Make and Do: Bedroom Redo

Greta's bedroom before

As soon as Greta's wedding was over and the happy couple left for their Savannah honeymoon, we got busy on her bedroom redo. First we scraped all the icky old popcorn texture off the ceiling. Many dusty hours later after sanding and patching and sanding some more, we primed and painted the ceiling, and painted some more and more. Yep, three coats.

The busy crew at work

Next, we flung the old aluminum mini blinds from the windows and started in on the trim. I realized the trim had never been repainted since we moved here 17 years ago! It was a new house then, so it should have been freshly painted at that time, but as I painted, I decided that it must have only been primed originally. So this was the first-ever paint job it had. It took three coats before it looked right. I don't much enjoy crawling on my belly, paint brush in hand, to paint the little tippy tops of the baseboards. All the way around the room, and then into the closet. But it was finally done. Then we (by this time I had lost my helpers, so it was I) moved on to the walls. After all that detail work I really enjoyed the speediness of rolling. The edging? Not so much. Edging always takes more coats than rolling.

While the paint dried, we went shopping. We ordered white pleated honeycomb shades for the windows. Then, while we were just browsing for ideas, we bought a bed. It's a real wood bed with headboard and footboard and side rails and two storage drawers. And it's the first real bed we have ever had in 31 years of marriage. It should arrive in about 6 weeks.

Lastly, we bought a Martha Stewart white quilted coverlet to top it all off.

Finally, here is the new room, all yellow and white and sunny. The Professor and I are quite happy to move out of the closet and into this room. At last we can walk around the bed! Put our clothes in drawers! Hide them in a real closet! Look out a window!

After; same view as before seen above

I haven't hung anything on the walls yet because it was a lot of work to patch the twelve million holes left by the previous resident. I don't want to ruin all my hard work just yet.

Since we presently have no blinds on the windows (that's the street outside), I pulled out a bolt of fabric I've had in my stash for a couple of years. Originally it was to reupholster a chair, but I decided it was too thin for that. The yellow in the fabric perfectly matches the new yellow walls! I simply cut eight or so feet off the bolt for each side of the window, folded down the top edge, and used little clips on rings (I'm sure they have a name) to hang them on the rod. I found the black rod at a garage sale last week for $4. I got the curtain rings on clearance, $2 a package.

The fabric still needs to be lined and the edges all finished. Later. Later.