Master Bedroom - Progress (Before and After) Photos

If you see me dancing on the rooftops, from now until the end of the year (at least)... it's due in large part to the progress we've made to our master bedroom.  To say I've been giddy this last week, is a GROSS UNDERSTATEMENT of major proportions.  (I may or may not ALWAYS be rearranging our pillows trying to get them juuuuust right..or taking half a dozen cell phone pictures an hour to see it in a different light ;)  Yup.  I do that.  Don't you?  ;)  And really, are you surprised?  ;)  

I'm actually only SOMEWHAT happy with the pillow arrangement as they stand today..but I know there will be a few hundred more tweaks to this room in our future.  From the additions I'll use to decorate the night stands (and the hardware we haven't decided on)... to the final bedding covers we haven't yet purchased... to POSSIBLY an area rug to break up the large space in front of the bed.. (which may or may not be a design no-no considering it'll be carpet on carpet.) Visually I think it needs something.. functionally, it may be weird.  I'm gonna live with it for awhile before I decide to try and convince Chad one way or the other.  ;) 

So here's our room as it stands today.. talk about a TRANSFORMATION!  

Master Bedroom AFTER

It's amazing how much BETTER this room FEELS now.  As I explained on my last post, we had been so focused on updating the rest of the house for over a year.. that we completely forgot about ourselves and our little sanctuary of a room. 

Master Bedroom BEFORE 

As we saw it when we were looking to buy. Previous Owners Decor. 

We actually had our bed in this spot too for a long time.. then decided to change things up.  

We lived with this mustardy color for almost exactly a year.  It wasn't HOOORIBLE, it was just very similar to the color we had in our master bedroom at our old house.  We thought we were ready for a change.  Especially considering we had big plans for the layout and our new headboard.  Why go half way with a renovation, right??  

Yup.  So this is pretty much how we lived for more than I care to admit.  That was pretty much how we made the bed each day and that was our mismatched solution to bedding.  We spent a few weeks with the tape up showing where our new headboard would be and a few days with a plethora of colors up on the wall.  You would've thought we had just moved in.  Yikes!

One of the first things we did was move the bed and decide how we wanted to fill up this wall.  

Photos we took on our Europe trip fit the bill here. :)  

Then came selecting a color.  Thankfully we had a lot of samples left from the first round of painting this house last year.  Most of these were considerations to our dining room.  

 

Then one Sunday, we took the plunge.  Shortly after this picture was taken...and almost entirely during one nap time session, we painted our room.  

Sherwin Williams Key Stone Gray for the win!  ;) 

While all this was going on, I had been on the hunt for nightstands.  

After scouring the internet, various stores around town and pinterest for inspiration on DIY versions we could tackle...I stumbled upon various blogs that had some IKEA dresser-to-nightstand hacks that I kinda started to love.   

So we started with the dresser on the left.. Cheap, unfinished, stain-able and the perfect size that we needed.  

We gave them a bit of a face lift with some additional lattice molding and stained them the same color we had stained the headboard frame to match.  ;)  

As we hunted down a pair of lamps we liked, we found a bench for the foot of the bed that Everleigh seemed to approve of.  ;)  Cross that off the list too.  

TaDAAAAAAAAAA!! Done and done.  

Well sorta, but you know.  Done for now and probably for a while ;)  

  

It looks soooooo magical at night with just the lamps on, 

(which we ended up finding at Marshall's by the way). 

Restoration Hardware - Star Light Hack

Since we moved into our Frisco house back in late August, I've been on quite the mission to make use of the MASSIVE amounts of cardboard that we've been able to accumulate as we've purchased new furniture over the last 9 months.  It seemed like such a waste to just throw it all away.. especially since we had so many empty walls to contend with.  I figured the first place where I could get away with trying to make cardboard "WORK"... would be the playroom.  

Taking inspiration from things I'd seen on Pinterest... My latest craft project, slash obsession, was trying my hand at our very own marquee style star light.

When I saw this Restoration Hardware Baby and Child image on Pinterest, I just knew that I could easily replicate the star without the hefty price tag.  $320!?!?! Yikes!  Thanks, but no thanks.  And this, my friends, is when my hoarding tendencies come in handy.  ;)  

Enter the biggest piece of cardboard I could find in our stash.  (Didn't take long... we have TONS! ;) Carpenters hoard scrap wood, this DIY'er hoards cardboard.  Sad AND true.  ;)

 In case you care to try and replicate this little cardboard gem, here are my very ROUGH instructions.  (I'd be happy to elaborate if needed!) 

**** Safety Note **** 
Although I've seen lots of other projects on the internet where cardboard and string lights come in contact without any issue, you probably shouldn't leave this light on overnight or when someone is not in the room.  Curious as to how hot these globe lights would get, I left them on for over an hour, and they were still cool to the touch.  Even though I'm fairly confident there isn't a fire hazard associated with this hack, please use caution anyway.  Better safe than sorry!

RESTORATION HARDWARE - STAR LIGHT HACK

- Using a template I had printed out of (6) 11x17's taped together... (cause I'm not good enough to free hand a star this big), I used an Exacto blade to cut out my star shape.  

- I then cut out long 4 inch strips that would be glued to the edges to give me the "lip" I needed on both sides to account for the wirey mess in the back and the bulbs in the front.  

 - Using globe lights I had found at Target awhile back, I penciled in, (and cut out) the number of holes for the number of bulbs that came in my set.  (Note here that I'm apparently REALLY, REALLY bad at counting cause I cut 26 holes for 25 bulbs... DOH!) Imagine my surprise when I THOUGHT I was done.  ;)

I was pretty rough with my holes, just making them big enough to fit the bulbs in.. but not really caring that they were perfect little circles, realizing that they'd be covered up anyway.  (I used my Exacto for this step too... the sharper the blade, the easier it is to cut these out)

Taking craft paint I had on-hand, I chose blue for the inside and red along the outer edge.  (This was just one coat of blue into the project.  I added another one shortly after just to darken the whole thing and make it less splotchy.) 

I then took off all the lights that came in the set and set them aside to reassemble as I went along.  

Turning my star over after everything had dried, I started at one corner and worked my way around the star, bulb in the front, wirey mess in the back.  Pretty simple.     

Ta Da!!  26 holes for 25 bulbs.  Lol.  Geez Louise. Still pretty cool if you ask me.  

A couple minutes later, I cut out a smaller cardboard star to fit over my missing hole.. 

like it was MEANT to be there all along!  :)  

 

Sorry about the crappy Iphone photos.. 

I definitely owe everyone an updated Playroom post...coming soon!

Kelley Kitchen - Progress Photos

I think the biggest, most dramatic change that we've made to our house (oh...about two SECONDS!) after we moved in, was tackling our kitchen cabinets.  It was simply a color we absolutely couldn't live with.  The color of the cabinets, along with the faux painted walls was just too much to handle.  It was so incredibly hard to really appreciate the back splash or the really great granite counter tops with all the colors and textures going on in this space.  All the colors just seemed to blend together... in the worst possible way.  

Knowing that it would be easiest to tackle this project before we moved our furniture and appliances in, we spent DAYS prepping and sanding and gel staining...and gel staining some more before finally being able to call this project somewhat done.  We still have the overhead light fixture to contend with...and the "too-ornate-for-our-taste" fixture over the kitchen table...but for now, we're pretty damn proud of the outcome so far.  

Here's a little tour... (a very much LIVED in, sorry about the random mess), tour of our kitchen as it stands today.    

The AFTER.  

(Once again because I couldn't bear to start a new post with the BEFORE picture below)

The BEFORE.  

As our project began (back in early September), we knew we couldn't tackle this project alone so we enlisted the help of one VERY CUTE, not yet 1 year old.  :)  

Quality Control Specialist Everleigh ;)

Amazing how much she's changed since this picture was taken!

The messy, long process of sanding and cleaning and sanding and cleaning.. 

I believe this was probably coat 1 of 2 or 3 gel stains we did.  

Probably the same here.  Coat 1 of 2 that we did of the gel stain.  

Final product.  :)