House Updates: Master Bedroom

House updates in our new Utah house are long overdue. We've been hard at work on things here... just haven't been sharing. We stayed home for Thanksgiving break so I decided we should work on a room that we hadn't touched yet... our master bedroom. We didn't even have a headboard. It felt like a college apartment. Much better now!

We got the lights at Lowes and TJ made the headboard out of a 10 foot board cut in half (to make 2 pieces the same length). We then stained, sealed, and attached it to the wall with some mounting hardware meant for picture frames. He also made the nightstands before we left Indiana. Luckily they survived the move.

Here's the before... we had some interesting off-white textured wallpaper to deal with. We took it down on one wall but decided to make the other our accent wall. The blue is Glidden "Rich Navy" and it took just 2 coats. Now it looks like navy blue textured wallpaper.

Bow Ribbon Frames

I have been looking for a tall and skinny frame or something to fill out my mini gallery wall in the bedroom. I was at Meijer with my sister awhile back and saw the cutest little black frames that hung from black and white ribbon. I thought it looked easy enough to do myself (even though the frames were only around $6 each) so I bought 2 $3 frames and a roll of ribbon which in retrospect cost me almost the same as if I had just bought the already made frames. Oh silly DIYing. But I was determined to just make them myself AND I found a roll of ribbon that matched the background of my button H frame (see how I made that here).

It was a super easy project. I just tied the ribbon into bows and secured the back with a little hot glue. Then I measured out the tails and glued the ends to the back of the frames (on an angle so they didn't hang funny).

Viola! The perfect fit for my gallery wall.

Ikea Scores

This week was an exciting one - my mom's birthday on Tuesday and my 3 year wedding anniversary on Wednesday. On Tuesday my mom and I went to Ikea in Chicago and out to lunch to celebrate. I intended to buy a new chair for my sewing room/office. While I love the ones I made for the room a long time ago (see the diy makeovers here), I was ready for an update. I looked online and found the chair I wanted. It looked like it was going to be $40. When I got there, it was only $19! 

I think it's pretty cute. 

Plus I get to roll around on the new flooring. 

I was also looking for a rug for the bedroom so the dogs don't have to jump directly onto the hard floors. I was thinking a black and white polka dot because I am still very noncommittal about color in there. So far everything was black, white, gray, and one pink pillow. Not anymore!

This rug was the weekly special so it was only TEN DOLLARS! Crazy. So far it seems to be decent quality and holding up to the dogs scratching at it etc.

I probably would have never picked it if it hadn't been on sale but I think I like it. The red is a little bright for the bedroom but it is fun and definitely a change of pace. 

I will call it a successful Ikea trip! Now back to work... at least the chair makes it a little more fun for now.

A Long Awaited Trip to Ikea

Well, spring has sprung in the Midwest. And it has motivated me to get going on some projects. T.J. and I have been working in the yard and the garage as much as we can the past week or so and things are starting to come along. Outside updates will have to wait til they come along a little more though. :-)

Last weekend my mom came down for a visit and we traveled to the Windy City for an Ikea trip. This was huge for me because I have not even been to Ikea since buying our house. Which is absurd. My sister and mom kept going without me! But now I have finally gone again, and I can't wait to go back! That is the thing about Ikea - you have to travel to get there and without fail, as soon as you get home you think "shoot, I should have gotten that (one more thing)." I thought that about at least twenty things, but I will work with what I have for now! 

The project I completed first after I got home was making covers for the Euro pillows I bought there ($7 each, $10 for the polka dot fabric = $17 for 2 Euro pillows!)

Lola wanted in on the pillow making (and photo bombing) action.

 

T.J. calls it the Mickey Mouse bed - I think he might be right, and I like it!

 

I also picked up this awesome sun-shiny drum shade for the laundry room. Turns out I had overestimated the size of the laundry room, this thing looks huge in there! So I am coming up with a new plan and will share where the shade ends up soon. 

What have you all been up to this Spring? I am so ready for the semester to wrap up so I can jump into doing more projects and working on our garden.

The Art of Dress(ers)

My poor husband has been using a podium shelf for a dresser for almost a year. When I saw a gaudy bright yellow dresser at Goodwill for $7, I thought I might know just the man who could use it. But the yellow had to go. I collected inspiration photos for what I wanted to do on the dresser for awhile before I finally decided to go with inspiration that was already in our bedroom - our bedspread.



Here's how the magic happened. Check out what the dresser looked like before:

When we took the drawers out to sand them we found this message inside:

Baby D - 1982. I have some 30 year old baby's dresser. :-) I actually really appreciate this little note. It makes me imagine an expecting couple out in their garage getting their new nursery ready - such a cute picture, until they chose this way overstimulating yellow. I wonder if that baby ever slept a wink. Where is Baby D now??

The knobs were all painted on so I had to knock them off with the end of a screwdriver. TJ had to fill some holes in the top of the dresser with wood filler to level things out.

I love the stark difference in the color comparison in these pictures. The gray is just so much more relaxing!

After the dresser was all painted gray (the same gray as the walls in our bedroom - Behr's Gentle Rain) it was time to make some artsy magic.

Needless to say I was very anxious especially when it comes to painting skinny lines. I took solace in the fact that the flowers on our bedspread look sort of wiggly and hand drawn so if it turned out awful I could just claim it was the look I was going for. I decided to just go for it and made a quick drawing of a flower on the bedspread to use as a reference as a drew the flowers out on the drawer fronts.
 

I used pencil first, then went over my lines with metallic paint and a skinny paintbrush. I used a polka-dotter (seen 2 pictures down) to make the dots in the centers.

The last step was painting the knobs and putting them back on. I used Krylon metallic silver spray paint to quickly cover them.

See the resemblance?

I think the actual drawers are much appreciated in TJ's closet - not to mention how much cleaner it looks to not have open shelves in there any more! And it sure looks good with that swanky new floor. :-)

Our Elegant New Floor

 Here is what our floor looked like before, after we tore up the carpet and T.J. painted the floors white:

I knew we wouldn't keep it that way for long, but it was a nice substitute until we had the time/money to put in the real stuff (and by real stuff I still mean fake - we bought snap together laminate). We were way sick of the carpet that was in there when we moved in. Now we have something much more beautiful and "elegant" as I like to call it. Here T.J. is putting in the first couple boards.

 

We decided to purchase the flooring from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore - we had found some at a similar price at Menards, but ultimately went with the ReStore after one of my students gave a speech about the great things the ReStore does with the money they make. I was sold (needless to say he got an A :-)).

T.J. was totally convinced this dark wood color would make our house look like a museum.  I knew dark was what I wanted though so I stuck to my guns. I think he has warmed up to it now.

By the end of the first long day we were 1/2 way done (below) - before we could even start though I spent 2 days painting all the trim white. It was worth all the work. I love the way the white trim pops against the dark floor.

I think T.J. would tell you it was a pretty easy job, just time consuming. We watched a couple videos before he started to figure out how this whole thing should go down. This Old House has a good one, but really just getting in there and figuring it out on your own seemed to work best for T.J.

 Almost done! It was quite a messy process.

And then... after 2 long days, it was done! Only one more long Monday night of installing the quarter round and we were able to move our furniture back in and enjoy.

New curtains too!

Lola likes showing it off too. The dogs have struggled a little with how slick it is - but they are getting used to it. The floor makes me smile every time I go into the bedroom now and especially when I get up in the morning. Definitely worth the cost and the money!