Master Bedroom Redo: Part Two

Hey hey!! Hope you had a wonderful weekend and a lovely Father’s Day. I finished up some changes to the master bedroom and I LOVE how it’s turning out.

Yes…the master bedroom. The one I started redoing almost a year ago? Remember that one?

I’ve told you before it takes me a while…and this room is no different. I’ve made some changes over the past few months and I’m SO happy with how it’s coming along!

You may remember last fall I was stuck with what to do over the bed. I tried sconces (loved). I tried drapes (didn’t love). I tried leaving the scrolly ironwork up (used to love but was over).

The sconces stayed, because we love them so. But there was still something that didn’t feel quite right.

A few weeks ago, it hit me. They were dark, the bed was dark, the ironwork was dark, the nightstands were dark. I needed to change something up.

So I changed the dark sconces with a bit ‘o spray paint:

I used the brushed nickel paint I used all over the Bub’s room and I LOVE how they turned out! It was just the pop I needed.

I took down the scrolly thingy and tried leaving the space between them empty, but it just felt weird. So I added a fun little sunburst mirror the folks at Wuslu.com sent me last year:

I’m slowly but surely adding a little glam to the space with some metallics here and there. I love the combo of the sconces and the mirror! (And yes, I was going to hide the sconce cords but I hung them on studs – no way to get the cord in the wall. I’m dealing.)

One little change that I think made a big difference was one I got from a reader – she mentioned she had taken the cross bars off the top of her bed and loved it. You can see ours here:

I took them off and feel like it opened it up and updated the look so much!:

I love when little things like that change up a space. It feels so different! I also cut the finials down a bit, so they weren’t so pointy and now they’re not as noticeable. ;)

You can also see in the pics above that I replaced the art that was above the old nightstands with larger mirrors. (Got them last year at HomeGoods.) I love the reflection of the light in the space, and the larger size works so much better with the new nightstands – which are just bookcases. (More on those soon!)

The frames on the mirrors have a silvery gold sheen to them that helps to lighten up the space too:

    

Aren’t those calla lilies the most beautiful color you’ve ever seen? And isn’t the vase gorgeous?

I just bought it today. And the cat just broke it.

I can’t have anything nice.

Kidding! Not really.

The only other big change to the space is the chair:

I’ve always had a $15 garage sale chair in there, but it was a bit small for our tushies. And not comfortable at all. (It’s in the guest room now. All of our guests have small tushies.)

The new chair was my debt free present to us both. ;) A few weeks after we paid off our last debt earlier this year, I headed out to HomeGoods searching for the perfect chair for our bedroom:

It was a bit of a science fair and I think I ended up bringing three chairs home that weekend. I loved this one, but wasn’t sure about it in our bedroom. Hubby LOVED it in there, so it stayed.

My husband doesn’t have strong feelings as far as the decor goes very often, so when he does, I try to go with it. This is his house too you know. ;)

I’m especially in love with the cutie little pillows on there:

The furry cream one I found at Lowe’s – it was just the cover and I think it was only $7? I know furry doesn’t really scream summer, but oh my…it is SO soft! I love it!!

The other pillow was actually a placemat I found for $4 at Cost Plus World Market. I stuffed it like I did these and then tufted it with a couple of buttons (one on both sides).

I just used a long needle and went back and forth through the pillow about a zillion times. I’m hoping the buttons stay put but we’ll see about that. My sewing skills are not my strong suit. ;)

It’s shaping up nicely…in the past year I’ve changed a LOT in the room (the before):

There’s still so much I want to do though – I so want to paint our ceiling! The wall above the fireplace is just begging me to cover it with molding. (Do you hear it? I do.) And there’s a dresser we’ve had forever that I still need to paint. Can’t wait to show you that one -- it was a steal from Craig and his List!

Even though it’s taken me eons, we’re loving the changes so far! It’s so warm and comfy and still a bit sophisticated (we think anyway):

That black ball of fluff on the bed is a cat by the way. Not the pretty vase-breaker cat, another one. One who doesn’t break my stuff. :)

OH, and one more little change that I think made a big difference? I changed out the white fitted sheet that was over the box springs for a chocolate brown one so it blends into the bed – I LOVE it! I was going to make a bed skirt, but I’m so happy with how it looks I’m not going to.

For now. My mind could change. It would take me year to make it anyway. :)’

**The duvet was from Target last year, the bench was from HomeGoods last year as well. I’ve seen some similar to it still though!

For more on the master bedroom redo, click here for all of the posts.

Giveaway Weekend!

Hello hello! I’m back this weekend with a super fun giveaway!

I was crushin’ on A Vintage Poster as soon as I clicked over to their site. Their designs are so fun, so unique, and SO affordable!

They carry an assortment of graphics and typography posters in 25 (wow!) different colors – you just pick the design or quote, and then choose the color.

I love these kitchen-inspired posters:

 

How fun! You could do a line of across the top of your cabinets, or a set of four on a wall. LOVE!

You know I loved the skyscraper design (I miss NYC!), and there’s selections for the west coasters too:

 

I couldn’t resist the airplane and choo choo posters – both favorites of the Bub:

The prints come in three sizes – 8” x 10”, 11” x 14” or 18” x 24”. Two or three of the larger sizes would fill up a large wall easy. And you know how hard it is to fill a big honkin’ wall.

I love the graphic prints, but the quotes are pretty fantastic too:

   

If you read my last post, you know how much I love that first one. It’s my new mantra. ;)

I especially love that they can customize a design for you and make just about anything into a poster:

 

The silhouette is always a classic, and the Mr. and Mrs. print would be so sweet for a newlywed couple.  :) All you have to do is sent an email and let them know what you want your poster to look like, and they’ll do their best to make it happen.

Here’s the best part!:

The lovely folks at A Vintage Poster are giving away a set of three prints (11" x 14" or 8" x 10" sizes) to TWO lucky TDC readers! WHOOOO!

If you’d like to order, you can get 15 percent off your entire order with the code THRIFTY15.

Here are the three ways to enter:

1. 1. Leave a comment here. YO, what up?
1. 2. Visit A Vintage Poster here and take a look at their selection. Come back here and let me know which poster design is your favorite.
   3. “Like” them on Facebook here, then come back here to let us know.
   

Remember if you comment anonymously or your blog is private, please include your email (with "at” and “dot” spelled out to avoid spam) in your comments.

This giveaway will be open through this coming Monday at 10 p.m.

Hope you have a GREAT weekend!!

Are you a piler too?

Do you ever have one of those moments…when you walk through the same spot in your house for probably the 50th time in a day and all the sudden it hits.

IT is the STUFF.

The I’ve been too lazy to put you away for the past week and yet I’m still surprised to see you JUNK.

I swear it’s like I’m wearing glasses and someone finally cleaned them off. All the sudden I can see it all. And all if it drives me MAD:

I always joke that STUFF multiplies. But it does! It starts with that very first piece of whatever, and festers from that point on.

My thought process is “There’s already one thing to put away there, I’ll just put this one here too, and put them away together. Later.”

Snort.

That makes me laugh.

:)

And over the years I’ve determined I’m a piler. I will take the same group of stuff and stack it in a spot over and over and OVER in the same spot, thinking it looks better:

It doesn’t.

I’m a Master Piler though. One of the best. ;)

I can pile a TON of stuff in one spot, balancing it oh so delicately.

I’ve gotten pretty high. Pretty proud of myself.

The island is my nemesis. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to keep it completely clean for more than 24 hours:

Oh my…that is so awesome.

There’s a little spot in the kitchen where my deep secret lies…

When I take pictures of our kitchen for the blog, I pile all of the crap to the left of the fridge.

It’s why most of our kitchen pics look like this:

Cause you can’t see the PILE-O-JUNK:

I’m a sneaky one. ;)

OH, but wait…I forgot about the very very worst spot.

THE STAIRS…

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn.

Namely the basement stairs.

I’ve tried baskets. I’ve tried…well. I haven’t tried anything else. Especially the one thing that would work – just putting the stuff away when I’m done with it. ;)

On those days when the fog clears and I finally see the piles around me, the hives start and it must be cleaned up immediately.

Rightthisverysecond.

I’ve developed a very complex method of fixing the situation fast. I grab a big basket or bin and pile everything in the room inside:

Sometimes there’s a few things that are put away during the process, sometimes not. This time about half got put away, half went into the bin.

I’m also a bagger:

I’m not even going to tell you how long that stuff has been in the bag. Let’s just say a long time.

It’s the weird odds and ends stuff that hurts my brain – I have to really think of where to put it away.

I don’t like my brain to hurt, so I do what any normal person would do – I ignore the bag for as long as possible. ;)

Really, I could probably throw the whole bag away and never miss it.

But what if I stuck $20 in there? I didn’t. But what if I did??

That’s how my mind works.

The occasional grocery bag is easy to ignore, so that’s why I usually use the bin. It’s too big to avoid, too bulky for me to keep walking around.

After I fill it up, I carry it around with me from room to room, putting the stuff away where it belongs.

It works for me because it cleans off the surfaces fast, and that instant gratification is saaahweet!

In about 45 minutes, (with the Bub’s help), we had the whole family room and kitchen spotless:

Ignore the overflowing basket of toys…at least they’re off the floor!!

I can now get to my cereal, and that’s important:

My hiding spot is CLEAN! :)

And the island is free of clutter for one shining moment:

The coffee table is cleared:

And I’m starting to remember why we’ve always had a smaller table in the family room – less surface to clutter up!

I found a smaller beauty at Goodwill a few weeks ago, and I can’t wait to show you! And it will be soon, because the new sectional is IN people!!

It’s done about four weeks earlier than we thought!

(Store photo. Not our configuration or color.)

WHOO HOO!! I am so excited! We have to wait a week for the delivery, and then the TV is getting moved a few days later…so I’m hoping to show you everything in a couple weeks. :)

I’m determined to keep the room picked up at all times when we get it all completed.

Stop laughing. I can DO. THIS.  :)

It will probably last a week, but at least I have aspirations.

So…tell me, are you a piler too? A bagger? A take your time and put it all away-er? Or do you just keep the stuff off your surfaces? If so, I want to be you.

**Oh yeah…and the stairs? They still look like that. I’ll get to that tomorrow. Or something.

Caulk and Spackle, my BFFs

Helloooo there! Our gorgeous week of weather continues here, but I've been inside addressing a project that I’ve been avoiding for months.

It’s the not-so-fun stuff of room redos that stall me out. I’d rather cut and install molding then do the finishing work – the caulking and spackling and sanding.

UGH.

These are the days I wish I hired out. :)

I haven’t touched the office redo in such a long time…it’s just silly. I still haven’t painted that board and batten. I’ve been procrastinating that fun job because I had another fun job that had to be done first.

“Fun” = sarcasm.

But I picked up a little addition to the space a couple of weeks ago and it’s spurred me on to get it done already!! (More about that in bit.)

I finally got the mdf wall treatment prepped for paint and it’s not my favorite part by any stretch. This stuff isn’t hard, it’s just time consuming. After caulking for so many years, I have it down to a science, so I thought I should share my process.

After a molding project, you’ll need a couple things to finish up the job:

Caulk, (and a caulking gun) and spackle.

The caulk also comes in tubes that you just squeeze, but for a job like this – use the gun. For reals. Your hands and arms will thank me. :)

This is what a corner of the office looked like before I started:

It doesn’t look too bad far away, but up close you see the meeeeellions of nail holes, the gaps where the mdf pieces didn’t meet up perfectly, and the gaps where the wall and mdf aren’t flush.

When I install molding, I usually don’t caulk anything until right before I’m about to paint the last coat. But with this project there were some big gaps that needed to be filled, so I wanted to make sure they got plenty of coats of paint.

The reason I usually wait till I’m almost done is that MOST of the “gaps” don’t need caulk at all. A coat or two of paint will cover them just fine:

That lower joint will go away with paint no problem. But the larger gap won’t, so it gets the first of my BFFs – caulk.

Before you start – listen carefully. Always, always, ALWAYS use paintable caulk. Alllllways.

Even if you think you’ll never paint it again…use paintable caulk.

You never know what you’ll do in the future – even white paint will need touch ups over the years. Unpaintable caulk does not take kindly to paint.

Believe me. :)

So, you’ve got your paintable caulk. To start, trim off the top of the nozzle at an angle – but don’t cut it too low down on the nozzle. (Up high is a smaller hole, lower is a larger one.)

You want a thin line of caulk in most cases, and if it’s not big enough you can make always make it larger later.

Make sure the angle of the nozzle is up against your surface:

Then squeeze out a small amount into the joint, from top to bottom:

This is why you want a small bead most of the time – if it’s too thick you’re just going to waste a TON of caulk, and you’ll have an even bigger mess on your hands than usual. :)

Did I mention caulking is messy? I’ve tried everything to make it not so messy and it’s failed every time.

Messy is good. Be at peace with the messy.

You’ll need lots of paper towels too. Grab a bunch, get them good and wet, and wrap it over your finger like so:

This is pretty intense huh? ;)

I know you are on the edge of your seat. I know.

Take the paper towel finger and drag it down over the bead like so:

You don’t want to dig in too much, or you’ll remove most of what you just put on. You don’t want to be too light because you won’t take off enough. I usually go over it a few times, folding the paper towel over again with each swipe. 

That’s it! If it’s not perfect, I swear it won’t matter. Especially if you are painting everything out white, you’ll never notice it.

It is an amazing material because it covers a multitude of sins. I know this. :)

The next miracle worker is my friend spackle.

I use this for the holes – and because I’m obsessed with my nail gun, I always have a ton of holes.

I get a little out of control. :)

Git yer tub of spackle, get a glob:

And smoosh it in there:

Random weird note – I always use my middle finger. Not sure why. I’m not mad at ya spackle. :)

Sometimes I’ll have a very large gap where my measurements weren’t quite perfect:

For those, you can either try cutting a sliver to fill it in, or you can just fill it with spackle or caulk. I do both. Sometimes larger gaps like this take more than one application of the stuff, but after it’s sanded and painted, you won’t even notice!

Speaking of sanding – that’s your last step. I pretty much always use sanding blocks:

Love those with this shape because I can get into detailed areas.

Sand down your spackle after it dries (I love mine because it dries super fast) – but don’t sand the caulked spots. As far as I know they don’t make sandable caulk. ;)

It took a couple hours to do the whole space – including clean up. But it makes such a difference!:

Better, yes?

My little addition that got this ball rolling is a chair I found at Homegoods – it’s a lot more streamlined and much smaller than the beast we had in there before:

That one is now in hubby’s basement office, and it’s perfect in there!

I was planning on recovering the cushions on both the chair and ottoman, but when I found this chair, I was smitten:

It’s simple, it fits the space MUCH better, and it’s super comfy! I threw the poof in there for now, but I’m hoping to find an ottoman I can recover.

When the drapes are up behind it, it’s going to look SO good.

They look like they were made for each other:

LOVE it!

That pillow is from HomeGoods too – found that a few months ago for $20. It’s nearly identical to the Pottery Barn pillows for twice that. :)

I’m excited to get this ball rolling and have a finished office space. And now that the holes and gaps are gone, it’s finally ready for paint!

Yay.

Whoo.

Yippee.

Anyone want to come help??

Got any spackle or caulk hints? Do share! And seriously, want to come paint my office? ;)

 

P.S. You can see more of the office redo by clicking here.