Design Advice: Amy's Master Bedroom

My sister-in-law, Amy, moved (all the way from Florida!) into a beautiful house here in the Northwest last summer.

Her and her family have very tastefully decorated their new house.
Every room looks great....
except the master bedroom.

Why is it that the master bedroom is always the last room to get attention?

Amy and Frank's bedroom has great bones, it's just a little, well....plain.

They've got great blue/cream floral bedding that they purchased last summer.

And they painted the room a light tan to cover the hideous taupe-ish pinkish sponge paint job that covered all of the walls before they moved in.

Amy told me that she did not want to repaint the walls again (can't blame her!) and that she wanted to keep her bedding (it's super cute anyways!).

She also told me that she was thinking maybe a cream wrought iron headboard and black furniture.

So to help get the decorating ball rolling, I came up with some ideas to help her out...

1 The color palette is based on your existing blue and cream duvet cover (which, by the way, is beautiful) and your current wall color, beige. The black was added in for contrast and interest. If the black seems too harsh, you could always do a warm wood tone instead.

2 These striped curtains add pattern to the room and also help tie in the blues and tans from throughout the room. The fabric I found is and upholstery fabric called Pintado Stripe from http://www.fabricsandpapers.com/, but I have also seen similar fabric at Joann’s Fabrics. The black wrought iron rod and the curtain clips help tie in the black color.

3 A distressed antique white (it looks white in the picture, but is actually more cream) wrought iron bed flows nicely with the cream in your bedding. This particular one is the Savannah bed from Pottery Barn, but I’m sure you can probably find one elsewhere for cheaper.

4 An antique looking picture, like this one of an old bicycle would go well with the style of furniture and accessories in the room. This picture also has blues and tans as seen in other parts of the room. The frame is distressed antique white. Both the frame and picture were found at art.com.

5 A long antique black dresser would be optimal for more storage, for mounting a flat screen TV above it, and for displaying accessories. Look for something that has curved details and slender feet. These can be a bit pricey if bought new, so a cheaper alternative (and more unique) idea would be to find one on craigslist.com and paint & distress it.

6 These blue ceramic lamps bring in more color & interest to the room and are a more substantial size to help fill up the large wall behind your bed. A cream colored drum shade would be ideal for this lamp, found at Pottery Barn.

7 The large wall behind your bed dominates the room, so you need nightstands that fit the scale of the room. These black nightstands are actually small chests of drawers found at http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50162858 The slender, curved legs look a little more feminine to flow with the lines of your bed frame.

8 Three tall mirrors would look good above your bed since the wall is so tall. The cream frames on the mirrors would tie in nicely with the cream of the bed frame. I found these at Ballard Designs, but I also saw very similar black ones at Target (you could always spray paint them cream!).

9 This tan settee is from JCPenney and the style of it would definitely fit in with French Country style; however, I think it may be too big to fit in the corner where the little stool is. You may want to consider a chair with similar colors and style instead. The cream and blue pillows help bring color into yet another area of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After receiving her feedback, I placed some of the items in the pictures of her room so that she could get a feel for how things would actually look in her room.

Option 1:

Option 2:

I also found some pictures of other rooms for her to use as inspiration.

Images from Houzz.com

Images from Coastal Living

Images from Pottery Barn

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I can't wait to see what the finished room looks like!

Romantic Master Bedroom Getaway - Mood Board

Sarah over at Pewter+Sage occasionally hosts a blog party called...

Her blog parties are  all about seeing how different people are inspired differently by the same things. 

This week's challenge was to design a bedroom around one of four beautiful bedding options.

I was immediately drawn to the Barbara Barry "Poetical" Bedding Collection from Macy's

 

 and used it as my inspiration for the romantic master bedroom getaway that I designed...

1 - I was drawn to the soothing grey that provides the undertone for this elegant bedding. The soft white vinework gives the bedding a romantic appeal.

2 - I chose a soft grey/blue paint for the walls from Benjamin Moore called Whirlpool 1436. This color is just a few shades lighter than the grey in the bedding, giving the room a monochromatic look.

3 - The Rhonda Headboard from JCPENNEY is button tufted and upholstered in white twill.

4 - The tufted bench at the end of the bed is from Restoration Hardware and is covered in white Belgian Linen.

5 -The Plain Tin Slate Wool Hooked Rug is from Dash & Albert.The soft grey of the rug compliments the grey in the bedding while the brown and white vintage geometric pattern compliments the white vinework in the duvet cover.

6 - The Rustic Pedestal Accent Table is from Pottery Barn.

7 - The Triple Gourd Clear Glass Table Lamp is from Lamps Plus.

8 - The Caroline Dresser from Pottery Barn has a charmingly timeworn appeal.

9 - The drapes are layered with white sheer panels underneath and Opaque Linen Pole-Pocket Window Panels in Platinum Grey on top from West Elm. The dark grey panels play into the monochromatic grey color scheme of the room.

10 - The white ceramic garden stool is from Ballard Designs and is to be used as a decorative accent in the room. The decorative details on the stool compliment the white design on the bedding.

11 - The Raindrops Mirror from Home Decorators brings interest to the wall with its unique eye-catching design. The warm metallic color of the rays warms up the cool-colored walls.

12 - The Duet Papillon and the Filigree Papillon butterfly prints are from art.com and bring warmth to the room while adding a feminine touch.

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I hope my design came across as a romantic room inspired by classic prints and vintage looking pieces.

This was SO much fun to do! 

Thanks for hosting the fab party, Sarah! 

 Also linking up to:

Drop Cloth Drapes

Every time it's sunny here in Washington (which actually isn't that often), the setting sun blasts us in the face through our sliding door as the five of us sit in our kitchen eating dinner. 

Don't get me wrong, I love when the sun is shining and we get beautiful sunsets, 

but we don't much appreciate the glare in our faces as we are trying to enjoy our dinner together. 

We really needed some kind of window treatment on our sliding door 

so that we could see each other while we ate dinner, 

but drapes can be quite costly, especially when you need extra tall ones! 

And with three wee ones running around, yanking on everything, 

I didn't want to put up anything that was too expensive and risk them ruining it.

I had read about people using painter's drop cloths as drapes, so I decided to give it a go. 

I mean, you can't beat a drape panel for $9.99! 

I went to Lowe's and picked up two canvas drop cloths that measured 6 feet wide by 9 feet tall. 

That is a killer price for drapes that long!

 Only the long edges were hemmed, so I put my new  sewing skills into practice and hemmed the two short ends. 

If you are going to attempt this, make sure you use a heavy duty needle on your sewing machine. 

I learned this the hard way after breaking 5 needles!

 I used some drape clips (also from Lowe's) so that the drapes can easily be taken down for cleaning.

 

If you clip the drape clips about an inch down on the back of the panel, it gives the drapes a  pleated look on the top.

Our drapes have a decorative hem line about 2/3 of the way down.

No, I didn't add that on myself. They actually came that way!

 

I love the texture and the flecks of brown and tan in them.

But I especially love the price!

Total cost of the project including the rod and the drape clips = $50.00

Name Change

Have you noticed that I changed the name of my blog?

 When I started this blog a few months ago, I had a creative block when choosing its name. 

Since the main focus of this blog is to share the transformation of each room in our house as we turn our house into "our" home, I decided to call it  

Room by Room.

I know, not very original.

I've never been completely satisfied with that name. 

Recently I decided to do a google search for Room by Room and it led me directly to the HGTV website!

Not good.

Then I remembered that they used to have show called Room by Room.

Really not good.

I don't want people to think I copied the name of a show!

So I spent a few days brainstorming and thinking about a new name.

This was a hard task.

I love cottage style decorating, so I knew that I wanted to have that word in the new name.

I looked up cottage in the dictionary to see if the actual meaning of the word would be a fit...

It made me love the word even more.

Okay, so my house isn't small.

And it isn't a vacation house, 

but I sure want it to feel like one 

(especially since we won't be going on a real vacation any time soon with our three little babes)! 

We are surrounded by many beautiful lakes and have gorgeous views of the snow-capped Cascade and Olympic Mountains, so that part of the definition totally fits.

So then I started thinking about all of the names of the lakes around us...

Flowing Lake

Panther Lake

Martha Lake

Storm Lake

Meadow Lake

Meadow Lake is the closest to us and we live in a neighborhood called

"Meadow Lake Highlands."

I didn't like the names of any of the other lakes anyways.

So there you have it.

Meadow Lake Cottage because I want our house to feel like a vacation home nestled amongst the mountains and lakes.

I hope you will join us as we transform this 'new construction home' into our homey cottage.

Adding Some Summer Flair

Remember the nook I decorated for Spring?

 Since Summer is upon us now, the nook needed some redecorating.

Using the same white frame seen above in my Spring Decorating,

I added the glass back in and stuck some chalkboard contact paper (bought off of Ebay)

right on top of it. Then I used some of the kids' sidewalk chalk and wrote:

"May you always have a shell in your pocket and sand in your toes."

I picked up a frame at Goodwill for $1.99,

hot-glued some burlap from Joann's right onto the front of the glass,

and then stuck on some shells I had lying around

to make this piece...

 I needed another something small to fill up space at the top of the nook, 

so I dug around the house,

found some scrap wood in the garage,

some leftover burlap and twine,

and one of my sand dollars collected from a beach in Florida.

Then I added some shells and a glass hurricane filled with sand, shells and a candle to the shelf (all things found from within my house)

and now we have a small little piece of the summer beach

decorating the entryway.

Since I was in the mood, I also added some summer flair to our mantel in the living room.
This is what it looked like BEFORE (and please keep in mind that I have spent NO time  decorating anything in our living room, so it is way plain.)...

 I spray painted the mirror with Valspar Warm Gray satin spray paint
tied on a wreath I got on clearance at Joann's,
and added a starfish.

I've been teaching myself to sew and one of my first projects was to recover the sofa pillows.
Nice and summery!
I also made the beach sign using an old, muddy pice of wood I found alongside the road one day while we were out on a walk.
Jacob thought I was insane dragging home an old weathered board, covered in dirt,
but I knew it had potential! 
I sprayed it with the hose and scrubbed all of the dirt off, 
sanded it,
drew on the pattern and had Jacob cut it out with his jigsaw 
and then I used my white paint pen to write the word beach on it. 

 The mantel could still use some more accessorizing, 
but at least it looks better than it did before!

I'm linking up to:
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Fingerprints on the Fridge Feature Yourself Friday
Funky Junk Interiors SNS#34
Under the Table and Dreaming Sunday Showcase 
The DIY Showoff Project Parade

Our First House: Deck/Patio Redo

I'm going to start by showing the AFTER photo of our deck/patio renovation from our first house...

because if I showed you the BEFORE picture first, 

you might be so horrified that you wouldn't even want to read the rest of this post!

I'm not exaggerating. It was that bad.

Are you ready for it??

 Yes, that is astro-turf around the hot tub.

And a beautiful plastic lattice wall for privacy.

The patio was super uneven and cracked all over,

surrounded by weeds,

and just plain hideous.

We ripped out the astro-turf deck-type thing as soon as we moved in.

It just grossed me out.
I refused to step on that thing with bare feet when getting in and out of the hot tub.

We weren't quite sure what to do with the patio.

I wanted a new, smooth, level patio.

Jacob said that would entail ripping up the existing patio first.

Not something we wanted to tackle. WAY too much labor.

So eventually we agreed to build a new, large deck right over the top of the old patio.

It took a lot of hours, a lot of wood, and a lot of teamwork.

There was also a lot of improvising.

In hindsight, we should have planned it out better.

We had a plan (sort of) and a rough sketch, but nothing too detailed,

which created a lot of frustration.

We should have had a solid design drawn out, complete with measurements and dimensions,

but we sure learned a lot just flying by the seat of our pants!

 

That hard-working man sure is handsome :)

The doggies thoroughly enjoyed the new deck. They spent many a hours sunbathing on it.

After we were finished building the deck, we stained it with a stain/water sealer in one.

Since it was mid-summer when we did this, 

we had to wait until late in the evening to put the stain on so it didn't dry too fast (hence the dark photo).

While the stain looked good for a few months, it did not withstand the fall and winter elements of the Pacific Northwest (and the dogs running on it) and unfortunately it looked like absolute crap by the time spring rolled around.

So after pressure washing and cleaning it up, 

we decided to go with a brown deck paint that was supposed to be more durable.

We put on two coats and again it looked good for a few months, 

then fall and winter came and did their thang.

We ended up having to repaint every spring.

Uuuugggghhhh.

But during the summers it sure looked good and 

we spent lots of time outside enjoying our beautiful deck.

 

And now in our current house, we have another deck redo on the horizon.

Our deck is one of those cheap, tiny decks that builders slap in when they build a new house.

 

The kids and I spend a lot of time outside on our tiny deck, so please excuse their water play table.

And just pretend you don't see all of the weeds below...

It's definitely going to need an expansion.

But this time, we're going to thoroughly plan it out first and 

hopefully use Trex decking so we don't' have to worry about staining or painting it every single summer.

I wouldn't mind a pergola on top either!

I'll let you know how it goes!