Guest Room Makeover

Part of my retirement plan involved repainting the whole interior of the house. We re-did our primary bedroom/bathroom/walk-in closet over the summer and also painted the kitchen and front hall. That's as far as we got. Then our daughter recently started talking about planning a visit, so my brain got to thinking about working on the guest bedroom. We keep it closed so that Manny can't go in there and destroy anything, so we don't pay it much attention. We had a daybed in there, which had a very firm and uncomfortable mattress. If two people visited, we had to get out an air mattress or a cot. Here is an older photo of what it looked like. 

BEFORE

So, the first thing I did was list the daybed frame and mattress for sale on my Facebook page and within 5 minutes, a neighbor friend bought it for $100. I gave her sheets and two comforters to go with it, so that helped clear out my linen closet, which was great! I also sold a camping cot we had for $40, so those two sales helped offset the cost of this project a bit. As soon as the daybed was moved out of the house, I ordered a full size platform bed frame just like the one we got for our primary bedroom and a Zinus foam mattress, both from Amzn. The bedframe got lost in transit, so we had to reorder, but that was fine. We had time.

We moved all the furniture to the middle of the room and started painting. It took 2 coats. We used Behr Scuff Resistant paint in an eggshell finish. The color is called Cotton Knit. The trim is Behr Ultra White in a satin finish which is the same throughout the house. 

Here's a closeup of the wall color with the trim.

The bed frame showed up a couple of days ago and we put it together and then released the mattress from it's vacuum sealed bag so it could expand for a couple of days. 

We bought that little white night table on the right at a yard sale last week for $20.00.

I needed bedding, so I went to Tarjay to see what they had in the way of sheets. No sales, sadly and very expensive, but on an endcap I found a full size set of white organic cotton sheets. There was no price on the package so I took it to one of those scanners, but it came up without a price. We went to the front of the store and hubby asked a cashier to page the manager. The manager showed up, scanned the package and said it was probably "salvage." She asked me if I was returning it and I said no, that I wanted to buy it! She said, "Well, how does $4.99 sound?" I said that I felt like I just won the lottery! 

So the next thing was a bedspread. I had a comforter on hand already, but I wanted a nice coverlet to go over it. I searched and searched online and put a few things on my watch list, but couldn't commit. Then I got an email from Home Depot with a coupon for their online home store. I decided to see what they had to offer and I found the perfect thing. It arrived yesterday. I put it on the bed and it looks wonderful!

AFTER

So, just a few more details to finish up and the room is just about done. 

The next room I want to tackle is the living room. We are hesitant because we're not sure we can reach the peak of the ceiling. We have a tall stepladder, and I think hubby might be just barely able to reach up around that beam to do the cutting in. I don't think he's looking forward to it though.

That's pretty high up there! 

For now, I'm happy that we got another room done!

Master Bedroom Reveal!

 This is Manny straddling our mattress that was up on its side in my office while we were putting down the new floor. I thought he was awful cute, but then shortly after, I noticed he clawed that black material underneath and made a hole in it. Grrr. He is the ultimate destroyer of all nice things and for that reason, we have kept him out of our newly remodeled bedroom completely. We keep the door closed, day and night because I want to enjoy all that we've done to it, at least for a while. He is two years old and still a terror. I bought a spray that's supposed to keep cats from clawing things. Hahahahahaha! What a waste of money that was! 

Okay, so now that we've talked about Manny, let's move on to the renovation. In my last post, you saw that we painted and installed a new vinyl plank floor. All went well and we are really happy with the results. The next project was the headboard, which was to be made from 3 sets of louvered bifold doors that we had in storage. I think we paid $10 for one set and the rest were curbside finds. We decided that a paint sprayer would be a good investment, so that was about $60,00 and worth every penny. Here are the doors before and after hubby painted them.

We decided to make the two center panels just a bit higher to add some interest. They are joined together with metal plates in the back and secured to the wall with screws. There is a spacer behind them to compensate for the baseboard below.

We got our platform bed delivered from Amzon. It was delivered in the dark of night at 9:15, so we waited until the next day to put it together. It was very simple to assemble and it's nice and sturdy. It makes the mattress the perfect height. Not too high, not too low. 

The duvet cover also arrived and we love it. So here is the whole room all put together.

The photo looks a bit dark, but trust me, the room is flooded with sunlight in the afternoon.

We are on the hunt for something to hang in the middle of the headboard that is light in color, either turquoise or white, to add more interest. 

In this picture, it looks like the headboard is off center, but it's actually right in the center of that wall.
Eventually some art will be added to the walls and most likely we'll buy a new ceiling fan or paint this one and change the shades.

Here is the master closet, On the left is the day I tore out the carpet and hubby took down the shelving. On the right you can see the new floor installed and the walls are painted white. It's fresh and new!

We are really happy with how everything turned out. We had just enough paint to finish and we only had 3 pieces of flooring left over, which is pretty good! 

Onto the next project! I wonder what it will be? 

The Floor is Done!

 The floor is finished and we are delighted! 

Manny had to inspect the entire project from start to finish.

He was not afraid of the noisy saw or the vacuum. He has officially
become fearless. I think he needs a little hardhat.

He was happy to be our showroom model for the completed project.

We are very happy with this purchase. It's a vinyl plank floor by Style Selections, which is Lowe's house brand. It went together very well with no issues, no damaged pieces or weird color variations.

Before installing the floor, we painted the room white. It's a color called Cotton Knit, by Behr, from Home Depot. It's very nice paint and not a real white, so it contrasts nicely with the white trim. It's kind of a linen color.

The room is so much brighter!

We even changed out the outlets.

I added up everything we spent so far on the room, including furniture, paint for the furniture, paint for the walls, plus new outlets, comforter and platform bed (on order) and it came in just under $800 which is how much we sold our bedroom furniture for, so it worked out perfectly. The next thing to do is paint the bi-fold doors that will become the headboard. The comforter is coming tomorrow and the platform bed is supposed to be here Friday. I hope to have a final reveal by the weekend! 

Another Mesh Wreath.

 

For my birthday, which was back in September, I was given an Amazon gift card by a close friend of mine. I had no idea what to buy myself, so I decided to indulge in craft project and attempt another mesh wreath. I watched more videos on YouTube and one lady made a wreath using the starburst method. I liked it, so I tried it. I was shooting for a coastal vibe, so I got everything blue and silver themed, plus I added some starfish.

The first thing you have to do is cut your mesh "bundles." Each bundle consists of four 10" squares of mesh in different colors, plus two ribbons, cut about 12-14" in length. This goes way faster if you have one of those fabric cutting boards and one of those round pizza cutter looking things. I have neither, so I cut mine with a scissor using various things as weights to keep everything from curling up on me.

I ended up with 34 bundles.

And here is how I cut all the ribbon.

I didn't realize when I ordered the ribbon that most of them were sheer.
I think this caused a lack of contrast in the piece.

Basically, you take each mesh square, pull it by two opposing corners and roll it in the middle. You hold each one tightly as you roll and grab another one, then add your ribbons and tie a chenille stem around the bundle as tight as you can. Each bundle gets secured to a wire frame and tied in the back.

I started tying my bundles onto the frame. I added an ornament to every other one.

This is not conventional which may also have been why my wreath didn't turn out as expected,

but it was experimental on my part. 

As I moved along, I realized this thing was going to be huge!

You can see the starburst happening here.

I hot glued a chenille stem onto the back of some resin starfish and attached 

them separately.

Here is the final product.

It's gigantic and it's hard to tell from the photo, but it bursts forth in the center 

quite strangely. That's probably because I added the ornaments to the bundles instead

of clustering them onto the wreath in groups after the fact. I think that was my error.

And that's what I did yesterday, all while binge watching The Crown on Netflix.

Poor Diana is all I have to say.

Are you crafting at all for the holidays?

A Crate Solution.

In my previous post, I showed you how we rebuilt a wall and eliminated a large window. Our plan was to put shelving on the wall by using wooden crates. They were on order from Amazon for a while. Shipping was delayed because the seller was waiting for cartons. They finally arrived on Friday and we got to work hanging them yesterday. We chose crates to use as shelving because we wanted them to double as a climbing wall for Manny. He has a natural tendency to want to climb high and this idea worked out perfectly. These crates are built well and sturdier than the ones you might find at home improvement or hobby stores.

The first thing we did was make templates of the crates and figured out placement so we'd get an idea how they would look on the wall.

We got these metal mounting plates at Home Depot and attached them to the crates. The idea was to mount them to the underside of the crosspieces on the wall so we would not damage the new wall.

Plus they are not really seen from the front. Hubby plants to paint them so you really won't notice them at all. The crates just appear to float on the wall.

Here they are all in place,

Then we put decorative items inside.

Manny was able to climb up to his shelf perch over the door without any trouble at all.

We are very happy with how this project turned out.

If you are interested in these crates, you can find them HERE.

This N' That.

Being a child of the sixties, the image the sun with a face on it has always appealed to me. I think it was because I remember those bright and colorful pop art hippie posters from back then. Hubby and I were out and about hopping from yard sale to yard sale yesterday as there were many happening throughout our community. We hit one one very early and saw this giant metal wall hanging. I snatched it up and handed over $20 before I could change my mind. We thought it would be great to hang over our fireplace.

Once we got it up there, however, we felt it was too overpowering and you couldn't see the detail of the words that were cut into it.  So, after taking the above photo, I though we should try it on the big wall just to the left of the fireplace and swap it out with the painting.

That seemed to work out much better.

It's definitely a focal point. We're enjoying the new look. 

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Friday night there was some excitement down the street. I was in bed and never heard anything, but I got a text from a neighbor and went outside to see what was happening. A house down the street was fully engulfed in flames. This house has been the subject of much speculation because questionable activity has been going on there for a couple of years. Those of us that live nearby affectionately call it "The Crack House." Across the street are some homes that back up to another neighborhood and people have been seen coming over the back fence of one of those homes and going into this house, presumably to buy drugs. I was told that two people living in this house called 911, hopped in a car and fled. So, no telling what was going on in there that started this fire. Needless to say, there isn't much left of the place now.

The chimney fell down into the backyard which you can see is filled with trash.

Our town doesn't have a drug task force, so calls made to the police were a waste of time and callers were referred to the Sheriff's office. They said to take photos of suspicious activity, (basically do their work for them). so nothing ever happened because nobody wanted to get caught taking photos. Our homeowner's association wasn't very helpful either even though many covenants were broken, including multiple cars parked on the front lawn at any given time. 

They had dogs that didn't make it out. One was a pit bull that got loose one day and charged at me and Zoey. I cursed a blue streak at the owners. Yeah, not too sorry those people have been displaced. 

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Things with our new addition are going well. Manny makes us smile every day. He has run of the house now and so he gets into everything. It's like having a toddler around. 

He likes to sploot!

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And now for some really big news.

The Friday before last was a big day where Megan works. Kevin Smith, (of Jay and Silent Bob fame),  stopped by the studio. He wants to bring back the cartoon, Masters of The Universe. They posted some photos on Twitter.

See that group shot in the upper left?

Look who is in it!!!

How exciting is that?

I got a great text from Megan Friday night saying that last week was really good. The studio has discovered her strengths and she's now working on projects better suited to her wheelhouse. She sounded really happy. I'm so thrilled, I cannot tell you, plus she's coming home for a visit next week. We can't wait!

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Things at my job are going better as far as all of us getting along. Hooray! It sure makes for a better day. Last week though, it was my turn to be at the register. I don't do very well on it as I get overwhelmed very easily. I have tried to be excused from it, but the principal wants us all to rotate. She won't let my manager have any leeway as far as taking me out of the rotation, which stinks, but oh well. It's in my job description, so I have to suck it up. My brain can only handle so much input now that I'm older and with only one register and kids coming up on both sides of me, it's a whirlwind. I feel close to having a panic attack at times. Luckily I only have to do it once every 5 weeks. I am super thankful to have Monday off as I could really use the break. I have Friday off as well because I need another crown. I broke a tooth last week eating some glazed pecans. Argh!!!

Hoping all is well with my bloggy friends. Have a great Sunday!!