I really, really love decorating and home decor, and I want to start sharing more of the decorating that I do in my home. Room by room, we are trying to change it from basic-builder to a place we love, and as a blog reader, I love watching others do that in their home. So we're bringing it over here!
We were able to build our home, but not in a custom we-choose-it-all way. We got to pick the lot and floorplan, the color package (the choices were, beige, beigy brown, and beige. LOTS of beige.), and make a few little changes to things. Houses and lots aren't huge in the Seattle area, and the ones that are were out of our price range when we bought our home! So we picked the best lot we could find, and went from there.
Buying a new home, you would think there's not a ton of work to do, but to get it the way we want it there is quite a bit to be done. Our builder had taste different than ours, and had some weird ideas about tile pairings and such. In the kitchen we opted to go without the "upgraded" backsplash and tile counters because they were not our taste and we knew we would be ripping them out eventually. So we have basic tile until we change it ourselves. Our backyard did not come landscaped, so we have been sloooowly landscaping that. We
changed our fireplace which made a HUGE difference in the living space downstairs, we
added a bench/nook in our entry way, and have painted a few things and hung pictures, and I'm pretty content with our downstairs for now (except it's time to change up all my pillows again :).
The upstairs is a different story. All of the trim and molding in the house are a dark stained hemlock. It's really pretty downstairs, next to the wood floors, but upstairs next to the carpet it looks pretty dated, at least to me. It was a battle talking my husband into painting the trim in the bedroom. I wanted the room to be as light and bright as it could be, and dark trim just wasn't doing it. He finally broke down a while back and we painted the trim, then the walls. The difference was amazing. The room feels so much brighter and happier, it is a place we love to be!
Here's what it looked like when we moved in:
We have diy-ed a lot of this room. It's been such a labor of love, but it's not done yet! So here's a look at what we've done so far, and what we still plan to do:
We had the bed on the wall to the right for the first year of owning the home and it never seemed quite right, but I was determined to have paneling on that wall and make it a pretty accent wall. Then I read something that said your bed should always greet you when you walk in a room. Call me crazy, but I loved that sentiment, so we moved it under the window and love it there. It makes sure to greet us when we come in the room now, it's very polite like that. Haha. The flow in the room is so much better now, and I love sleeping under the open windows in the summer.
I made the roman shades (tutorial coming soon!). I also made the pillows (they are double sided, what what!) using
this beautiful Robert Allen fabric on one side. The fabric is double-sided, too (the colors are switched on the opposite side), I used the lighter side (obvs) for one side and the other side of the pillows are white with black trim. I'll show them another day. The bench is from
Target, it's a really pretty blue velvet. The one I bought was an online purchase return so it was marked half-off. Sold!
We had to cut down and recover our headboard to accommodate the window, and we went from a diy tufted greyish blue headboard (that I never got around to posting) to a very simple silvery gray color. I kind of wanted it to just blend in and not compete with other elements in the room and am really happy with it. Sometimes I toy with adding a nailhead trim around the edges, but for now I like it simple.
The nightstands are an Ikea hack, using the
Rast and some
pretty brass pulls. I love them. The lamps were a Homegoods find, and the floral art is the cover of my Lulie Wallace calendar that I framed (LOVE her work).
My husband made the bed frame, and I lightly white-washed it. I think eventually we are either going to paint it white or upholster it, or maybe just add a skirt, but for now it's kind of a fun texture in the room. I kept the feet of the frame natural. I have a thing for natural feet on furniture, I love it (I did it on our
ottoman, too).
Here's where that piece I painted ended up. I actually painted another one, too, that was right next to it, but I moved it to the bathroom where I like it much better. So I'm on the hunt for something to hang to the left of this one.
I did a whole post about this
dresser makeover, and I still need to add some more art around the TV to make it blend a bit.
There are still a lot of things we need to do before we declare this room done. Actually, I'm not sure I'm a person who will ever have done rooms. I love changing out art and textiles, and the little things that make a room pretty seem to be always moving. But the bones usually stay in place, and we aren't quite there yet.
Sometimes the room feels a little more masculine than I want, so I want to add some more pops of pink and floral to warm it up a bit. I have been on the hunt for fabric to make a lumbar pillow for the bed. I'm toying with
Orangerie Rose, but I'm not positive yet. It's so pretty, but I'm not sure if I can pull the trigger! We'll see.
So there you have it! That's our room. We're in a good spot, but there's still lots to find and do. And then we have the rest of the bedrooms! It's never-ending, but I love it!
PS The wall color is Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore. The trim color is off-the-shelf bright white from the Clark and Kensington trim and cabinet line. It is great paint for painting trim, I highly recommend it!
