Master Bedroom

I am officially calling the bedroom done! There is always room for slight tweaks, but as far as I am concerned this is the 2^nd room in the house that is completely finished (the first being the hallway bathroom). A lot of work went into this room so I am going to take it picture by picture to explain each of the projects and interesting finds, but first here is a view of the finished bedroom:

The project that took the longest and was the hardest for us to decide on was our accent wall. As you can see we tried first to stencil the wall, but it lacked color and really made the room feel drab, not to mention you could see every little imperfection up close. When at Lowe’s one night we decided to try wall paper. The sales associate was also extremely helpful and told us if we lightly painted the wall paper afterwards it would give it more dimension. So we put up wall paper and tried to lightly paint. That was an epic fail it looked like some kid came in and just went to town on our wall. It was a nightmare to live with and we could not wait to paint it a solid color. We picked a light orange, put up a crown molding and are super pleased with the results.

There are also all the awesome furniture pieces to talk about too. While in OH we were very diligent when looking for awesome craigslist finds and found both the night stands and king-size head and foot board. The king head and foot board were an awesome find for only $49.

Alex was kind enough to paint the items for me while I was in OH at training this summer.

He used our paint sprayer, which saved tons of time!  It took 5 minutes per coat for the headboard.

Unfortunately we did not have a bed frame long enough to attach the headboard and footboard together around the king size mattress. Fortunately Alex, by himself, fixed the problem….he’ll write the following section.

My idea was to connect the headboard and footboard with 2x8’s to create a freestanding bedframe that fits snugly around the mattress and boxspring but does not actually support anything but itself.  Making the connections secure and strong was the biggest challenge.  My solution was to use dowel rods and wood glue to hold the boards in place at each end.  Lining up the holes was very tricky to say the least.  

You can see the holes drilled into the leg of the headboard. 

The worst part about doing this project alone was keeping things aligned while the glue dried.  I had to stack books and boxes to support everything.

The following picture shows the connection at the footboard.  This crossbrace was screwed and glued in place to help keep the whole assembly from twisting.  The bedframe stops before the brace, and the boxspring sits right on top of it since the brace is aligned with the height of the frame.

The connection at the headboard was braced with a small bracket and some screws.  

Once everything was in place and the glue had dried I painted the wood to match the headboard and footboard.

The night stand was a craigslist find at $14 for the set, but the “before” photos explain why they were so cheap. They were scratched and covered in old tape and gobs of tape residue.

Alex took the doors apart and removed the hardware.  Then the residue was painstakingly scraped away with the help of spray Goof-Off.  All surfaces were then sanded and painted, and once dry the hardware was reinstalled.  Here is the finished product.  I liked the color but not the aged brown-gold handles.

Easy fix: just $1.19/handle at Lowe’s for more modern black handles.

As you can see we also replaced the rocking chair that my parents gave us with an original George Mulhauser Plycraft chair and ottoman, commonly known as the “Mr. Chair” of the 1960’s. I am absolutely in love with it. It does need some minor TLC, but I won’t attempt anything until I am satisfied with all my research on the subject since this is essentially an investment item as well as a piece of furniture.

  

One of my favorite items is the dresser set we found at a little antique store in Fort Walton Beach. The only thing we did to them was replace the original handles with ones we found at Anthropologie. We got a good deal on those too: on sale from $10 to $2.95/handle.  I love how it gives it a little modern pop. The cardboard moose head was a birthday gift I got for Alex from Cardboard Safari.

The last thing we did to the room was to organize and brighten it. As you can see in the next picture I was storing all my jewelry under the dresser. Under the dresser was the worst place for all my necklaces; they became tangled and I never really could see what I had. I found the solution in the cheapest, quickest and easiest, but still stylish way to store the jewelry. All I did was stain some scrap pieces of wood and add some simple dresser knobs found at Lowe’s.  Now the bottom of the dresser is the home of our Roomba, known as Pumba.

I found that even though I love the lamps they were just lacking in color or brightness. I felt they were making my side of the room feel darker than I wanted. To rectify this I just did a simple spray paint job so it looks a little antiqued. I then scored some round lamp shade at Lowe’s on sale for $3 that I covered with an awesome print I found on sale at JoAnn’s.

Last but not least…a quick look at the smaller but nonetheless interesting items in the bedroom.

I love the unique items I have acquired to organize my earrings and bracelets. The hand I picked up at a community yard sale in Seaside, the scenic town in Florida where the Truman Show was filmed.  The cheese grater idea came from Pintrest. So needless to say when I saw a yellow one at a thrift store I jumped on it. Last is my egg dish which I picked up at Anthropologie when I bought the dresser knobs. 

  

As you can tell Alex and I are huge fans of art. The charcoal artwork in the top left corner of the group of pictures below was done while I was in high school. My very best friend in the world did it and it happens to be of me.  The next image shows two pieces I picked up while on my 3hr layover in Australia returning home from New Zealand. I had the two paintings framed together once I got back to FL. There was no way I was passing up the opportunity to purchase something to prove I was there, even if it was just for a few hours. The lower set of photos shows a Norwegian trunk that my parents had made for me when we lived in Norway. The top depicts Preikestolen, commonly known as Pulpit Rock and the sides are Rosemaling (decorative painting) that is common in Scandinavia.

Bathroom Makeover

The guest bathroom got a whole new face! We replaced the toilet, vanity, lights and floor in the bathroom. Because of the small space only one of us could do the work at a time so most of it was accomplished by Alex. We ran into a lot of problems on this simple renovation, but we pressed through them to finish up in less than a week because we had to have it ready in time to host a guest.

The most amazing deal was the floor. We bought the boxes of tile from a flea market for $5 a box. The originally sold for $35/ box. We used 2 boxes of the tile on the floor. While perusing our local Habitat for Humanity resale store we were able to score a $26 bucket of grout for $1. I couldn’t believe it!  Excluding the price of the glue for the tile – we bought a large bucket we plan to use on our master bathroom and hopefully part of our kitchen – our bathroom floor cost us all of $11!!

In went the tile. 

Alex did an amazing job of cutting the tile to fit the circular part of the toilet opening.

Tile Dance. I was instructed to walk on the tile in order to apply the needed pressure. Naturally I turned on the music and instead danced on my tile.  

The toilet was the next thing to be installed and it had some minor complications. Being environmentally conscious I was excited to purchase a toilet that used less water in each flush. So we purchased a dual flush toilet! After putting it together we turned it on and found we had a leak at the old shutoff valve so we quickly learned via YouTube how to replace the shutoff valve and how to find and turn off the main water supply to the house.

Excited to buy my dual flush toilet 

New shutoff valve 

Lastly we installed the vanity. The vanity, bowl, and faucet were sold as one complete set from Lowes. Our first issue was the baseboards. Because you can see under the vanity we had to put in the baseboards. The vanity needed to be bolted to the wall but the baseboard prevented a snug fit. Alex fixed this by attaching a strip of extra baseboard to the wall where the vanity was to be bolted.  The screws then went through the vanity and the “spacer” into the wall for to secure the vanity.

Baseboard spacer

A perfect and secure fit!

Our next issue was the faucet. The one that was supplied leaked from the base no matter what we did. We went to Lowes to see if it could be fixed. It couldn’t so Lowes switched it with their display model from the same vanity set. When we got home Alex discovered that this one had been manufactured incorrectly and could not be installed. So we went back to Lowes where they tried again to fix it before giving up and allowing me to select a faucet of my choosing to replace the broken ones. I selected a $140 Delta faucet – a nice upgrade for free! 

Last but not least the before and after pictures 

"Before" 

"After"

The Shower curtain is Izola  purchased on Fab.com for only $12! Fab.com is an amazing way to find unique items. 

"Before"

"After"

"Before"

"After"

I saw this toilet paper holder idea on my favorite blog Young House Love. Its such a chic way to store toilet paper. 

 

Da Flo'

Wow, it has been a long time since our last post! It’s partly my fault as I just finished 10 weeks of training in Ohio to become a Civil Engineer in the Air Force. It was not as boring as it sounds, though it was difficult for me since I come from an Environmental Engineering background. It was actually educational, eye opening and fun, and I got to do some pretty cool things like this.

I left Alex with a few projects to do while I was gone. He did accomplish his honey- do list, but everything on it was a portion of bigger projects to come. I had him paint the kitchen cabinets so that when I got back we could order new counter tops and install backsplash (I got the backsplash while in Ohio.) He painted the smaller pieces of furniture in the bed room, but the larger items had to wait. He also created a bedframe from the headboard/footboard we got a while back.

So you can see we have things accomplished, but not much is show-ready yet. However, the biggest news is that we have the hardwood floors down!! Finally! The receipt for the purchase shows we bought these floors at the end of March and we now have them installed. We originally thought that we were just going to do the living room and hallway, but have since decided to add the foyer into the mix. We didn’t have enough wood to finish so we are waiting on that. While at the store we both fell so in love with the Natural hand-scraped Acacia engineered hardwood floors that it only took us a day to decided that this was the floor for us we were back the next day for the purchase. That’s a pretty fast move for us because this purchase was very permanent and pricey.

Here it is!! Our floor adventure through pictures.  

Alex took the day off work to rip up the carpet and start prepping for laying the floors down. 

I totally helped after work by removing the baseboards.

 Remember that I said our house sat empty for over a year before we bought it. Well it seems that it was used by some lizards as a place to lay their eggs. They snuck in through the dog door and I found these tiny eggs behind our baseboards. Lots of empty shells, but three were still intact. Alex is keeping them to see what hatches.

Be prepared to clean like crazy when replacing floors. I swept and swept and swept!!

"Dramatic" setting on the camera.  

Our granite tiles installed at the base of the fireplace 

The start of the floor! You can see our old textbooks being put to good use. 

Prepping the area between the kitchen and the living room. New kitchen floor (tile) to be added in the next few months. 

Sometimes a piece just would not fit so a little persuasion with a hammer was needed.

We had to work around watching Le Tour de France sometimes. 

One website said it would take 2 days to lay a hardwood floor down. So we got some coffee and worked into the night 

The cat doing what she does best.

This was about as far as we got with the coffee for the night. The website lied it took us a whole weekend and five days after work to finish. 

Laying the floor around the granite squares 

A new fan! We were in the market for a new fan since ours was original to the home and looks outdated (not to mention it didn’t work well.) We were shopping for supplies at Lowe's and just fell in love with this one. The new fan looks modern and moves tons of air, which is great for hot Florida summers.

Old Fan

New Fan

The cat has no thought for her safety! She just loved to nap on the tools 

Ripping up the foyer. 

Scrapping up the glue 

We are looking into thicker base boards so that too will be added soon. But here are the finished shots.

View from the kitchen 

View from the foyer 

View from the hallway 

The fireplace is not a finished project yet. We went out and bought all this granite for $50 (Alex calls it a Craigslist win). We are going to use a small portion of it to make a granite mosaic around the fireplace. We will certainly find other projects to make use of the rest later on.