Germaine left a comment on our last blog post pointing out that it has been a week! Updates already!! We had family visiting Sunday-Wednesday, so that's one excuse. And we still haven't rehung all of the art upstairs, which I'd really like to do, so that's another excuse. But let's go ahead and get this party started anyway.
We are SO thrilled with the way everything turned out. It looks a MILLION times better and happier and cleaner and more us. So let's celebrate with lots and lots of before and afters!
Here's Hamish's room on our second walk through of the house:
You may notice that everything is a pale blue-gray. And I mean everything--doors, window trim, baseboards. This room was likely "unfinished space" when the house was bought and was finished later. The carpet was different from the rest of the upstairs, and the baseboards (which you can't see in any of the walk through pics) were different from the rest of the house. They must have been cheaper (they were smooth, wide rounded trim), but I thought it was so odd.
We took down most of the window treatments and replaced the carpet when we re-carpeted the upstairs before we moved in. Here's an early iteration (carpet in, window treatments still up, air mattress for playing on):
That (and just way less furniture) went a long way toward making this room feel more open and like a deliberate part of the upstairs.
Here are more recent pics taken during bedtime stories (with an iPhone camera filter that Hamish turned on, so ignore the colors). Hamish has been on her mattress/box springs for several months now (since Paris), but both were still sitting on the floor.
The blue-blue-blue and the mismatched, invisible baseboards were still high on my list to fix.
And then there was the closet door. All of these mini-doors lead to storage space under the eaves, but it's not really tall enough for clothes storage. So the previous owners created a closet behind the hallway. It's large and works well, but the door (adjacent to the bedroom door and a set of mini doors) was awkward. Kyle added a real doorknob right away (it had a little wooden cabinet knob that occasionally came off in your hand) but there was still definitely room for improvement.
Ok, that's a lot of build up. Ready for the (art-not-hung) afters?
After all that, we still painted the room blue. :)
But we love the contrast, the bright white trim and new baseboards. And I love that new strip of baseboard at the bottom of the closet door in a way that is unreasonable. It looks SO MUCH BETTER!
The color is Benjamin Moore's Van Deusen Blue. It's the same blue we used for the front door, bookshelf backs downstairs, and the mud closet. The trim is Simply White (Ben Moore).
Hamish is up in the real bed--bed frame and all--and has been up there for a few nights and naps. So far it's gone really well.
Still on the list for this room...
1. Hang the stack of art that's currently sitting on the dresser/floor.
2. Window treatments with more personality, though these plain roller shades do a great job of light blocking so they're staying up until we have something better.
3. Paint the fan body and blades white. It's not killing us, but it would look fresher and blend into the white ceiling with a new coat of paint, and I am told that's an easy process. Our painter recommended a spray primer and paint, which we bought, so now we just need to do it.
4. Pretty, fluffy big girl bedding. Yay!