more often than not, when matt goes away, i get these crazy ideas to re-do some part of our house. i usually take on way more than i can handle and end up exhausting myself instead of doing what i really want to do, which is read, catch up on movies, relax. but the end result makes it all worth it.
this time, matt took a 10 day road trip to new york with his dad. the minute he pulled out of the driveway, the kids and i disassembled my bedroom and went to home depot and starbucks (this project would require some immediate energy!) i had to get started before the inspiration and motivation went away. because this was a total surprise to matt, i was doing this without a budget. so using the bigger things that we already have, i went to work.
i wish i had a before picture, but who would want a picture of that? so i didn't take one. to give you an idea, our room had been painted green with white stripes (what was i thinking??) and the style was very "whimsical" which translates to "nothing matches"!!
i gave the ceiling a fresh coat of white paint, dragging a drop cloth throughout the room...because who buys one big enough to cover the entire room? yeah, uh not me. i became speckled in the process, but once that was done, the worst of the messy part was over. next came patching the holes, sanding it down should have followed, but i was busy getting it done and forgot to do that. oh well. finally, i painted two coats of parisian taupe, that's the fancy word for a creme color. when i paint, i move the furniture about 18 inches away from the walls. you can imagine how my painting technique differs from that of my husband, who does everything the right way. his motto is "smarter not harder" and that went through my head many, many times as i was squeezing in between a piece of furniture and the wall. :)
now on to the decorating, my friends have very immaculate taste (which i lack) and gave me tips on which bedding to order, how to arrange a photo collage above my bed with matching frames, which window treatments to buy and hang, and how to add the personal touches like a clock, flowers, candles, a basket, etc. following their advice, i shopped and i decorated. we have solid wood furniture that had belonged to his parents and i love the look that it brings to the room. we moved one piece of furniture to another wall and shifted everything else about a foot over and it looks completely different. matt's mom had a mirror in her house that went with our bedroom set so i went over to her house at about 10:30 one night and picked that up to complete the look. and finally, the clutter is gone!!
we love the way that our room turned out and better yet, i came in under budget, which is really easy to do when you aren't starting with one at all.
here are a couple of "after" shots. :)
