Bedroom Makeover

Ahhhh, that familiar, familiar smell of paint. If you have been following this blog pre-baby, you will remember that LL and I have been working on restoring/renovating our 100+ year old farm house. It has needed A LOT of work. In the B.C. (Before Collette) days, LL and I spent pretty much every weekend working on the house. Going to Lowes, painting, picking out light fixtures, painting, deciding on flooring, painting, buying chair rail, painting, and did I mention painting? After we finished painting Collette's nursery when I was approximately 38 weeks pregnant (and I do mean "we"-- I was sitting down on the floor painting and in fact spent an entire 10-hour day outside painting trim and radiators) I declared in my best Scarlet O'Hara voice, "As God as my witness, I will NEVAH paint trim again!!!!" Ok, I didn't really say that, but I sure felt like it. Anyway, Collette arrived, and most of our free time has been spent with her, not on house projects. But then for some reason LL and I were in Lowes a few weeks ago and found ourselves in the paint isle... I'm not really sure how that happened. And there was a cart of paint that had been returned for whatever reason, and was drastically on sale. So we found a color that we liked and brought it home. This past weekend, when it was supposed to be 101 degrees, LL said to me "So, I was thinking we could paint the bedroom this weekend." And truth be told, I had kind of been thinking the same thing. We had no plans and our bedroom is the only room in our house with air conditioning; why not? So we painted, and sweet Collette played in her pack n play in our room while we painted (don't worry; we only buy no-VOC paint so it's safe for everyone!).

Our bedroom has been ignored for so long because, comparatively speaking, it was the most inoffensive room in the house. When we moved in, it already had exposed hardwood floors (unlike the other 3 bedrooms) and plain white walls (again, unlike the other 3 bedrooms, which were/are covered in trailer paneling and really hideous wallpaper). However, since we have redone the downstairs bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, study, and nursery, the bedroom has been looking decidedly shabbier in comparison.

Here are some "before" pictures taken shortly after we moved in (which is why there are piles of junk on every surface. Sorry about that).





And here are the "after" pictures! We used Valspar's color "Sabrina" on the walls and the trim is our old friend "Glazed Pear" which we have used for trim in multiple rooms.





Clearly, I am in need of some details like curtains, throw pillows, etc., but it is a HUGE difference and we are really happy with it.

We painted the main color and one coat of trim on Saturday, and then painted a second coat of trim on Sunday. Then LL said "I think we should just keep going and paint the stairway and landing, too." So we did. And finished about midnight on Sunday night. But it's done!

Here is a horrible, horrible "before" picture of the stairway, back before we had stripped all the paint off the stairs.


And here it is "after." We still have to stain/seal the stairs, but since we can't walk on them for 2 days after we do it, we haven't done that yet.


Hooray for progress! Now we just have 3 remaining rooms, all of which will need to be completely gutted and taken down to the studs: the bathroom (hopefully to be redone this fall), and the 2 other bedrooms. We are definitely making progress!

In other news, in two days we will be leaving for Mississippi! Well, Collette and I will be going to MS; LL has a conference in Atlanta first, so he's going to that and then driving to Starkville to stay with us for a few days. I am so excited to see everyone and introduce them to Collette! So I will probably be silent on the blog for the next week or so. :o)