Guest Bedroom

The next stop on our house update list was the Guest Room. Just in time for our friend Kate to come and stay with us. We had some pretty good ideas as to what we wanted to do in this room but we didn't have bedding and we hadn't picked out a color for the walls. So our first stop was to Macy's to check out bedding. Luckily we both really liked the same set. It is a Martha Stewart, comes with 24 pieces which include the comforter, sheet sets, pillow cases, pillow shams, European pillow shams, dust ruffle AND the valance for four windows as well as sheers and tie backs. All of that for $199 and the quality is wonderful.

What was nice is that the colors were wonderful, and we loved the bluish gray in the comforter and decided that would be the perfect color for the walls. We decided to go with Valspar Peaceful. I just LOVE the color and the way it came out on the walls.

So here we go, here are the before shots

So this was a pretty easy basic room, the only big dislikes were the dark wood trim and doors and the track lighting.

So we (and when I say we, I mean the boy) started with painting the trim

It really makes the color on the walls look yellowish, kind of like French vanilla ice cream. Next was the color on the walls and changing out the light fixture. I love the light fixture which came from Lowe's. The boy thought it was kind of pricey at $94, but we have been having such bad luck with light fixtures and I just loved this one.

 This is the dresser for the guest room.

After we (again, the boy) finished the paint, the wainscoting went up. I just LOVE the way it turned out and made the furniture pop.

 We have a small round mirror to go over the dresser.

 I will have to take a better picture of the picture on the wall which I bought at Home Goods for $29.99. I love the saying and thought it would be perfect for the wall. Still looking for something smaller to put on either side of the picture.

 I love the hooks for the backs of the doors, that was more for me, not our guests, I am always looking for somewhere to hang my bags, and I always have a bag with me going somewhere.

We still need to do a few things, the boy has some touch up to do, but I am very happy with the end result. The bedroom set is from the 1920's and we bought it at an estate sale. We still have the headboard to put on, and the bed also has a footboard, but the room is just not big enough for this.

 I wanted to make sure that K from CT was comfortable, so I framed a couple of pictures of her husband J from CT and their dog Max. Who is so cute. She appreciated the touch. The floral candle holder in the middle I found at Home Goods and just love it. The glass and water carafe is from my mom.

The box is from my mom, more pictures of K & J from CT on the mirror. The lamp base and shade are from Target boutique. $14. 99 for the base and $14.99 for the shade. I love the colors.

I just ADORED this cup when I found it at HomeGoods for $5.99 and I could just see it sitting on the dresser just waiting for some jewels to be put in it for the night.

My mom gave me this beautiful vase for my birthday, I just love it and the color went perfect in here. It will be the perfect vessel for flowers to greet guests as they arrive.

I also had a little local reading waiting for K to read.

We found this great little luggage rack, just waiting for K's bag.

Perfect storage space.

The space is small and tight but a bedside table is nice. We had this leftover from another room and it fit perfectly. I think another lamp would be a nice addition and if someone wants to do some reading it bed it would help. What do you think?

Overall I am very pleased with the way the room came together. Which is good since we now have somewhere to stay while we work on the Master Bedroom. But the basement needs to be finished first!

Mud Room

So, not as much of a "room update" but an accomplishment is an accomplishment around these parts and this still carries the wow factor for me because it was so ugly dark and gross.

The boy spent a lot of time painting and updating this area. For such a small room it took a lot of work.

Here are the befores (yuck)

 I am hating the dark 70's wood, the dark brown door and the ugly white knobs. With no windows and not a lot of light, it needed to be brightened up a bit. 

Ta-da!

 The rug is from Target, we replaced the vent grate on the floor.

 New knobs, and the paint on the wall is the same color from the Master Bath, Behr Basketweave. We bought a five gallon bucket of the white that we are using for the doors and trim throughout the house. I love the way that the paint on the trim and dark woodwork is really brightening things up and making this a little more modern.

 We put the chalkboard from my old place up. I love this chalkboard, real slate and it is a great place to keep track of our lists.

 This is a Wall Decal that I bought off of Etsy, and the hook is from Lowe's. Sometimes we even have coats on there. To the right is a pocket door and the laundry room, which is also almost ready for a reveal of its own.

 That is a pocket door that goes into the eat in kitchen area and media room. Behind the pantry door on the left is where my laundry chute comes out. Do you have a laundry chute? This is a first for me, but I LOVE it!

 This door goes to the garage, and eventually we will get a new doorknob when we replace the front door.

 Behind these doors,I would love to tell you that my pantry is all organized and beautiful and I have all of the canned good items cataloged so I can just look at the index and get great meal ideas. But realistically, we are doing our best, but we still have room for progress.

Overall I am very pleased with the updated mudroom. It is a much more pleasant experience walking in the door to the bright updated space. We also have a mud tray which we keep our shoes and boots in during the winter. At the moment I have flowers and herbs sitting in it waiting to be planted.

Guest Bathroom

Another room down! Whew! We are definitely behind schedule, but due to the basement and our trip out East, it makes sense right now. We still have some finishing touches to put on my office before I can post that as being completed, but that should be next. The next room is the Guest Room, and luckily we have the furniture and most everything for the guest room, we are still trying to decide on colors, but I am looking forward to getting that room done as well. I want to get the guest room done so that when we do the Master Bedroom, we will have somewhere to sleep. The Master Bedroom will definitely take more work, so we will want some time for that.

Next week the boy has taken the week off from work, and he and my dad are going to re-do and fix the damage in the basement that we had in February when we were on vacation. We had a quote, but unfortunately it was a lot more than what we wanted to spend (or what we had gotten back from insurance) on the basement. I will definitely be taking before and after pictures there as well. Unfortunately I never got any really good pictures of the basement after we had gotten it set up.

Onto the Master Bath, here is the before,

We were lucky that we were able to start with kind of a clean slate. White floors, white tiled walls, and a white bathroom. I hated the dark wood, ugly lights, old yucky faucets and silly ugly knobs. The other good part was the shower/tub were in perfect condition. Mirror, gross. So, the boy started by priming the dark wood.

My dad had changed the light fixture out a while back and we were able to use it as is for the time being. 

We had our work cut out for us, but we both had an idea of what we wanted in mind. As we would see things that we thought would work in the room we would pick them up. The first of which was a couple of pictures that gave us the inspiration for the color which is Ocean by Waverly Classics Valspar.

It is hard to tell here, but it is a blue green, and I just love it. This is the same type of paint we bought for the laundry room and I just love the way it looks on the wall. The boy said it went on nice and thick too, which I think adds to the appearance.
The pictures we wound up returning, because they just didn't look right on the walls. But we did find some that we love. We had gone to Valspars website and ordered paint samples, and with that, we received a $5 off a gallon of paint at Lowes. The cost for a gallon of this paint I believe is $32. We still have a lot left over as well. I love the color, so I am not worried about that.

New blind from Lowe's. Mirror $59.99 Home Goods (we had bought a much bigger mirror for here when we did the Master Bath, it was too big, so we returned that and bought this one). Light fixture Lowe's last fall when we bought the ones for the Master Bath and Eat in Kitchen. I need to go back and look at the price on that one. 

The Tommy Bahama "Relax Map" Shower curtain was from Rue La La back in March for $19.90 and the shower curtain hooks from Target for $9.99. I am still looking for some cute little pineapple ones, but these will do for now.

 I asked the boy to paint the back of the built in the same color as the wall to break up the white of the shelf. I really like the way that it turned out and the brown/bronze accents.

 The candles and candle holders were also Home Goods finds, $5.99 for the shorter one, and $7.99 for the taller one. The candles were $3.99 each. You can't really see from the picture, but the brown candle holders actually have a little of the greenish color like the walls on them.

 When we did the master bathroom we changed out all of the door knobs on the second floor. We went with a lighter brown for towels. These are from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I save up some 20% off coupons. They had a darker brown, but I like the lighter brown better.

The pineapple accents are also Tommy Bahama from Rue La La and the whole set, toothbrush holder, drinking cup, soap dish and soap dispenser were $29.90. I saw the same set on eBay for $45.00 so I was pretty pleased with the purchase. 

 The faucet we bought last fall as well when we purchased some other items. The boy installed it, I like the way it turned out. This was the most expensive of the three that we purchased from Overstock.com at $91.99.

 I wasn't sure about the built in when it was so dark, but I really like the way that it turned out painted. Perfect for storage too.

 The light on the top shelf, the boy found at Home Goods for $16.99 and I love the way it looks there. I picked the baskets up at Michael's for half price. $1.99 for the small one and $6.99. The Aveda is courtesy of my brother in law who works for Aveda. Candle, Home Goods, and the vintage hair dryer was a Christmas present from my sister, I just love how it goes. Still looking for a couple other things to put in here, but I think we have those around the house. The boy has some neat lighthouses that I think will look great in here.

The pictures are also from Home Goods, $12.99 each. They are not the original pictures we had picked out which inspired the color for the walls, but I actually like these better. The other pictures were more wrapped canvas and didn't have the frame, so the colors seemed to blend into the walls where the frames on these pictures make the colors pop more. 

I still need to have a valance made from this fabric which I purchased for $4.99 on closeout from Hancock Fabrics. I just need to find someone who sews. 

 We also upgraded the knobs a tad. Knobs are expensive. These were $3.79 each, kind of a splurge when you think about it, but I just loved them.

We also changed out the toilet lever. This was a $7.99 upgrade and well worth it since the boy changed it out himself. I think these little fixture upgrades make a big difference and really pull things together. He also added some trim around the built-in, really just makes it look finished.

Over all I am very pleased with the end result, and I think our guests will enjoy it as well, I wonder who will be first?