against the back or the top, but for the back wall they do- I just cut the sponge in half to fill my gaps. It’s not perfect, but remember it’s not supposed to be.

Once I was done I decided it need just a little bit more somethin’ somethin’. I got some cream colored craft paint and an angled painters brush and filled in some of the spaces in between the circles:

I just did this at random, three on each side and four in the middle. It took two coats and less then fifteen minutes.

Overall the sponge stamping took just over an hour and the craft paint about fifteen minutes, which makes for a super easy facelift.

Ta da!

I think it looks awesome, the circle shape ties in with the pattern of both the bedspread and the chair in the room and the uneven stamping gives it this cool industrial vibe that I really dig.

Huzzah!

Overall I am really learning that just because I buy a piece of furniture one way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. On big bang projects like this- projects that permanently change the look of something- I sit on it a bit and make sure it’s what I really want to do. But I don’t not alter something just because it’s fine the way it is- fine just doesn’t cut it for me.

On the other hand, Matt says it’s “kooky” and “interesting” which is code for he hates it. Sorry love!

Have you ever stamp furniture or walls before? Any tips to help me learn how to stencil? I’d love to hear from you!

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Linking up with:

House of Hepworths

Someday Crafts

The Shabby Creek Cottage

504 Main

Hi Sugarplum!

ONE YEAR LATER: Master Bedroom & Office

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All this week I’m going to be posting before and after photos of the house, so keep tuning in to see what a completely different place we live in now!

Let me start by saying that the “before” pictures for these two rooms are particularly awful- at this point in touring the home I had already fallen in love with it and had stopped caring what the pictures looked like. Yes, I fell in love with the home in it’s before state.

Let’s start with the Master Bedroom before and now’s:

This was the view from the doorway of the room, which was originally shared by two preteen girls. It was actually pretty cute for them- crowded, but you could tell they had free reign.

 

The new view from the doorway makes it look like a completely different room. I think because our bed is on the opposite wall it really throws you off when you see it.

 

From another corner of the room you can really the bright, bright lime green of the walls. That was easy enough to fix with primer, but I had to sand all along that navy border to make sure the lines of it didn’t show through our new paint color.

 

I’m not crazy about our bookshelf, but it’ll do for now. I’m also getting used to the empty space on the right of the dresser, I don’t think I’m going to fill it in with anything.

 

THIS disastrous closet is still haunting me, getting new doors is definitely a year two project!

 

Don’t mind the “no trespassing” sign- we used that gate to cage in an inflatable T-Rex during a Jurassic Park theme party :) Because we’re grown ups.

 

The room right next to the bedroom was originally the master, and we are now using it for Matt’s office. When we first moved in I thought we’d be able to get away with not painting it, but once it was empty we could see all sorts of dust stains and divets in the walls so it got the paint and primer treatment too:

This picture was taken from right in front of the closet (which you’ll see in the two “now” photos). We chose to use the other room as the master instead of this one because it seemed a little bit larger and the layout was easier to work with.

 

There’s still something that’s just …off… about this room- it’s too crowded in some spots and too empty in others. It’ll stay as is for a while because there’s more important things to deal with, but it’s definitely on my radar. So is that cat haired covered rug.

I don’t understand why these people don’t have closet doors, but I plan to start keeping an eye out at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to hopefully get some soon.

 

 

What we’ve done:

 

Still to do:

  • Find and install closet doors for both rooms
  • Finish up wall art for master bedroom
  • Better organize and set up office
  • New curtains for master bedroom

 

 

And so that wraps up the week long ONE YEAR LATER series! I’ve left out the bathroom, basement, and yard for now but we’ll get back to them soon.

What’s your favorite room? Mine is definitely the kitchen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Navy: The Tale of a 30 Year Old Dresser

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About two months ago in my Fearlessly Finding Awesome Challenge #3 post I expressed that while my bedroom isn’t awful, it isn’t exactly special either. It’s just average. So I’ve been going back and forth in my head about what to do and I came up with a few ideas. The first on the list: give my hand-me-down dresser a facelift!

The dresser belonged to Matt’s mom when she was a teenager and has since been moved around quite a bit. It’s HEAVY and it’s sturdy, but at this point in time it has (had!) a lot of dings and scratches and marks on it from being so well used.

I absolutely do not hate it, it was just plain jane and in need of some loving. Further, the wood tone does not match the wood tone of our bed and tv stand.

I don’t know why, but I am so so hesitant to paint over original wood and I sat on this project for a while. To be honest, since we’ve moved in I’ve wanted to paint it, but a year ago I didn’t know how and I didn’t know where to start. My, I’ve come far!

First things first once I decided to commit:

  • Remove all hardware and put it in a safe place
  • Lay a gigantic tarp out in my yard
  • Move the whole thing out onto the tarp
  • Sand down any necessary areas that had nicks, stains, oddities

Once it was all laid out I spaced things to account for overspray, and also so that I could weave in and out of each section as I painted.

With my handy dandy Home Depot gift card I picked up RustOleum spray primer and spray paint in Navy (gloss finish). I used Kilz primer on my last project and RustOleum spraypaint, and I liked the spray of Rustoleum better so that’s why I decided to give the primer a chance. It worked great and the coverage was awesome.

Everything got 2 coats of primer spray, it wasn’t perfectly even but it was good enough for a piece that was going to be painted a very dark color.

An hour later, everything got several coats of navy. I found spray painting such a dark color to be much more challenging then the silver on my last project, because it didn’t have the sheen of being metallic flaws showed up much more easily.

I gave all the hardware a little facelift with some metallic RustOleum, not to change the color but just to even it out and shine it up a bit.

Then, Matt checked the weather and wouldn’t you know scattered thunderstorms were expected for about an hour after I finished? The whole thing, which couldn’t be pieced together yet, had to be moved into the house to dry and cure up. GAH.

The boys were uninterested in the physical labor portion of this project.

At least I got to paint the whole thing before it had to be moved inside. I can’t imagine lifting that thing any more then twice. But if I did, oh boy would it have been worth it.

HELLO, HOT STUFF!

It’s hard for me to capture on camera exactly how awesome this piece looks, but trust me, it looks awesome. I will be adding other navy accents to the room, and new curtains as well, but for now it plays off the lighter blue in the comforter and the teal and mustard colors of the accent chair.

Something needs to go on the other side of the dresser too of course, to balance things out, but I don’t know what yet so that spot is staying empty.

I love how it looks in the room, how it takes things from average to unique. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me!

There are definitely spots that need touching up and a few areas that are slightly uneven, and I’ll fix of that what I can but honestly I’m not stressed about it. I’m proud of how this big mumma jumma turned out and so glad I finally went ahead and painted it.

So what do you think? Love it or hate it? Any advice? What have you painted lately?

{This post is linked up with Liz Marie Blog and the Shabby Creek Cottage}

A NEW LOOK &FFA Challenge #3

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WELL first things first, I’ve got a new look going on here! What do you think? I designed the header and background myself. :)

And now for the goods:

As Mandi of Vintage Revivals, the mind behind the Fearlessly Finding Awesome challenge writes:

Fearlessly Finding Awesome is a club all about discovering your personal décor style not following everyone else’s.  These posts are challenges that you can take to create magic in your home. 

I love it! And I’m so on board! I’ve given FFA Challenges their own category, so if you want to look back at the first two just click the FFA link at the bottom of this post to catch up!

Challenge #3 is to pick a room I want to focus on, then build a plan and GO FOR IT. I have decided to work on the Master Bedroom, which based on the amount of complaints I have posted in regards my living room may be a surprise. However, this is the room I spend the most time in, so it really should be awesome. Right now my bedroom is perfectly ok- but “ok” just isn’t for me. My bedroom is collected, safe, and calming. There’s no zing! There’s no pizazz! I tried a daring comforter, but I panicked and I couldn’t make it work so I returned it. That was the right decision, because I absolutely love my new comforter set, but now I need to add some more uniqueness to the space.

Here’s what I’m loving right now:

This is the view from the side of the room where you enter. Cute comforter, cute shelves, cute chair. The dog crate really could go because we never use it, and the metal art may need some sprucing up. The blue patch on the bureau is a swatch for the color I want to paint it.

This is the view from the dog crate facing in. As you can see, we have half a closet door, and the door that we do have is mirrored. It’s all very bad, and hopefully the Habitat Restore will have some options for us.

The plus side:

  • I love having a chair in my bedroom! It matches the chair in the sunroom just in case we ever want to move furniture around, but it fits great in the space and comes in very handy for shoe tying and purse piling.
  • As I said before, I love my comforter. I’m a sucker for paisley’s
  • I also really like the art in the room, so let’s take a look at that a little more closely too:

We picked this piece up at Rock ‘n Shock (a horror movie convention) a few years ago. It’s gold ink on brown card stock. We both absolutely love it- it’s pretty if you look at it quickly and totally weird if you linger a minute. There’s a bear, a skull, snakes, a bird– very cool.

The tv stand is directly in front of the bed. On the top shelf is an ink owl drawing on top of what I think may be a page from a German textbook. The painted bottles on the bottom shelf were done by me!

So what’s left to be done? Well!!

  • The bureau needs to be painted, and the hinges need to be spray painted. I want it to be the same deep blue I have in the office to help tie in the spaces but also because I think it’ll turn something dull into more of a centerpiece.
  • I think I may want to paint the inside of the tv stand- and I think this may be a great place to try my hand at stenciling.
  • The brown curtains really need to be replaced with navy blue curtains
  • And last, but most obvious, I need closet doors for crying out loud!

via Flickr

Thank you tax return!

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I was a good girl when I got my tax return and put aside the amount of money it costs for homeowner’s insurance each year, so I can pay it off in one lump sum and not have another monthly payment. But I still had money left over and I’ve been itching to make some slightly larger purchases.

First, I went to Big Lots and got a super cute kitchen cart, which I will post this weekend when I post whole view photos of the kitchen. The cart is white with a metal top, so it works well with the kitchen and living room. It’s a great size and holds everything that was originally on the entertainment center (yup, entertainment center) that was originally in it’s spot. Dare I say that I am now done working on the kitchen? I’m almost afraid that if I do, something will break.

Then, just this morning, I bought some slipper chairs from Target. They’ll arrive sometime next week, just in time to finishing sprucing up the house a little before Nonna’s birthday party next Saturday. I purposely bought two of the same chair even though they’re going in different rooms so if we ever want to move around furniture we’ll have a matching set.

Originally, I wasn’t even looking at this one. I had picked out an all yellow chair with this wispy pattern on it. Then when I went to get Matt’s approval (I like to make sure I’m not overly girly), he picked out this one and I agreed.

I plan to put one in our sunroom (which is green and yellow) and one in our bedroom (which is blues and wood tones).

And DON’T TELL MATT but I think I’m eventually going to want to paint the sun room from green to this shade of blue- so it doesn’t match perfectly now but it might in the next year or so. I just feel that room is disconnected from the kitchen (yellow and white)  & living room (grey, yellow, and white)  and bringing in a third color that actually matches would help with the flow down there. Those three rooms are all wide open to each other, so I think I may need to get them on the same page.

Anyway, if you are in the market for some basic chairs you should really check out Target’s online selection. There are some cute things popping up over there!