Master Reboot

Have you guys officially given up on me?

While I haven't blogged much about our house lately, we have still been working on things. The jobs are not nearly as die hard as they were when we first moved in, but they are still fun and exciting changes. Plus we have some bigger projects that we are saving up for.

Sometimes I walk into a room and it feels good. I guess the best way to explain it would be; if I don't want buy anything for that room, or want to move items around, then it is good. If I look at Pinterest and all I can think is this room could use *incert whatever item here* then I know that I am not done.

The living room has been the same for awhile now, and the spare room is still one that when I walk into it I smile.

The spare room is bright and happy and I really wanted that same feeling in our room. Not necessarily as colorful, but bright and fun.

I have had some stumbling blocks with our house before. Our bedrooms are small and tend to be shaped a little weird. Our master bedroom, while it has a master bathroom (which is nearly unheard of in our neighborhood for an un-remodeled house) is still very small. Our room can fit a queen bed, but would never be able to fit a king, and even a queen is a pinch.

I have tried different furniture configurations,

in hopes of maybe finding a better setup, but I always go back to the original.

When we originally bought the house we had two side tables and a large dresser. We sold the dresser and two side tables and exchanged them for a small dresser as a side table, and a dresser for me.

That is how it has been.

Not awful. But not great either.

I look at pictures of bedrooms all the time, and when I started really pinpointing what I loved about the rooms, it was that the majority of them were white. They looked clean and uncluttered.

Along with working on our house, I have also been trying to actively get rid of items that we don't use or need.

For years I have told Blake that I would like a bed with no foot board. It is a strange request, but I do have some sound reasoning for wanting to change.

Our room is tiny. I am OK with it's tinyness...I don't spend a ton of time in there, so I would rather have that space somewhere else. With a foot board, our room looked even smaller. It feels like you are walking into a bed the moment you walk in the room.

So I went searching for a new bed frame.

I found this picture on Pinterest

and after some super sleuthing I found out that the bed frame was from Ikea. Of course they had painted it, but it was just the simple shape that I wanted. I was originally going to buy a white frame, but since I knew I was going to paint the walls white, I went with black.

The next step was getting rid of the unwanted bulk, in the form of dressers.

Then I started the painting.

When we moved into the house, I painted our bedroom a grey color. It was light, and I still like the color, just not in our bedroom. So the walls got painted a bright clean white.

I knew I wanted to hang a picture that I got from my great grandma on the wall since it had been stored under my bed since we moved into this house.

The picture is old and I didn't want to make our room look old.

So in order to counter the oldness of the picture I painted the wall with the most immature shape I could think of. Polka dots.

My decorating methods are very scientific.

I kid.

Most of the time I just cross my fingers and hope it looks OK.

Painting the dots took two grueling days.

Then it was time to hang the picture and put everything back into place. Until I realized that our baseboards could use a touch up.

At this point, our walls were white, our curtains were white, and we had white bedding. Sure, we had a black bed and black polka dots. But, our room needed a smidgen of color. 

So, I did what any insane person would do.

I painted the baseboards a dark turquoise color.

Surprisingly, I enjoy them quite a bit.

Blake managed to clean out a big three drawer dresser in exchange for a small one drawer side table.

Our bedroom now feels uncluttered and clean. I hope to at some point get a rug, but I am no hurry.

Stuck

Oh, the living room. My secret nemesis.

Too dramatic? Possibly.

Me and the living room have a love/hate relationship. Because our house is split entry, the staircase comes up the side of the living room, where there is a pony wall.

Attached to the other side of the living room, is the dining room. Neither the living room, or dining room is very large, but they are not tiny either.

My biggest struggle is trying to get the most of our space with out making it feel overwhelmed.

When we first moved in, we tore up the carpet, painted the walls and ceiling and then proceeded to try and make our furniture work with the space. When we bought the majority of our furniture it was for our house in Vegas. The Vegas house, was newly built and had more spacious rooms. Hence, the larger furniture fit in great.

The furniture in this house fit...OK. It worked for what we needed it to, at the time. 

I had disliked these couches for awhile, and had tried numerous times to rearrange the room to see if it could look better a different way.

I had lots of people compliment my room saying that they loved it, for which I was truly grateful. For me, it started to feel a little too busy. I didn't like our couches and I wanted something new. I wanted something that felt uncluttered and clean.

So I did something drastic.

My mom had given me money, as a gift, to buy something that I wanted, that I typically wouldn't buy. The only thing that I knew I wanted was a couch. Obviously couches are more...so...I sold all of our living room furniture. With the exception of my vintage orange chair. Then I used the money to buy my new couch.

We looked around for couches that we liked. I wanted it to have straight lines, be comfortable but not too fluffy, and still be able to sit three people.

We found this leather couch from RC Willey. I was nervous about having a light colored leather couch...but -spoiler-...I loved it, and I still love it.

The couch was in, and the room was definitely simple, but I still didn't love it.

So I did what any none sane person does...I moved around furniture.

Sometimes I would add in a chair,

or try the "divide and conquer", 

I found a coffee table that was in rough shape...so I tried that too.

This layout was the one that I liked the best, so it stuck around.

This cabinet was originally in the kids toy room but I thought I would give it a try in the living room.

I liked that it wasn't too big, and that it seemed to ground that side of the room.

But, I still wasn't completely happy.

I figured since I has changed the furniture, and the decor, and even the style, that it couldn't be any of those things. The only thing left, that I could think of, was the paint.

I love color.

Me and color are besties. 

So, when I proposed that I was going to paint the room white, Blake probably thought I was joking.

I wasn't.

I got the room all ready to paint, and then I just went for it.

What you can't really see in these pictures is that the wall that I painted white is the whole depth of our house. It goes into the dining room.

In the dining room is a large mirror.

Separating the two rooms has always been a little of a challenge for me.

"Where do I hang art, that I want to be in the living room, and not look like it is part of the dining room?" "Will it look weird to have a big mirror, some space, and then some more art?"

My solution? Separate the rooms with a stripe.

Oh how I wish this were the end of the living room saga!

Alas...no.

I felt like the very hungry caterpillar that was still hungry. Something just didn't seem right.

Along the way I traded the wood dresser for a hutch

and I traded the black chair for a white one.

My living room felt dark, and full of wood,

...and maybe even a little old? I don't know.

I needed lighter colors.

I tested colors for the stripe.
Nope. That wasn't going to fix my problem either.
After reading an article it occurred to me that perhaps I just needed to eliminate some colors. Streamline, if you will. I also realized while looking at pictures of other rooms, that I like rooms with lots of white.
So I got rid of the hutch and traded it for another dresser, this time with white. (I may eventually paint all the drawers white, but I haven't committed to that yet.) I also changed the rug, the brown cabinet at the top of the stairs, and I painted over the stripe.

There are lots of plants around. I seem to not be able to stop buying them. Our house is going to look like a jungle soon.

I love having fun things to look at in rooms. I appreciate that special thing that you won't see in other people's houses...
Like metal frogs used to hold photos.

Or a random collection of globes in the corner.

Maybe a little piggy bank that looks like it could be in Toy Story,

or a mask from Mystere and a brass cricket to remind me of our living in Vegas.

Since the room has changed, which I will admit hasn't been a real long time, I have really liked it.
It feels colorful, but not too busy.
Before:

After: 

The Rabbit Hole

Are you getting sick of the toy room yet?

Well, if you are, there is good news for you. It is pretty much completed. Not that I won't probably add things in the future...because I most likely will.

That is how I roll.

But, just to get you up to speed...

I bought this "couch" to use in the toy room. It sits low to the ground so I thought it would be good for kids. Problem? Where do I begin. It didn't have a cushion or a cover. I figured it wouldn't be that bad to make one myself. That is the problem with wanting to do something yourself....sometimes it doesn't work out quite how you planned. I figured that I would go to the fabric store, buy some foam, make a cover and we would be set.

Do you have any idea how expensive foam is?! Spendy stuff.

So I did what any normal person would do, and I deconstructed our couch and used the foam.

Ok, so most people don't do that. But I did, and it saved me a fortune.

Then I got to problem number two: No cover.

Thankfully, I am handy with a sewing machine so I wasn't quite so nervous about this part. I was mostly concerned about how expensive the fabric was going to be.

Hancock Fabric here has fairly inexpensive upholstery material so I found some there. I then made a pattern out of paper so that I could get the curve of the couch correct.

It took me about a day to complete the cover. I was pretty happy when it was done, but wished I had made the zipper opening a little larger. Trying to get that cushion in ended up being more hassle then I would have preferred.

Since the back of the couch is wood spindles I opted to make some over sized pillows with some fabric that I found at an estate sale.

I also finished up my hand stitched flower pillow, complete with pom pom fringe. I just couldn't help myself.

I have to tell you a secret. I am having a small love affair with Mid Century Modern furniture. I want to buy it all and fill our house.

But I will tell you something else,...it ain't cheap.

I really wanted a cabinet to put in the kid toy room so that I could put the kids legos in drawers and something to hold the kids books. I had been looking at estate sales and the DI but I hadn't had any luck.

I had this cabinet that I had painted with chalkboard paint, but I didn't really love it.

I actually hardly liked it, but it worked.

It is hard to argue with something that serves a purpose, when you don't have anything to replace it with.

Sometimes patience pays off. 

And sometimes it pays off in the form of a $25 dollar dresser.

Funny side story: We bought the dresser for $25 from an estate sale. I couldn't have been more pleased. It came with a mirror that matched it. Because the dresser is right underneath a window I had no purpose for the mirror...so I sold it...for $30. Then, because I had no use for the black cupboard, I sold that for $20. I am going to call this dresser a win.

Especially since this is the same dresser! Crazy!!

With the new dresser, the couch got repositioned to a different wall. I much prefer it to the older set up.

Blake put up some baseboards right before company came for Thanksgiving. It is impressive how much nicer a room looks with baseboards.

Ya'll ready for this?

Finished!

...well...for now anyways...