t1yr

After spending most of the summer working outside, I was more than ready to tackle a project indoors.  I certainly had some momentum after having transformed the pool area from an messy ho hum retreat to an oh-la-la oasis by focusing on eliminating the clutter (ie: mis matched stepping stones leading every which way) and cleaning up the plant life (ie: saying farewell to the iri’…plural iris?).  But enough of me bragging, I’ll let you be the judge…..

It also helped that the summer brought some free-to-me-furniture additions to the house.  When mi madre relocated for a new job in the ATL, she decided to downsize from a spacious 5 bedroom suburban home to a trendy down town loft (yea she’s a hip one, that mom o’ mine).  So she had a truck sent up my way and she loaded it with a rod-iron outdoor dining set (seen in the ‘after’ pic above), a solid oak tv cabinet and matching coffee table, a leather loveseat and some great outdoor tools to boot!  Unfortunately I wasn’t in the blogging frame of mind back then so I didn’t photo document each piece, but here’s the metal/glass table headlining in the breakfast nook.  Oh, and please ignore the waaay too small rug.  It has since been reassigned, but was all we had at the time.  Also, the two chairs are from Ikea, and yes they were an adventure to assemble without having like 8 hands.

Anyhow, back to the indoors progress.  We wanted to tackle the bedroom so that we had a retreat to relax in when we needed a break from all the home improvement.  So I started with the solid oak cabinet mom donated to the Green Pond cause and complimented it with a solid wood farmhouse headboard I found at Big Lots (and transported home in my Honda Accord coupe….no joke, see evidence below). 

Oh memories.  I know some may disagree, but I chose to paint both pieces white.  Shame, shame, shame on me….but it really unifies the two making them look almost as if they’re a set.  Plus, I’m a big fan of white furniture, in case you hadn’t noticed!?  As mentioned here, we also had a vintage styled chest of drawers picked up from Ikea last year which is smoky grey in color so it adds a little depth to the furniture color scheme.  We picked out a light grey/silver paint color for the wall called ? from Sherwin Williams and of course went with pristine white for the trim.  It was a team effort on this one (well all of our work is a duo really), but I painted the furniture and Gus put it to the walls, closets and trim.  This was our first experience with painting windows. Ugggh.   Nuff said.  Check out the results!

I picked up the curtains and 4 x 6 rug both at Ikea, and the grey duvet is from West Elm.  The yellow flowered throw and pillows are from Target.  Oh, and I forgot to highlight the old library chairs I also painted….canary yellow!  They’re from Olathe North where both Gus and I went as well as where my Grandma and Grandpa attended back when it was Olathe High School.  I have this thought that it’s possible that all 4 of our bums touched these chairs at some point, though the more realistic possibility is that it was just myself and grandma as the boys most likely didn’t spend much time in the library :).

Excuse my aside….back to bedroom!  One of my favorite additions to the room were two marble slabs we had cut to fit atop the radiators to act as our bed side tables.  Here’s an up-close shot.

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They was mom’s idea…gotta give credit where credit is due!!  Gus went the extra mile and painted the closets too.  This pic is before the doors went back up (totally forgot to mention that my mans painted all the doors glossy white too….those glass knobs really sparkle now!). 

In my side of the closet we put one of those metal shelves in to serve as a second handing bar, and in his we used the plastic drawers we’ve had since the days on Rosewood St.  We also added some hanging storage on the back of the doors, and we both got custom name adornments.

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I must say that having one room completely done really helped to minimize the discouragement that creeps in every now and then as I browse beautiful spaces on Pinterest, and admire the progress of all the amazing bloggers and DIYers out there.  Having my own great spaces to enjoy makes the internet sources more inspirational and motivating than discouraging!  After having lived in this space for over a year (as I write this) I am thinking about a small update to add a bit more color and pattern.  To do so I’m thinking that we may add some fabric covered squares to the insets on the bed frame, spice up the comforter a bit and put up some additional décor on the walls.  I’ll be sure to document all of it here!!