Bedroom – Done! (Mostly)

OK, so clearly my aspirations of blogging this house project have gone a bit by the wayside in the past month of two. Which probably makes you, my dear reader, think I’m getting lots and lots done.  You are so kind, dear reader.  Alas, progress is slow. At least it seems as such to me, who really really really thought I’d have a complete and functioning kitchen by the end of May. Ha!

The one room that is functional and mostly put together is the bedroom, and of course I’ve just realized I forgot to post the finished photos here. We’re still looking for a dresser, and in fact did come across a couple of them that matched our night tables at one point on overstock.com, but we decided that $1700 was too much to pay for something that wasn’t quite going to fit appropriately into the room spacewise.  So the search continues.

In the meantime, you can bask in the loveliness that is this wall in desperate need of art (though having added taller bedside lamps since this photo was taken helps:

And an action shot:

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Bedroom…one coat done

Late night blackberry photo of the in progress bedroom painting:

I am a master of cutting in edges now, and successfully freehanded most of those edges between planes.   I have a really sore index finger as a result — beyond annoying.  Nadja rocked the roller (which I hate) and we got one coat on the whole room. Hopefully the second will go on quickly Friday morning.

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Painting round the clock!

Because I feel like every home improvement blog at some point features a photo of  the homeowner, covered in paint and wearing a college t-shirt, most often drinking a beer, I am going to get this out of the way now.

Closets are primed, hence the destruction of that hat, which I actually kind of liked, dorky pocket notwithstanding.
Ignore the fact that those glasses make me look like David Letterman. I broke my good ones, and these are from three prescriptions ago until I can get new ones.  I may or may not have scratched my cornea while putting on mascara last week, so glasses are making me happy as of late.

Tomorrow will be bedroom painting, part II, and hopefully part the last. Whew.

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Bedroom Decor Planning

The closet project went on a bit of a pause for some time. We had a friend come by to finish up the drywall job since my lungs turn to glue when I’m around dust.  That meant we’ve been focusing on other parts of the house when we’ve had a chance to get over there to work.

But now that the move-in date is imminent (five more DAYS!) it’s high time to get the bedroom in order. Everyone has given us the advice that we need at least one room that we can go to at the end of the day and not have full of 2x4s and sawdust, so I’m heeding that advice, and we’re making some headway.

We’d purchased the mattresses a month or so ago. After having the best night of sleep of my life in a hotel in Philadelphia last November, I became absolutely enamoured of the pillowtop. So those have been stacked up on end the spare bedroom for a few weeks now. We had to get a split box spring, rather than try to remove the banister to get it upstairs.

It took us ages to figure out what sort of bed we wanted though.  It seemed that everything in a catalog, showroom, etc was showed with a slimline mattress or even a futon mattress. And then I’d picture it with our giant super-fluffy mattress set and realize the gorgeous headboards we were looking at would just barely peak up over the mattress. So once the pillows go on the bed — invisible headboard.  This would not do.

So then, when perusing the site of our local consignment shop, I saw these:

Vaguely Mission-style, which I seem to be going for. Appropriately light for the colors we’ve chosen for the room. And there is a tray to pull out for breakfast in bed (ha!)

And of course, when I got to the shop to check out the stands, what was set up with them? Why, this:

It was a little expensive.  My mom thought so, even I thought so. But after half an hour of hemming and hawing, we finally realized it was no more expensive than the 20 or so other beds we’d looked at and not liked half as much.  So it didn’t seem likely that we were going to find anything we liked better, or anything cheaper.

And so, we ended up buying someone else’s bedroom. Because the cashier confirmed these were both consigned by the same person. Who apparently shares my taste.

Not sure what we’ll be doing in the dresser department yet.  For now, we’ll be moving in my old, decrepit ikea set, until we can decide on something better.

I did find really awesome curtains on sale at Anthropologie.  For some reason, though I have a pretty big fear of birds, I am choosing all kinds of decor items with birds:

The walls will be two different colors, in an effort to highlight the shelves and such around the closet doors:

Now I’m off to go order kitchen cabinets, and pick up a second gallon of that blue!

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Hurrying right along now….

We’ve picked up the pace quite a bit in the past two weeks. We’re itching to move in, for a variety of reasons (attempted break in at our current apartment and landlord stupidity are weighing on us, but also, we’re ready to live in our own house.)

So, we’re kind of re-tooling some of our plans. I still want to have the bulk of the kitchen done before we move in, not wanting to live in a house I can’t make a meal in. So some of the other stuff, namely the rehabbing of the downstairs bathroom, will likely have to wait.

For right now, we’ve made major headway on the closet project. I am happy to report that all the drywall has been attached. I went over this evening and screwed in the remainder of the corner bead. Hooray.

In lieu of a true “after” (for now) photo, I offer you this artsy shot of my partially drywalled closet, with the convertible expandable ladder to which I have proclaimed my undying love:

Also, my mom took about 20 photos of me and the drill, so for posterity’s sake, here’s me in my remodeling jeans, which have virtually no ass in them to speak of (having fallen prey to a nail in one of the steps to the attic.)

Note also the stylish dust mask, which I very nearly went to dinner wearing on my head.

But more importantly — sunlight! The bedroom has sunlight! And is on the second floor, so we can leave the blinds open without worrying about creepers coming up and peering in. Luxury!

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The closet conundrum

I’ve heard several theories on why (people only had a couple sets of clothes, closets counted as rooms, and were therefore taxed, etc.) older homes have these strange closets that don’t quite accomodate a hanger perpendicular to the doorway.  Whichever the real reason is, it’s clear that these closets make pretty spiffy bookshelves, and really awful clothing storage.

Our house is plagued with such closets. Only two on the house were deep enough for hangers, and both were added after initial construction. One is a ridiculously large walk-in affair off the dining room (and oh, do I have plans for that). The other is (was) in the master bedroom.

Being that both of us are clothes horses (of different sorts) this just wouldn’t do. So our first major undertaking got underway this weekend as my parents came up and my dad and I (though mostly my dad) embarked on a renovation of the master bedroom closets which WILL, I swear, yield great results, no matter how long it takes.

This project involved completely tearing off the newer, big enough closet, and tearing off the front walls of the older, woefully small closet. It also ended up involving discovering the chimney is actually 2 chimneys, sawing a hole above the older closet, because I just HAD to know what was up there (Answer: insulation) and four trips to Lowe’s on my part.

So we have now gone from this:

to this, after removing the trim (and oh, there is so.much.trim)

to this, after demolition:

to this (after framing):

and missing, because my camera batteries died, is the “semi-after” photo, where you can see the two whole pieces of drywall which we hung.

The eventual goal here, is two closets almost exactly identical, with bifold doors.  There’ll be a recessed shelf above the doors on each side, then the closet on the left, which didn’t have an insulated, lowered ceiling above it, will have an overhead shelf inside too.

Between the two closets, in the recessed space backed by the chimney, will be shelves, and a mirror. The bottommost shelf will be mounted at desk height, and then we’ll get one of those cheapie tiny ikea stools, so it will be a miniature vanity.  It’s only about 8″ deep, but should still be fairly functional for makeup and hair and such.

But for now, we’ve got plaster dust everywhere, a workshop spanning three rooms, and not so much in the way of finishwork done.

Plugging away….

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