Thursday, July 26, 2012

The If At 1st You Don't Succeed Bedroom


It’s been 4 years since I signed my life away and tied my financial future to Bank of America for the next 30 years (well not BAC exactly but you know how it goes with banks and the buying and selling of mortgages).  My appointment with the lawyers was mid-day so that left me hours after signing to hang out at my new house and start the process of moving out of 1972.  So I immediately headed over and the very first project I took on was the master bedroom.  There were 2 major problems that needed fixing before I could spend one night in my new house and the master bedroom was one of them (the bathroom was the other). 

The master had some old very dingy wallpaper that had violets all over it on the walls and purple (lilac) ruffley curtains on the windows as well as a bluish/greenish/dirtish wall to wall carpet on the floor.
 
Mrs Johnson's Master Bedroom - she slept in this room
for over 60 years...I'm thinking she liked purple
I was told that there were hardwoods under that carpet so you know what the destiny of that carpet was…but first I wanted to take care of the walls & ceiling – no sense in pulling the carpet up until I had all of my painting done.


So, with all kinds of horror stories of removing wallpaper from my fellow home projecters fresh in my mind, every tool I could find at Lowes in my hands and with great trepidation I started on removing the paper. To my surprise it came right down – no tools, no wallpaper remover chemicals, no cursing…peeled right off the wall in strips.  Lucky or what?

This is my master the day I signed on that fateful
dotted line...It's hard to see the violets in this photo
so yo will just have to trust me...they are there and not
very appealing (to me).
Now, if you haven’t already figured out from my One Room Down post I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to paint color. But I also was very limited on time to assess, analyze, contemplate, etc. I had exactly 3 weeks before I had to be out of my apartment and into this house and had to not only finish this bedroom but also a total bathroom redo.
So with no time I selected a pinkish/peachish color paint, put it on the walls and hoped for the best.  It was a California Paint color called Peach Breeze so it wasn’t too pink…definitely had peach undertones but when I got it all finished I definitely had a pink room.  Not exactly what I was going for but it was pretty and I’d make it work with brown curtains & bed accessories to try to make it a little less “Barbie lives here”.

The Barbie version of my master bedroom...a perfectly lovely color
but really not for me.

So, 3+ years later and with a long list of house projects done (so I feel I can justify redoing a perfectly good room) I am so done with the pink…time to repaint! This time I went far more neutral with a Benjamin Moore color…Butterfly Kisses….don’t you just love that name for a bedroom color? I didn't want boring beige but did want neutral – I think this color is perfect and it really has a great read on the walls.

Finished Bedroom..light, airy, neutral but definitely not
boring beige
With this paint color the brown curtains & bed accessories now were a bit too neutral so off I went in search of some color. I was going to try my hand at making drapes but when I figured out it was going to cost me $600+ in materials alone and since I am really not a seamstress I decided that really wasn’t a great plan.

One of the guys who works for me in my corporate life mentioned that Pier One had some great options at really great prices. He was right and I found just the perfect drapes…not exactly what I had in mind when I first went looking but I absolutely love these (and they are lined)!

My Master now...hopefully I will sleep many more nights
here...maybe not 60+ years though. 
I now almost wish I hadn’t waited 3+ years for the redo but definitely love the finished product now.

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