Sweet Dreams are Made of These

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Our third and final room upstairs is the master bedroom. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was 3 years after we purchased the house before we started work on this room. There was so much work to be done.

Plaster had been applied to all of the walls and painted in yellow, brown, and gray. Sorry for the terrible photos, but think Olive Garden late 90’s. That was the vibe in this room. I love breadsticks and endless bowls of salad as much as the next gal, but I certainly don’t need to be thinking about food when I’m trying to go to sleep.

I’m certain that I’m just standing there thinking about wallpaper in that picture : )

We had all of the plaster removed and that little closet in the corner was torn out as well. Removing the plaster was a horribly messy job and was done before we moved into the house. The room served as a storage/work area while other rooms were being remodeled.

It is a good thing that we waited to get started on this room as a heavy storm revealed that our roof wasn’t in the best condition. New roof = smaller budget for the bedroom.

Fast forward 3 years and we were ready to get to it. You might have noticed that the ceiling was really high. While it was nice to have a vaulted ceiling, it was wasted space and there was no insulation in the room. We lowered the ceiling and added much-needed insulation.

The vaulted ceiling allowed for us to easily add a tray into the center. Knowing that due to my insomnia, I’d be spending hours on end looking up at this tray ceiling, I wanted to have something worth looking at. I came up with a design and my brother, Josh, brought it to life. I joke that if we move, I’m taking this ceiling with me. I’ll reveal the final design later in the blog.

As for the rest of the room, we removed the horsehair plaster, put up new drywall, and installed can lights. I really do love drywall. If you live in a historic row home, you know the struggle of attempting to hang a simple picture with a nail on a plaster wall.

Like most older homes, this one came with little to no storage and we had ripped out the two tiny closets that were here. My father built these custom built-ins for the master bedroom and they are just about perfect.

One last touch to this room was wallpaper. You can’t go wrong with damask. This print has a shine to it that instantly caught my eye. I’ve always been a fan of Thibault Wallpaper. Their prints are classic with just the right touch of modern. This one is Arturo Damask in Metallic Silver from the Monterey Collection.

For the rest of the walls, we went with Dove’s Cry by Valspar. This is one of those perfect colors that can go tan or grey depending on the room and the light. Plus, how perfect is that name??

Now for some after photos.

I know I’m a broken record when it comes to having big ideas and a small budget, but I truly believe that you can bring your vision to life without breaking the bank. Here’s how I saved a bunch of money in this room.

  1. The wallpaper. I only did an accent wall. This saved on the cost of materials and labor.
  2. The bed – I picked up our headboard at a Restoration Hardware outlet. I saved 60% off the retail price.
  3. Those little nightstands – I found them at Gabe’s of all places. Don’t sleep on places like Gabe’s – you can find some great, cheap things there.
  4. The comfy corner chair and the accent pillows – HomeGoods finds.
  5. Euro shams and sheets are from IKEA.
  6. Curtains – I desperately wanted to have curtains custom made in the material that matched the wallpaper, but that wasn’t going to happen. I found these at TJMaxx, they went really well with the wallpaper, but they were too short. I purchased a few yards of linen fabric that matched the headboard and added it to the bottom.

My sweet dreams are coming true as we renovate this home. Next week, we will move to the main living area that is still work in progress and more fodder for my dreams.

Sweet Child O Mine

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We are going to stay upstairs and take a look at the renovation of what is now a nursery. This was one of the worst rooms in the house when we bought it. Water damage from a leaking roof, black mold, and there were even mushrooms growing inside the window sills – no lie.

Let’s take a look at what we were up against.

My grand plan for this room was for it to be a small guest bedroom with a huge walk-in closet. This is what I was envisioning…

https://youtu.be/X8B_tUcS_iQ

Once again – my budget and my grand plans didn’t quite work well together. We also realized that it would be at least three years until we would be able to work on the master bedroom and we’d be bunking up in here until then.

Jeff and my father got to work and it felt like every square inch of this room needed help.

After repairing all of the damage, putting in new windows, hanging new drywall, a new ceiling and new floors, our budget for this room was shot. We could do little more than paint the walls and bring in our old furniture.

At this point in time, I still had an unhealthy obsession with Tiffany & Co. I thought it might be fun to have a bedroom that looked like a jewelry box. We had laid white laminate flooring and I started my search for the perfect blue.

In the end, we chose Nautical by Valpar. There is a reason they refer to a little blue box and not a big blue box at Tiffany’s and that reason is that this color is overwhelming in large format. It got old after a day, but it stayed up for close to 4 years.

We weren’t able to put in a closet, so we had to make it work with our pair of IKEA wardrobes. I painted my 10-year-old furniture white and we had our little jewelry box pretty full. I only have 2 random, grainy photos and from the room at this time and one actually has some jewelry – none of it from Tiffany’s!

A few years later, I finally got my closet. Not the SJP closet, but a closet none the less. I was over the moon the day this drywall started going up.

After two short days, I had my closet and even lived my SJP SITC closet fantasy for a second.

Upon the completion of the closet, we pulled the trigger and repainted the entire room. Yet again – a bold choice. Plum Good from Valspar. We didn’t have to look at this color very long as we were already starting to work on the master bedroom.

I thought this room would remain a guest room forever and perhaps magically turn into the closet of my dreams. What I NEVER could have imagined is that it would have a permanent resident. In 2018, this room underwent another, major transformation. It became a nursery.

I did have a LOT of fun working on this nursery. I wanted to create a design that would last long after the crib was gone. After months of design planning, here is what I came up with.

You knew this room was going to be grey, but I had to bring in a little more color. I was seriously considering a mural for the back wall and found many amazing ones on Etsy.

What held me back was the longevity (and budget) so I went with wallpaper. Shopping for wallpaper is one of my favorite things. Choosing one is one of my least. Here were the contenders.

Part of me thinks I should have gone with the first one, but I played it safe and went with #3. Now that the hard part was over – time for some furniture.

My favorite piece in the room is the rocker. I found this gorgeous Mellinger Rocking Chair at All Modern. I sit in it all of the time. I will never get rid of this chair.

I thought my days of IKEA were behind me, but I loved their Sundvik series and got the crib and wardrobe.

IKEA came through for a great dresser as well. This thing holds a TON of baby clothes.

I didn’t like any of the colors or stains, so we painted it – you guessed it – grey. This dresser, while functional, was a pain. Putting it together was not exactly fun nor was painting it.

We went with Earl Gray from the HGTV Home collection from Sherwin-Williams for the dresser.

For the walls, we chose Repose Gray also from the HGTV Home collection from Sherwin-Williams. It has just the right brown undertone and went perfectly with the wallpaper.

So here’s what this room looks like now that it is complete.

I picked up those sweet felt mounted animals at the Union Square Christmas Market in NYC. I did a little dance when I found them! Brant’s engraved wall art was an Etsy find thanks to Engraved Happyism Team.

For a room that I thought would never exist, I has become my favorite room in the house. That SITC closet is going to have to wait for about 18 more years.