Thursday, April 13, 2017

One Room Challenge - The "Before"

I hope you were able to take a look at my previous post, which shows the vision of how our Master Bedroom will look at the end of this challenge.  There is a lot of work necessary to complete this transformation from ugly duckling to swan!  Before any progress can be made in this room, the first order of business is to remove the monster treadmill, take the very dated window treatments down, and repaint the ceiling.

Does anyone else buy exercise equipment with all of the best intentions, use it a few times, and then discover that it has become an extremely expensive, dust-gathering piece of sculpture in your room?  I never really wanted that treadmill in the bedroom, but I figured that if it meant the hubby would get healthier, I could suck it up and live with a visually clunky piece of "décor."  As it turns out, our son used it like crazy...for a while - so much so that the friction singed a little area on the carpet (yikes!)  Eventually, though, everyone lost interest or got too busy and it became a piece of "art."  Once the man cave in our basement was finally painted and re-carpeted, the guys agreed to move it downstairs - yea!  And I was celebrating small victory #1.


Before the room could be painted, we also had to remove the circa-1993 vertical blinds.  Seriously, can you believe we still had those in our bedroom?  The thing is, though, they are really functional.  You can control exactly the amount of light you want in the room, they open/close easily, and the vinyl (yes, we had the "stylish" vinyl ones) required minimal cleaning. But, their time had definitely passed, so they came down...hooray!


We needed to paint the ceiling because there were a couple of hairline cracks along the angled slope that had to be filled, and of course the spackle was whiter than the ceiling.  Can I just mention that this simple part of the room redo stalled the project for months?  (Remember, I was planning this room refresh over a year ago.)  We just couldn't bring ourselves to tackle another ceiling, after having done several in our rental properties.  Ugh.  But, finally, we had to face it, and it was a good reason to get a fresh coat up there.  A fun color, other than white, would have been more creative...sigh.  But to avoid giving my hubby a design-induced stroke (haha) I stayed with the conventional white.  Actually, the paint color I have chosen is quite dark, too, so the white ceilings help to keep the room feeling open.  Here are a couple of photos of my favorite painter.  He's a trooper, right?


I was questioning whether I should replace the ceiling fan/light or not.  I really, really wanted a pretty new light there, but my rational thoughts and frugal instincts were kicking in, until.....................ok, I'm going to keep you in suspense.  Please join me next week for a funny story about this fan!



  This entertainment unit and console table that I use as a make-up table are headed out the door.  They are both in good shape, but the style just doesn't work for me anymore.  Also, note how the orange cast of the furniture emphasizes the turquoise paint even more.  I'm not exactly sure what I had in mind when I chose that color.  But more on that subject in weeks to come.  I plan to donate the entertainment unit and either sell or donate the table.  Another decision to be made is whether to replace the table, or to retrain myself to apply makeup in the bathroom.  I'd love to eliminate this piece of furniture and create a large gallery wall in its place - one that extends almost to the floor.  So, I'll be checking into wall-mount magnifying mirrors for our bathroom and will probably opt for a pretty design over function on this wall.


This headboard and these nightstands have also lost their appeal.  The headboard will be sold, but the nightstands and lamps can be used in our guest bedroom.  Our son is using that room temporarily, but these pieces will work well for additional storage.  (Both adult kids still have quite a bit of their stuff here at home, so I'm always looking for nooks and crannies where their high school memorabilia, etc. can be stored out of sight.)  I do still like these lamps - they were purchased inexpensively at Target several years ago.


And now, I'll leave you all with this photo of our daughter and son-in-law's greyhound relaxing in the "old" turquoise bedroom.  You can see that she was not too concerned with the frightful state of our décor.   As a "teaser" for my next post, let me just mention that she plays a part in the aforementioned ceiling fan story, as well.

See you next week!
Julie

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