Master Bedroom Before & After Reveal!

With the addition of our king size bed last month (soo much space!!), I can officially say that I have "finished" our bedroom to my our liking ;). What started as a practically McDonald's looking contrast of a yellow-y manilla color and a burnt orange accent wall (see below), is now our bright & airy space of relaxation. It took all of the two years that we've been in our house for the evolution of this room but with a mix of DIY projects and items bought over time I think we've now got a room we look forward to getting back to at the end of a long day. Without further ado, here are the BEFORE pictures of the room from June 2013 just after we had moved into our house. 

BEFORE: Circa June 2013

And now for the finished product!

AFTER: Circa Now!

Sleigh Bed: Scott's Furniture 
Ottoman: Target 
Sunburst Mirror: DIY
Duvet Cover: Pottery Barn  
Wall Color: Martha Stewart Heavenly Blue 

Remember that time I spent 22 hours stenciling that back wall?? No? Well here yah go. I still do love that the trellis pattern is intricate up close but is actually very subtle from farther away so it doesn't clash with any of the other patterns in the room.

X-Leg Side Tables: Target 

Kate Spade Inspired His & Hers glasses: DIY

Gold His & Hers Signs: DIY 

For the end tables, I DIYed the Kate Spade inspired His & Hers glasses, and DIYed the gold wood His & Hers nightstand signs. I also color blocked the baskets we already had from Wal-Mart by just taping and spray painting them. I wanted a simple tray for earrings and jewelry at night and love the look of the expensive acrylic ones but didn't want to pay the expensive prices for them so I improvised by picking up an acrylic frame from the craft store like this that I just took the cardboard out of. Works like a charm!

B & A Pillow: Cover Love on Etsy

Dresser: Ikea Hemnes Dresser
Grey Curtains: Target 
Love canvas: DIY
All You Need is Love canvas: DIY
Owl Hook: World Market 
Scarf Ladder: Carolina Pottery

One of my favorite things on the dresser is the frame with three of our photo booth strips in it. Two of the photo booth strips are of us from college, one from when we were first dating and the other later when we were doing long-distance, and the third is from this past year. I love how spontaneous photo booths are & yet how fun they can be as decor! 

Tripod Stool: Southeastern Salvage 

Faux Sheepskin: Ikea

I hung the Owl hook so I can easily hang necklaces before bed and my camera when I'm not using it and the tripod stool is good for throwing clothes on for the next day. I also love how versatile those faux sheepskins from Ikea can be! Here I'm using it as a small accent rug. 

The small square frames hold two Instagram pictures I had printed out from our wedding day that I just adore. Its simple things like this that make me extremely happy when I come back to our room because they're small reminders of some great memories. 

Tree Painting: DIY from High School
Silhouettes: DIY 
Grey Pull Curtain in Bathroom: DIY Ikea Hack Fabric Covered Tupplur Blinds

These DIY silhouettes of Brandon, Rhiley, and me are still one of my favorite DIYs ever! They were so simple & cheap and yet I love how they've captured us at this point in our lives and will serve as a reminder to our old, seasoned selves one day. 

Mirror: Hobby Lobby

While I'm Alive canvas: DIY 

Overall, I love how everything turned out! It's not only much more bright & airy but it's filled with things that are so very "us" which I think gives it great character and quirk. What do you think? Could you incorporate any of these projects into a room in your house?

Peace,

Allison 

Gold, White, & Brass, Oh My!

Two weekends ago our guest furniture got a long overdue makeover! The bedroom set is a solid wood set that used to be my grandfather's who actually owned a furniture store called VanNoy's furniture in Mansfield, PA back in the day, so it really is near and dear to my heart. Sadly, the wood pieces had lots of scratches and needed some TLC and a little updating to bring them back to life. 

This was my first time painting large furniture pieces and although it was definitely a time consuming process, it went surprisingly smoothly. The painting process was done over a series of two days in the garage. 

 Brandon sanded the furniture lightly with our electric sander and then I painted 3 coats of Benjamin Moore White Dove on all of the furniture which included a dresser, set of drawers, 12 drawer fronts, a full bed frame, and the dresser mirror. I really liked the matte look of the eggshell finish paint, but after moving the furniture up to the room, there were already fingerprints and a few chips visible so I ended up having to do one coat and touch-ups of Miniwax Polycrylic Clear Gloss which really ended up making the pieces look completely finished.

Left to Right: 1, 2, & 3 Coats of Paint

 Once it was all painted, it was time to put on the hardware I had purchased from 
D. Lawless Hardware. Unfortunately, with the old wood pulls taken off, it became apparent that the new handles were not going to fit the old holes. I ended up just placing the handles where they completely covered the old holes and were not visible from the outside of the drawers. Once I drilled the holes, it was a quick job to screw all of the handles in. 

I am pretty psyched with how they turned out though! The brass mixed with the perfectly warm White Dove paint makes for some easy looking. Here's just a reminder of how the guest furniture used to look...

And now here they are in all of their white and brass glory!

While I was already in painting mode, I picked up this old window from one of our nearby thrift stores called His House and painted it the same White Dove color. I like how the window kind of takes the place of a large headboard since the actual bed headboard is quite short. 

I whipped out my sewing machine I had gotten for Christmas finally too and made this quick and easy fabric banner using leftover fabric from my sister's Bridal Shower last month. I messed around with some of the stitches my machine can do since I wanted it to look handmade anyways. It's not fine sewmanship by any means but it does the trick! (Just don't look too closely ;) )

So much fresher looking, right?! I love the look of wood and stain, but that white and brass sure does look classy. 

Peace, 

Allison 

That One Time I Spent 22 Hours Stenciling Our Bedroom.

Once upon a time I had this wonderful dream to stencil a wall in our master bedroom with the smallest stencil known to mankind.... Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Moroccan Trellis Stencil I bought from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs, it just was a beast to use for an entire wall, especially for a stenciling noob like myself. 

Sarah's blog is one of my absolute favorites because she always makes awesome, large scale DIY projects basically from scratch, all the while making it look EASY PEASY. Obviously, after seeing her wonderful stencil projects, I thought, "I could totally do that to an entire wall!" Little did I know, friends...little did I know. 

I had painted the other three walls in our master bedroom what seems like ages ago. Okay not quite ages, but all the way back in August before our wedding. Knowing I would eventually (ahem, 6 months later) want to stencil the wall behind the bed, I just primed over the old burnt orange wall color and left it white for the past 6 months. Remember this oldie but goodie from the original house tour?? So happy it looks much different now! 

April 2013-BEFORE

August 2013- PROGRESS

You can see the size of the 16" x 16" stencil taped to the wall in comparison to the entire wall. 

I finally mustered up the courage to tackle the beast of a stencil wall late in February and decided to take it slow and steady over multiple days. Even then, it took me three days worth of work split up over four weeks, and a combined total of 22 hours to complete the entire wall... 

Day One- 8 Hours (Finished the section behind the bed all the way up to the ceiling but forgot to take a final picture.)

Day Two- 4 Hours 

And finally, after a 10 hour session last week and because I was finally getting a system going, I was able to finish the right side as well as the entire left side.

I have a sincere love/ hate relationship with this wall. I love the final look, but the size of the stencil was very small which made it difficult to keep level. Needless to say, there are definitely some uneven spots and other areas where I had to "piece" together the single trellis designs to make it fit and look semi-even. My inner perfectionist was crawling into a corner the entire time but in the end, it is very minute and hardly noticeable to anyone but myself.

Without further ado, here's the final product!!

Day Three- AFTER 10 hours

I love the subtlety of the stencil being painted in the same Martha Stewart Heavenly Blue as the other walls and yet up close the pattern is very intricate. The gold, white, and black accents throughout the room also help make it pop which makes it more modern looking. Also, you may notice I added the Pottery Barn duvet cover, grey textured curtains from Target, and the two glass and brass lamps from Target recently. One of my favorite parts about the lamps is the fact that you can seen the stencil through them. 

I used Martha Stewart Stencil Brushes for the entire wall (I got them for 40% off at Michael's which came to about $10), mainly using the largest brush in the set but sometimes varying to the smaller sizes for the tight corners. Sarah's stencils come with an instruction sheet on how to best paint the stencil so I followed her directions pretty closely. I would start by taping the stencil on the wall where it lined up with the already stenciled part of the wall and then start at the top left trellis pattern pulling in from the top and bottom first, then the sides, and then diagonally across each trellis to complete the stencil before letting it dry and re-taping it to a new section. I suggest watching (more like listening to) an entire season of a beloved show (for me it was DVR'd episodes of Walking Dead, Grey's Anatomy, and Scandal!) as well as jelly beans or small candy for sugar boosts which helps keep the motivation level up. ;)

Another one of my favorite parts of the wall is where the painted wall meets the stenciled wall. Something about it just makes me giddy that I actually completed the wall. 

I also spray painted the bottom of our nightstand baskets in a color block of white to offset the dark basket and help them match better. You can find the DIY His + Hers Signs here, the His + Hers Etched Glasses here, and the anchor coasters here. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to have this project under my belt. I had a mixture of anxiety and dread going into this stenciling adventure, but I am super excited with the finished product. It is just one more step closer to finishing our Master Bedroom so I can reveal the entire thing! 

All that's left is: 

:: Buy bigger leaning mirror 

:: Reupholster and add legs to the bench at the end of the bed

:: Find a round table to make a half table out of. 

:: Buy a King sized bed frame (Long Term Goal) 

Overall, the TIPS I can give to a first time stenciler are:

1.Try to find a larger stencil if possible (if not use a level frequently)

2. Take it slow at first in order to be as accurate as possible. The beginning stenciled areas are the most important to keeping the pattern even and regular. 

3. Clean the stencil frequently. One of my main mistakes was letting the paint continue to cake onto the stencil which was much more difficult to remove later.

4. Use very little paint. More paint means a less accurate pattern. Use two coats if necessary. 

5. Don't beat yourself up about small irregularities. Small mistakes are hardly noticeable in the big picture.

6. Try not to get too overwhelmed if you're doing a large area. There were many times when I called Brandon up into the room and attempted to convince him I should just paint over the entire thing. Thankfully he pushed me to finish it and I'm glad I did. 

Hope this helps! 

Here's me, signing off! 

Linked up with Inspire Me Please. 

Peace, 

Allison