Master Bedroom Project Completed!

One year later,

our Master Bedroom project is 

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y complete.

Sort of.

For now anyways.

Here's a reminder of our blank, bare, non-decorated room just after we moved in...

 

And here she is now...

Why did it take us so long to complete, you ask??

Well, we had a tiny budget to work with 

and so we scrimped and saved and bought a few things each month.

We also built the bed and the nightstands ourselves 

and I refinished the dresser, which took forever.

 You can read about our farmhouse bed HERE, 

our nightstands HERE, 

and the dresser HERE and HERE.

I absolutely love the oars hanging above our bed, 

especially since they are personalized with our wedding date 7/19. 

You can read about that project HERE.

I had a hard time finding just the right accessories for the dresser. 

I played around with a lot of different stuff that I had around the house.

When I stumbled upon the old window in an antique store, I knew it would be a perfect fit. 

It just needed a little cleaning and some touch-up paint.

Of course, my dear husband thinks it's weird. 

"What IS that?" 

"Why would you want an old window?"

He just doesn't get it.

But that's okay.  

I like it and it's sitting on my dresser.

After I found the window, all I needed was a few simple accessories to complete the look...

our wedding picture, a picture of my mom and me sitting on a dock, and some seashells.

 The bedding is all from Pottery Barn (except the white sheets), 

which we bought in pieces over the months.

The duvet cover is called Painterly Paisley, 

the striped pillow cases are Classic Stripe in Porcelain Blue,

the white quilted king-sized shams are Pick Stitch,

and the small pillow is the Grand Embroidered Boudoir Pillow cover, personalized with our initials.

In order to save money, we saved the tall white dresser in the corner holding the TV. 

I just repainted it white and angled it into the corner so the TV cords are all hidden now.

Someday I'd like a flat screen TV and a different piece of furniture there, 

but for now it will do.

My mom found me the antique blue water jug at an antique store. 

When I was a kid, my parents had one in their room that held spare change.

The entire family put their coins into the jug to save up for a family trip to Disneyland.

We are now doing the same in our house with our jug.

My kids LOVE putting money (and anything else that will fit) into it.

Looks like some sneaky little child put some of my shells in the jug recently...

The two sea shell prints hanging on the wall next to the door are from art.com by Denis Diderot. The weathered-looking frames and mats are from Aaron Brothers.

And these prints on the other side of the room are from Ikea from a long time ago - 

I think I bought them when I was in college, like 10 years ago.

I just repainted their frames and bought a new mat for the larger picture.

The only thing that I'm really not happy with is this corner...

The wicker chair belonged to my Grandma. 

It used to be white and I didn't like it, so I spray painted it brown. 

Now I think it's too dark for the room.

It would look better on our front porch.

So I am on a Craigslist hunt for the perfect chair to put in that corner...someday.

I also just ordered three individual pictures of my kids at the lake

that I plan to hang in frames above the chair. 

I already have the frames...

if you look close you can even see them sitting on the floor behind the wicker chair :)

And for those of you that enjoy a good before and after visual,

hover your mouse back and forth over the pictures below to see our transformation...

Just a few minor tweaks and it's officially done. 

I'm finally ready to move on and start a new room.

Let's just hope the next project doesn't take a whole year :)

Linking up with:

House of Hepworths

Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage

Strut Your Stuff @ Somewhat Simple

Show and Tell @ Blue Cricket Design 

Project Parade @ The DIY Showoff 

Show Off Your Stuff @ Fireflies and Jellybeans 

Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge 

Make it Yours Day @ My Backyard Eden 

Flaunt it Friday @ Chic on a Shoestring Decorating 

Weekend Wrap-Up Party @ Tatertots and Jello 

Saturday Night Special @ Funky Junk Interiors 

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

One Nightstand Down, One to Go...

We FINALLY got one nightstand built, painted, put in the bedroom and accessorized.

Now we just have to finish one for the other side of the bed...

It looks SO much better than our old nightstands.

Here's a reminder of what we had BEFORE:

And here's the AFTER:

I think it is so pretty!

We built it using THESE plans from ana-white.com

I ended up modifying the measurements from the plans to 

make it a little smaller so it looks 

a little more like a nightstand and a little less like a bookshelf.

It was super fast and easy to build 

(the time consuming part was the sanding, priming and painting!).

And the best part is it only cost us about $50 for all of the materials

for BOTH nightstands.

I already had all of the accessories (the lamp, clock, plant, books, jar) 

that I put on the top half of the nightstand, I just shopped around my house.

I made the artwork (do you call text artwork??) by typing one of my favorite Bible verses in Word using the font "Rough Typewriter" that I downloaded from dafont.com.

Then I stuck the document in a cheap frame from Fred Meyer.

I wanted to corral all of my books and keepsakes so that they didn't clutter up the shelves, 

so I found these baskets at Pier 1 ($15 each) 

and was able to use a $10 off coupon that I found on the internet!

Using some of my scrapbook supplies, 

I made the tags for the baskets using letter stickers and tied them on with twine.

Here is a PDF of the Bible verse I framed and hung on the wall.
Feel free to download it!

Click to download Bible Verse

Linking up to:

Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday

Sawdust and Paper Scraps "what-ever" Linky party

Funky Junk Interiors: Saturday Nite Special #55

Dresser Rehab: Finally Finished

I FINALLY finished the rehab project on my Craigslist dresser.

It was hard work.

But it only took me 3 months :)

Here's a reminder of how it looked when I bought it...

It was in such sad shape: peeling paint, missing knobs, red stains from an unknown substance, and drawers that didn't work. 

But it had great bones. 

So I scraped

and scraped

and scraped.

Then I sanded

and sanded

and sanded.

  

Then I painted two coats of primer and three coats of semi-gloss white paint on it.

I managed to fix almost all of the drawers glides by using a screw driver to some WD-40.

I only had to replace one of the glides because it was beyond repair. 

Thank goodness because they run about $5.00/each for new glides!

After scrubbing the heck out of the insides of the drawers to get them clean, 

I added some contact paper {from Target} to the bottoms to make them look super crisp and clean.

I picked out and ordered some classic oil rubbed bronze knobs and handles off of Ebay 

{Ebay has GREAT deals on cabinet hardware if you are ever in the market for some!}.

I chose hardware that looks really simple and classic since there are a lot of details on the dresser itself.

And after ALL of that hard work, here is how the dresser turned out...

Here is a before and after for comparison...

Oh and here's my old piece-o-junk that it replaced...

 

Much better, don't ya think??

{Hopefully I can get someone to buy that old thing!}

I am so in love with how it turned out.

Thank goodness I didn't toss in the towel half way through the project.

In the future, however, if I see a piece of furniture that needs massive rehab like this one did, 

I probably will run the other direction!


Here's the cost breakdown:
Dresser: $20
Stripping Supplies: $36
Paint Supplies: $37
Knobs/Pulls: $20 {included shipping}
Contact Paper: $5
Drawer Glide: $5

TOTAL: $123

My new dresser kinda reminds me of the one of been drooling over at Pottery Barn... 

 Except that one is priced at $1,199.

I think I like mine better anyways.

Linking up to:
Fingerprints on the Fridge Features Yourself Friday
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday 
Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage 
Hookin' up with HoH #18 
The DIY Project Parade
Thrifty Tickle: Vintage Suitcase Friday 

Solving the Dresser Dilemma

So I finally solved my dresser dilemma (click on the link to see the post about my old junky dresser)...

I bought an old dresser for $20 off of craigslist. 

You have to look beyond the superficial mess and see the awesome bones to appreciate it.

I know Jacob thought I was absolutely insane as he helped me load it into the car. He couldn't understand why I would buy something so ugly.

But I KNEW it had potential. 

I mean, look beyond the chipped paint, the red stains, the missing knobs, and the fact that the drawers don't work, and you can see that it is a sturdy, well-built dresser with really cool detail work.

I remember thinking, 

I can't believe I got this thing for only 20 bucks! I'll just strip off the paint, sand it, repaint it and it will look beautiful.

Funny how naive I was.

Stripping paint off of furniture is torturous work. Especially when that piece of furniture has an infinite number of little grooves and tons detail work.

The top of the dresser was easy. Just spread on the paint stripper, wait 30 minutes, and scrape it right off.

But I spend at least 15 hours over the course of a couple of weeks out in the garage with a flat head screwdriver, scraping out every single little chip of paint out of all of the grooves.  

It was super tedious work.

I got to about this point and was contemplating throwing in the towel.

See all of those little grooves and detail work?? 

Uuuggghhh, so much work!

But after a pep talk from the hubby, I decided to persevere.

I ended up getting almost all of the paint removed and sanded the heck out of the dresser. The garage now looks like a dust storm blew through :).

And now it has been primed and sits awaiting a few coats of new white paint. 

After two coats of primer, I sanded it down a bit again to get rid of the paint drips and brush stroke lines.

 

 Seems kinds crazy that I did all of that work to get the white paint off, only to paint it white again!

I was told by the pros at Sherwin Williams to use an enamel-based paint on furniture because it dries a lot harder and is more durable than paint you would use on the walls.

It's a bit spendy (around $50 for a gallon!), so I am waiting until tomorrow to buy it because they will be having a 30% off sale.

Then I have to get new drawer glides so the drawers work,

pick out new knobs for the drawers, 

and get some contact paper to line the insides of the drawers.

Now I know why the thing was only 20 bucks!