Cottage bedroom makeover: Update #3

Holy Crap. Who knew that white would be such a PITA to paint?! In my last cottage bedroom update, the ceiling was painted and the walls were primed and waiting for me to choose a white. Which I finally did – Benjamin Moore OC-117 Simply White. I thought choosing the colour was going to be the hardest part. Wrong-o. I don’t know if it was a problem with the paint or the primer or the fact that I was painting paneling, but in the end two walls have a coat of primer and five coats of paint, and two walls have a coat of primer and six coats of paint. Yes. SIX. Absolutely insane. By the fourth coat, I was ready to pack it in. But I kept going, and after picking up another gallon of paint, finally finished painting the walls this weekend. What used to look like this…

Now looks like this!

Whew! Sooooooooo happy that’s finished!

Once the walls were done, I moved the painting job outside Here are the original bedroom door and the bathroom door waiting to be painted…

I used BM Simply White and FAT Paint Indigo on the bedroom door. I’ll wax the door next weekend to give it some sheen and a durable finish. The paint is still wet in the first picture.

 

I went to Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store in Ogdensburg last week to pick up some nautical fabrics. But that plan went out the window when I saw a beautiful green & blue & white paisley. I found two pretty fabrics that coordinate nicely with it, and fun green pompom trim :-)

The paisley fabric is for a window treatment, and the turquoise & white fabric is for curtains to hide the area above the storage shelf. The navy & white fabric was going to be for cushions, but I have a new plan for it now. You’ll see what in the next makeover update :-)

And finally, I bought a piece of live edge maple burl for a floating shelf between the beds. There’s a baseboard heater right where the night table would go, so I’m going to use the floating shelf instead.

Can I just say one more time that I’m soooooooooo happy I’m finally done painting the room! On the agenda for next weekend – a DIY project, painting some furniture, and hanging artwork.

Some cottage bedroom pretty

So I went for a haircut yesterday. As the hairdresser was cutting my hair, she asked me, “Have you been painting?” Yep, got paint in my hair and it still hasn’t washed out a few days later! Oh well, that’s how I roll.

So far, cottage bedroom makeover update #1 and update #2 haven’t been very glamourous. So today, I thought I’d share some of the pretty that will be going into the room.

I want to put a swing arm wall lamp above each bed. I found this one at Bellacor – it’s a plug-in with the switch right on the lamp, which is exactly what I was looking for. I really like the brushed brass finish, and the price was right too – on sale four about $60.

I really can’t spend a lot on the bedroom, and I’m trying to re-use & re-purpose as much as possible. But I don’t have any suitable bedding for twin beds – which were originally the bunk bed that my brother and I slept in when we were kids. I popped into Target a couple of weeks ago and found this comforter set that’s blue and cheap – sold!

My mom’s old night table that I made over a few weeks ago will go between the beds.

This weekend, I hope to start working on the two dressers that I bought from Kijiji. I’ve pretty much decided how to make over one of them, still thinking about the other one. These are some inspiration pieces…

As I’ve mentioned on my blog many times, I love original art and supporting artists. I discovered the work of Derriere Les Bois at the New Art Festival this past June. They had sold their only sailboat piece, but they said they take custom orders and would make one for me. Yay! Isn’t this cool?

I have a lot of other coastal-themed artwork that didn’t make it onto my gallery wall at home. So those pieces will go up in the bedroom as well.

OK, this isn’t exactly glamourous, but galvanized boat cleats are the perfect solution to a problem I’ve been trying to solve for years. At $2.00 a pop from iboats.com, really can’t go wrong!

And after whole lot of waffling and debating. I’ve narrowed down my white choices to two – Benjamin Moore Simply White or Cloud White. Turns out that Paper Mache is more yellow than I thought (thanks Lindsay for the feedback!)

Yes, they look almost identical. Yes, I’m way over-thinking this!

Cottage bedroom makeover: Update #2

We didn’t get much done on the cottage bedroom two weekends ago with family get togethers on both Saturday and Sunday. But we made up for lost time this past weekend :-) The fact that it rained pretty much all day Monday certainly helped – if you can’t play outside, may as well work inside!

If you remember my first update, the cottage bedroom was stripped down to the studs. It occurs to me now that I didn’t take any good “before” pics of the addition. You can see a bit of it on the right of this picture:

Hubby drywalled the bottom of the storage shelf and the ceiling in the addition last week, and he finished paneling all the walls on Sunday. Yay, it finally looks like a room again! A very messy room, but it’s all part of the process :-)

 

I primed the paneling and drywall on Sunday and Monday, and painted the first coat of blue on the bottom of the storage shelf and the ceiling in the addition.

  

Now I REALLY need to decide on a white, because painting the walls is on the agenda for next weekend. I keep going back to Benjamin Moore’s Paper Mache in the Aura collection.

Lindsay at Little House Blog used Paper Mache on the crown moulding on her Adele kitchen cabinets from Ikea. You can see that the colour is a bit creamier than the white ceiling.

Another example of Adele cabinets with Paper Mache crown moulding from  Danks & Honey. You can see the difference between the creamy white of the cabinets and the white trim.

I have until Saturday to decide – choosing a white really shouldn’t be so hard! Do you have Ikea’s Adele cabinets? Have you used BM Paper Mache? If yes, please let me know what you think of the colour.

Cottage bedroom makeover: Update #1

I should have mentioned in my previous post about the cottage bedroom makeover that the whole reason for the makeover is because last fall, hubby added a 4’ extension to the back of our cottage. The extra space is amazing, but there’s a lot of inside work to do. So I figured now is the time to make some drastic changes, seeing as this bedroom has been the same since the mid 1950s.

These are sort-of before pics – before the painting, but after the extension went on and the addition of the storage platform above the bed.

View from the doorway

  View from the extension

This past weekend was the worst part of the makeover – priming and painting the ceiling. Half the job involved painting in the most awkward position ever – lying on my back 2 feet from the ceiling. It’s very discombobulating to paint upside down!

Such a glamourous shot of my feet ;-)

And it was hot up there too – whoever said that hot air rises was right! ;-) Amazingly, I managed to get all the priming & painting done without dripping any paint into my eyes. My shoe didn’t fare quite as well…

Very impressed with how well the Zinsser All Surface Primer adhered to the  paneling and varnished beams.

After two coats of paint…

I wish I knew what colour this is, but I really have no idea! I have 1-1/2 gallons of a mystery blue paint in the basement that I decided to use to save some money. It’s pretty close to PARA Paints In The Loop:

Next weekend, hubby will be hanging drywall on the ceiling in the extension and paneling the walls. Then I get to do more priming and painting – YAY ME! ;-) But at least the hard part is done :-) The walls are going to be white. Which white? Well, that’s a harder choice than you’d think. White is white, right? Weeeeeelllllllll, not so much…

Image via Home Decor – A blog by Quality Bath

I’ve never actually painted a whole room white, but I really like the white that I used on the trim in our master bathroom, PARA Paints Jo Jo Whitewash.

But not being a white expert, I put out the question to some designer friends – what’s you’re favourite white? The three most popular choices were Benjamin Moore’s Simply White, Chantilly Lace, and Oxford White.

At least the choice is already narrowed down to just four :-) Have you ever painted a room white? Do you have a favourite go-to white?

Cottage bedroom makeover

Some inspiration pictures for the cottage bedroom makeover than I’m starting this weekend…

 Image via Chic Coastal Living

 

 Image via Pinterest

 

Image via Better Home and Garden 

 

Image via clark|pharm

 

Blue crab by Laura Trevey

 

Image via Pottery Barn Kids

Not sure how I’m going to pull myself away from the lake to go inside and paint, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!

Before and after pics coming soon….

Master bedroom evolution

Sometimes I have a vision for a room and it goes totally as planned. But more often than not, things change along the way, and the room I end up with isn’t what I had envisioned at all. Like our master bedroom – I knew as soon as I first saw it that it was going to have to change ASAP. These two pics are the befores from inspection day – I had nothing to do with the paint colour or anything else! And yes,  those are dolls on the bed. There were dolls all over the house. Creepy.

 

 

That’s my grandma in the doorway, and you can see the pink hallway and pink guest bedroom (door on the left) and pink laundry room behind her. *Sigh* So much pink!

 

 

(Click here to check out the guest bedroom makeover and click here to check out the laundry room makeover)

 

My first idea for the room was a bad one – I painted it orange. I never really liked it, and never bothered to actually decorate the room. OMG, this is so embarrassing! But here’s the room in all its orange glory…

 

 

 

OK, so anyway, try to put that orange monstrosity out of your head, and let’s move ahead to around to five years later (yep, we lived with the orange for  that long!) I decided to go grey with a dark brown accent wall…

 

 

 

Better, but that bed totally wasn’t working. And the accent wall was kinda dark and overbearing. So I painted it a lighter grey than the other walls, and then gave up on that idea and painted it the same colour as the rest (Debbie Travis Manta Grey). Then I bought new furniture and bedding and a chandelier – which started making crackling & popping sounds, so it went back to the store!

 

 

Still not working. More new bedding, lamps, and artwork, and hubby and I (well, mostly hubby) designed and built an upholstered bed. (Kelly at View Along The Way wrote this great tutorial on how to build your own upholstered bed). And finally, the room was done… kind of ;-)

 

 

There was still something missing. Other than the curtains and a few cushions on the bed, there was no pattern. And the room was on the masculine side. I wanted to add some more feminine touches. What to do, what to do… I know, wallpaper! Graham & Brown, Charming – it’s the perfect match to the other colours in the room.

 

 

Ooh-la-la! Love, love, LOVE IT I picked up a few rolls at Home Depot — yes, Home Depot carries this beautiful paper.

 

I hit every store I could think of to look for new bedding, and finally found a subtly patterned grey duvet cover at HomeSense and euro shams at Bed Bath & Beyond. A few accessories & new lamps – from the basement, my favourite store! ;-) – on the night tables, and now we can really call the master bedroom DONE :-)

 

 

 

His-and-hers night tables…

 

 

 

The cushions spend 99% of their time on the floor, so let’s give them their moment of glory while they’re actually ON the bed :-)

This is a shot of the other side of the room:

 

The “before” one more time and an “after”…

 

 

 

Cross another room off the makeover list!