Master Bedroom Progress

So its been a loooooong time since I've posted and its not because I am a slacker. Really, I'm not. I mean I wish my days had more than 24 hours and I could fit it all in, but I just can't. And I am not a slacker. I swaer. Since I last posted I have photographed and edited four weddings and at least a dozen family photo sessions, completed countless home improvement and diy projects, organized four closets and completely revamped my photography blog and website. Oh and did I mention that I also work full time as a teacher AND I had a baby this summer?! So much has changed in our lives and in our house since we've moved in... So...get posting already, right??

Okay okay, but just let me preface the following post with this....I have a problem. The perfectionist in me takes over and I don't want to share what I've done or post before and after pictures of ANYTHING until the room is completely finished.  However, I am finally beginning to realize that one is NEVER completely finished with their home. There is always something that needs to be done. And many times what needs to be done can break the bank! For example-- the new windows that we are getting in a few weeks!! --MUCHO DINERO, but I can't WAIT!!-- and that makes me feel SO old. Seriously. I will be like a kid on Christmas morning on the day we get these windows. Is that weird?  But as I was saying, there is always something one can change to make a house more of a home. I don't ever plan to be done.  I want to always find ways to fill my home with things that have meaning for us and empty out the things that don't.  I'm learning that it's more about the journey....SO, the perfectionist in me needs to say the following pictures will show improvement....but we've got a long way to go. And I do have a vision. Maybe you can see it too?

Let's start with the master bedroom today.


So here was our master bedroom when we bought the house:

And here it was right after we moved in:

Pathetic, huh?

Ay yay yay. That's what I say to my students when something just isn't right. And this ain't right. Do you see that mirror leaning in the corner? That's one of those cheapo target mirrors that I got back in college. I think I painted that design around the frame to "spiff" it up about 10 years ago. I think its about time we get a nice full length mirror, don't you? And yikes, doesn't that dresser look a little small for that space? I do love that dresser. I got it at a consignment shop called Legacies Limited about 8 or 9 years ago. I painted it white, back when I used oil (SO not necessary anymore) and added the knobs which I bought from this awesome artist.  So I moved this dresser to Lucia's room (now both girls' room) and I put the dresser that I originally had in the dining room here.

Better, right? But still not done. I plan to hang the mirror, mount the TV (which involves cutting holes in the wall to hide the cords or it would be done already!), find a way to conceal the cable box and DVR and hang some art. Better, but not done. Will let you know when this wall is El Finito.

So next we have this view. Found a rug and some lamps from Marshall's and some pillows to add some more color and texture to the space. The pillows are from Target and the Foundary and the pillow shams are from West Elm.

Next I added these curtains from Target. I had to order them online to get the length I needed since they don't sell the 96" length in the store. I still need to put up new curtain rods. These were cheap ones that were left by the previous owners. I have some nicer ones but I don't want to hang them until after I paint this room. Haven't decided on a color yet. Probably something beigey or creamy gold. Hmm. Actually neither of those sound good right now...so now you know half the reason why I haven't painted this room yet. The other half is I haven't found the time. Anyway. Rods. Plan to hang them after I paint. Will also hang some bamboo shades for some more texture.

Let's talk about that big girl mirror that you see here. LOVE her. This is one serious solid wood leaning wall mirror. Nothing like that little baby you saw in the other corner when we first moved in. And would you believe she was only $119??!! I am not kidding. I searched for SO long for a big beautiful floor mirror and I couldn't find anything less than $800 except for this baby. She is from IKEA and boy was it an experience to get her. Since we don't have and IKEA in Milwaukee (One of the only reasons you'll hear me say "BOO, Milwaukee!") I asked my mom to pick this up for us at the IKEA in Minneapolis. She gave it a good ol' college try and couldn't fit it in her car. For some reason, I didn't understand why...until the hubs and I made the trip down to the IKEA in Chicago with our JEEP commander and this baby barely fit and I mean BARE.LY. Hubby drove with the steering wheel up in his chest. But we got her home and I HEART her. Hmm. Just realized this picture isn't very recent because this is still a queen bed here...and last February my dream of slumbering in a king bed came true. Every night in a king bed. Dream. Come. True. Note to self. Photograph king bed.

Finally, here is a quick shot of some DIY art I created. Maps of Wisconsin, Mexico and Italy (Where we met, where we married and where we honeymooned) cut out in hearts and mounted on scrapbook paper). I like how they turned out but I am thinking of moving them somewhere else in the room. I'll let you guess where.

Has anyone else made some cool DIY art lately? Or driven over a hundred miles with the steering wheel in their ribs to get a big girl mirror?

Lucia's Room Updates {Girl's Bedroom Makeover}

So, some things have definitely changed since we first moved in and completed our very first home makeover in Lucia's room.   Let's take a look back and see the before and after from back in January 2011.

The first big update was the new girly girl chandelier that I added shortly after the makeover. I love the ceiling medallion, which cost nothing because we brought it from our first house after the tenant switched out a light fixture and gave it back to us. The chandelier I got for $60.44 on Overstock with free shipping. I added the little pink shades, which I think I also scored on Overstock.

Then early last fall when Lucia started jumping out of her crib, we had to act fast and get her into a "big girl bed." I actually inherited this beautiful twin bed, a family heirloom which belonged to my step-dad's grandmother. I have been waiting for the day when I my sweet little ladybug could use it. So, while the little jumping bean was giving us a run for our money, I was one part frustrated mommy, one part thrilled decorator.  When I first inherited this beauty, it was painted a white-washed green color. I painted it with a high gloss white oil paint to get this shabby chic yet sleek look.

I heart this "big girl" room!

While I am quite happy with this room now and my little ladybug is too, there are still some minor changes that I need to make (painting the vent to match the wall so it doesn't stick out like a soar thumb, and ORBing the hardware on the doors and windows) AND some major ones too. Most importantly we need to rearrange to make room for baby #3, who we learned back in February is another girl! We're all dying to meet her and Lucia is very excited to share her room with her new baby sister.  I have also been dreaming of painting a white tree in here, because I SO miss the beautiful tree I painted in the nursery at the old house with help from a dear friend. I am thinking it will go on the wall to the right of the closet. However, I am quite certain the very next step is going to have to be organizing the closet to make room for all the teeny tiny clothes and other baby stuff our new little peanut will need.

My inspiration for this project comes from here and here and here. I am LOVING the ribbon chandelier, the curtain in place of a door and the painted and stenciled walls from my favorite blog, Young House Love!

Here's how crazy and unorganized the closet looks now:

STAY TUNED while I organize and hopefully DIY this into a beautiful little space.

The Coop {Boy's Bedroom Makeover}

So this is how Cooper's room looked the week we moved in:

Not pretty! Check out that faux chair rail. Apparently the previous owners had some affection for chair rails and painters tape. I guess its fine if you don't mind it looking like your room is chopped in half...or if its 1992. But fortunately or unfortunately, I DO mind and its NOT 1992. So anyway, as I mentioned, we had to do the same thing in Lucia's room and it was a PITA to sand down flat. In this room we had navy blue dust everywhere. I guess when I think about it, its not an extremely labor-intensive job, but you definitely have to make sure to wear a mask and some old clothes. The good ol' handsander did the trick. It took about 30 minutes of sanding time along the top and bottom edge of the stripe, pressing pretty hard with the sander...and when the not-so-lovely blue stripe was finally all sanded down, we added a couple of coats of some Behr Almond Toast on the walls and some Behr gloss white on the woodwork (For some odd reason this was the only room in the house-minus the family room-that didn't have white woodwork)........ and VOILA!

Here is what Coop's new "Coop" looked like after our DIY makeover:

I am pretty happy with how it turned out! I picked up the awesome flatweave rug at IKEA. The bed was a housewarming gift from Mark's mom which we bought at JCP online. It even has a built-in trundle bed, which you obviously can't see from this angle.

I had some curtains just like these in my living room at the duplex and I really wanted to use them in this room but I only had two. They were the Nate Berkus line from Linens N Things, which apparently doesn't exist anymore, so I had to re-create them myself. I bought these plain brown panels from Target Boutique and added the ribbon detail on the top and bottom using iron on tape. Nifty, huh?

The Expedit shelf, which I LOVE, is IKEA also and comes in three different colors. We got the white one for the playroom also because I loved it so much in here. The baskets, which were only $5 each, were from Big LOTS of all places! The armoire we got at TJMaxx when we bought Cooper's crib for his nursery. It was a set and we only bought two pieces. I'm not really a fan of "sets" and had originally planned to paint this piece, but at the moment, I don't mind it in this wood tone. The Bamboo roman shades are from Home Depot. I hung them all as close together as possible for a seemless look. You could achieve the same by ordering custom sizes to go all the way across each set of windows but that would be much harder on the pocketbook then my bargain find!

I ordered the vintage train prints on this wall and above Cooper's bed on Fulcrum Gallery for under $10 and just framed them in frames from Target. The awesome train shelf above the bed is from Pottery Barn Kids. (I had a gift certificate!) and the Railroad Crossing Sign and vintage WI license plate were found online also.

So, that's the lowdown on Cooper's room. Its been done since February and I am just now finishing this post....and just as I was finishing up, I went upstairs to discover my two little bugs in bed reading together:

I posted this photo of the peanuts on facebook and a high school acquaintance told me the room looked like it was straight out of Pottery Barn! THANKS, Paul! What a compliment. Pottery Barn taste on a garage sale budget. I guess it works?

Kids Come First {Girl's Bedroom Makeover}

So the very first thing we did after moving in was order pizza. But moments later, we began decorating the kids rooms. Not the living room or family room or dining room or master bedrooom. The KIDS ROOMS. Its fitting that we would start there, because of course, as everyone knows, once you have kids, they come first. Many, many, MANY of the things that were so important before kids (i.e. manicures, shopping for clothes for myself, long hot baths, working out!) suddenly fall by the wayside and you live and breathe for your kids. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I have painted my own nails, let alone gotten a manicure in the three years since Cooper was born and I seriously wouldn't have been caught dead without perfectly manicured nails BC (Before Cooper).

Anyway...We started Coop and LucyLu together in Lucia's room, which suited them just fine, because they were sharing the tiniest of tiny bedrooms at the duplex just a day earlier. Ironically after the crazy months of adjusting to finally get the two babies in the tiny room together without waking eachother up at night, they eventually ended up loving being together so much that Cooper often crawled out of his crib and crawled in with Lucy and we would find them all curled up together in the morning like two little puppies. Just melted my heart. Thus, I was thinking that the transition to a new house and separate bedrooms might be a bit much for them and sharing for a couple weeks while we worked on the rooms would be just fine. SO....let me give you a before shot of Lucia's room with the two cribs in there.

Pretty bad, I know. And those stripes were a pain in the you know what to sand down. UGH! Red dust everywhere.

So after A LOT of sanding, two coats of _________ paint (gotta look back at my swatch for the name) and some DIYed curtains later, it looked like this:

Here's a look at the curtains up close. Okay, okay. I didn't sew these myself. I could. If I wanted to. And if I had a sewing machine. That's truly what's holding me back. (Mom, if you are reading this, feel free to donate your machine when you upgrade to that one that you really want.) But I did DIY by doctoring up the store bought ones from Land of Nod. You see I wanted really long curtains, that I could hang high and wide to make the window look much bigger, but no one sells cute girly, yet sophisicated ones that don't cost an arm and a leg. So I bought these pink ones from the Land of Nod and then bought one extra panel in the same pattern in green and cut it up to add an extra 10 inches to the bottom by using iron on tape and this cute pink polka dot ribbon to cover up the seam. See? What do you think? OH! I almost forgot. I used the extra green material to recover the cushion on the bench at the end of her bed. Perfect fit.

Here's Lucia's little "art gallery collage" that I created on the wall above the dresser-made-changing-table. I created four of the seven pieces of art by using paint, tissue paper, and decoupage. I saw an artist online once that made similar children's art and I coldn't afford the price tag, so I thought I would try it myself. SO I can't take credit for the method nor the designs. But I think they turned out alright. I also painted the mirror pink and the beautiful watercolor framed art on the other wall, hanging over the crib (which you can also see in the mirror) by an artist named Judie Bomberger was already framed in that cool wood frame, so I just painted it pick to coordinate with the pink from the curtains and the mirror.

So that's that. My little girly girl room for my little girly girl who also happens to be a monster. A LuciaMonster. More about that later.