OK Squeezies. Hang in there with me on this post. I’m going to try to make sense of the way my mind works and the stream of thoughts that go on. Aren’t you so excited to get a look into how my decorating ADD happens? My mind can be a very scary place. ;)
As I mentioned last week, I’ve started a little redo of our playroom/loft. I can’t even pinpoint when it started, but it’s been in the works for months. I’m just finally getting the projects going.
I’ve told you before, I’m nothing if not efficient. :)
Let’s look back at how the playroom looked for a while:
There was a time when I didn’t care for our wall color (the one I had them paint half the house with) – and I thought I had to match everything to it. Hence the reason I used so much red. (I thought it was the only color that worked with the hue of the paint.)
I’ve grown to love the color, and realize it’s an excellent neutral paint. And it’s opened up my world people! I now know I can use more than red to decorate these rooms! ;)
Anyhoo, remember when I told you back here how I took a couple trips to IKEA in a couple weeks? (Gleee!) Well, the reason for my first trip was to pick out this beauty:
It’s the Hemnes dresser and I thought it was going to be perfect for the Bub’s room. I planned to paint it RED (OK, the red isn’t gone for good) to go with his room. Because of that, I got the navy blue version of this dresser, so it would be a good dark base for the red paint.
Well…the reason I loved this dresser was because it had so much storage. What I didn’t realize (even though I measured the space before I got it) was that it’s MASSIVE. I mean, seriously. It’s SO stinking big people.
So I put the MONGO dresser together, and moved it into the Bub’s room, knowing full well it wasn’t going to work. It was too tall and too deep.
Drats.
I was freaking out just a little. What in the world was I going to do with a gigantic navy blue dresser? We certainly don’t need anymore dressers in this house. (You know my dresser obsession.)
And then…it hit me. I could use it in the playroom. Ah HA!! (You can see how I resolved the Bub’s dresser issue here.)
We have had a cheapy laminate TV stand in their for years and years – and a while back I tried painting it. Most of it held up OK, but some parts were flaking off daily:
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I’ve been wanting to toss that thing (it was literally falling apart) forever, so I knew this could work out perfectly. Oh yes, my evil plan always comes together…even when I didn’t have a plan to begin with. And it wasn’t evil.
So I crushed the laminate stand (it. was. AWESOME.) and put the new dresser in it’s spot. LOVE.
Even the insides are adorable:
I changed it up just a bit by adding some fun green knobs (half off!) from Hob Lob:
The blue and green color is so FUN – and will make even more sense in just a minute. :)
Because the dresser is ginormous, it works insanely well for toys and games. Between another purge and this dresser, all of it is hidden away. And there are even empty drawers:
Glorious.
Because the dresser was a lot wider than the old TV stand, it created a few more issues. I had to take down the mirror and the art pad off the walls to accommodate the width of this monster.
And doing so left lots of these:
But we don’t have matching paint to touch them up. And even if we did the wall is about ohhhh…20 feet tall? I’m not painting it, and I don’t know anyone who will. :)
I decided to hang the TV above the dresser, so the need to repaint continued when I went to take the vinyl off the wall:
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NICE. What the ??
Good. Ness. See how these things happen? It’s just a tidal wave.
But tidal waves are good around here. They give me an excuse to get creative. And in my mind, creative usually equals putting wood on our walls. Or mdf, in this case. :)
I used about $40 of the good stuff and did another board and batten treatment on that wall:
Oh my, I never tire of how fresh and crisp and classic it is! Nevah!
The height has no rhyme or reason to it – I just wanted to cover the big holes that showed up when I took down the bottom shelves. ;)
I used this method to fill the other holes, painted a couple coats of primer on the wall, installed the mdf and then gave it a coat of primer. I covered everything one more time with glossy white paint.
It gives the large wall a base and grounds it – which is a very good thing in this space:
By the way, this whole room is still so in between – nothing has been accessorized, so many projects aren’t done. I just couldn’t wait to show ya. :)
Onto the final project (for now), which may have been the first project. I have no idea. It’s all jumbled in my head. Remember that beautiful fabric I used for the kitchen window treatment?
Well this is the space I got it for:
I wanted to inject some more fun, make it fresh -- but keep it an adult space too. This room has morphed from a playroom to a game room over the past year, and I’m going with it.
And the new fabric was the a beautiful change – still lighthearted, but more grown up at the same time.
I don’t know. All I know is I LOVE it.
A couple weeks ago I found a couple of pillows at HomeGoods that happened to have the exact same colors on them:
And the Bub loves them because the one side has pirates, and he’s ALL over pirates lately. They a little whimsy in the room.
So far I’m loving the changes – so fun and bright!:
That new coffee table is for another post – a Craigslist find a few months ago:
It’s Pottery Barn and it’s fantastic! And no, it’s not staying red. :)
I love looking back to see how our spaces have changed – here’s the playroom a couple of years ago:
And the new game room, as it is today:
There are so many things left to do – the chairs will be replaced with our family room sofa…when we get a new family room sofa. :) The lights will come down, and my plan is to put built ins on each side of the windows. (Dad? You there?) The gallery wall is coming soon, and I’m figuring out a couple of other changes as well.
For now, I’m so pleased with how it’s coming together! All of the voices in my head are making sense…finally. ;)
P.S. To see a few of my board and batten tricks, go here to watch a short video. :)
Helloooo! How’s your week going?
We were on Spring Break around here last week and I was an absolute slug. Really – when hubby is home all day I’m just completely worthless. All I want to do is sit around, eat A LOT and watch ridiculous amounts of reality TV.
It’s AWESOMENESS.
But by about Saturday at 5 p.m. last weekend, I my slothdom had run it’s course and I had to do something. And do something I did – I started one or fifty projects in the playroom turned game room. But this week has been so crazy, none of it has been touched in five days.
The first little project I tackled is going to be a big one and I can’t WAIT to show you:
It involves a closet, an electrician, paint and me learning how to build stuff – we’ll see how that last part goes. Could get interesting.
But if it all comes together = AWESOME! Ack, I’m so excited about this one.
Next up is the pile of mdf sitting in the garage, waiting to be installed in the room:
I really hope to get that project done this weekend – it’s going to make a huge difference in there!
But the most dramatic change involves taking all of these off the wall:
No, not ladders. :)
The shelves that have been up for about five years:
I love them, I do! I’m just ready for a change – a change that came to mind as I was going through our boxes and boxes (and. boxes.) of photos recently.
We have so many special family photos and I must display them. They are fantastic – I just had to show you a few of my favorites.
I adore pictures of my husband as a child. ADORE. I wish I could travel back in time when I see these:
And it absolutely kills me how much he looks like our son. I need to get a similar shirt for the Bub and take a picture just like this. They could be twins.
Here’s hubs with my late brother-in-law:
Oh my, couldn’t you just squish them? :)
I love this one of my in-laws:
I love imagining the setting, who was there, what they were celebrating – all of it.
The older pictures of my grandparents are some of my favorites – just look how beautiful my Grandmother is in this picture:
Do you see her wedding gown? Stunning. And my Grandpa looks so handsome! I miss them both so.
Looks like my other Grandpa was an aspiring actor at a young age:
This photo is actually quite large – at least 30 people were in this Ladies Aid Society play. :) I love everything about it – the costumes, the fake beards and mustaches, the mischievous glint in my Grandpa’s eyes:
And he got his beautiful eyes from his Dad (the groom):
I don’t remember my Great-Grandfather, but his lovely wife (to the right) is my namesake. She was a really fantastic, strong Hungarian woman. And she made some mean kifli. Ohh, I must learn how to make them.
One of my absolute favorite pics isn’t one of the oldest. It’s from my childhood, so probably only 20 25 30 years ago:
OK, it’s pretty old. ;)
We went camping all the time when I was young, and that picture was taken at Brown County State Park (Indiana) in the fall. That’s my Dad pushing me, and my favorite part of this picture is the absolute JOY on my face.
This is the reason photos fill the walls in our home. :)
I’ve started building up my stash of frames again – and my go to spot is always Goodwill. I found these large, chunky frames today:
I can’t wait to start framing everything and filling up this wall:
It’s gonna be fantastic. I hope. Crossing fingers. It’s pretty awesome in my head.
There’s lots of stuff going on under that TV too, and I’ll show you that SOON. :)
So that’s the madness going on in my noggin and in our playroom this week. I need to focus and get at least one part of this totally last minute, by-accident mini redo DONE.
So, is there an old family photo you treasure? How far do yours go back? I’m guessing some of mine are last 100 years old, and they’re all originals. Anyone know the best way to store old photos? I plan on scanning them all, but I’d like to keep the originals stored safely away.
It started with some house envy, believe it or not. :) Yes, even I see beautiful homes in blogland and sometimes that little green monster starts rearing it’s head. You all know I LOVE our house, so it’s not a big monster, mind you -- just a little one.
I just love little corners, niches, interesting spots in homes, and I adore how some people use awkward spots to their full potential. Like hallways – I just love a long hallway with hardwood floors, a beautiful runner and woodwork as far as the eye can see. Add a gallery of family photos and I’m swooning.
I have a recurring dream about a house we buy and are fixing up, and in each dream I find a new little nook or a tiny room I didn’t know was there before. I LOVE that dream. :)
But alas, we have no nooks, no niches. Not even a hallway. Not one hallway in our entire house. That’s the new open concept for ya – plenty of open spaces (which we love), but sometimes I do crave a little nook.
About a month ago or so, I realized we a needed a storage solution for our son’s dress up stuff. Now, not dress up like princess dresses. Manly dress up like policemen, train conductors and firemen.
(Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here.)
So I thunk and I thunk, and I thought of the closest thing to a hallway we have – the half wall in our playroom/loft:
And the idea hit me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do!
First step was to paint the wall out in semi-gloss white:
Didn’t he do a great job?:
I kid! I kid! No child labor here folks.
Mostly because he wasn’t doing it right.
I kid! Not really.
OK, onward! You’ll notice I didn’t even paint the edges of the wall. I didn’t need to because it was going to be covered up with my next step. I took primed mdf from Lowe’s and started installing my vision:
I took some video to give some more detail, but it’s so straightforward – boards across the top, bottom and sides. Then I did some measuring to figure out the spacing between the rest of the boards.
The math went like this – the space between the two outside boards was almost exactly six feet. So I took:
6 feet x 12 (for inches) = 72 inches
The boards were 3.5 inches wide, so I figured out how many sections I wanted (five) and knew that would take four additional pieces of mdf:
3.5 (mdf boards) x 4 = 14 inches
Take the 72 inches minus 14 and you get 58 inches.
Divide 58 inches by the five sections I wanted, and you get 11.6 sections between each vertical board.
Does that make sense? Math and I are not friends, and I swear it’s easy. Once you do it one time, it’ll make more sense for the next time. :) I use that method for any spot where I’m adding molding to a specific amount of space (and I want it to look uniform.)
I took a quick video to show you a couple of my other tricks:
Sooo…anyhoo, after a couple more coats of paint on the mdf, some caulk (remember, it’s your BFF folks!), and hooks – I got this:
Isn’t it gorgeous? I mean, really. I want it all. over. my. house. ALL OVER. It’s just classic and pretty and yummy.
I can’t believe how happy woodwork makes me. It’s just ridiculous.
Now we have a spot for all of the make believe outfits:
I almost hated to cover it all up, but it’s for the sake of my sanity. Those hats have been laying around here and there for months because I haven’t found a good spot for them.
I especially love how it ties into the mdf I added to the staircase last year:
And you smarties will notice that NO, I have not painted that railing yet. Only the bottom section is done:
That is how I roll. :)
I just love how it turned out! I took an empty wall that wasn’t doing anything:
And made it functional and pretty:
Gotta love that!
The wood was el cheapo – I think I spent $15 on the mdf. I got the ORB hooks at Lowe’s as well. Love, love, LOVE!
Now I’m so pumped to get moving on the board and batten in the office! My plan is to get started on that this weekend.
Have a GREAT one!
I’m totally channeling Tim Gunn on that one! :) I told you awhile ago how I was obsessing over wanting to move furniture around in our house. I also mentioned how that just doesn’t happen often in our house because of the open layout. Poor me, I know.
But one day a couple weeks ago I was standing in our loft/playroom and found myself staring at a corner that drove me nuts:
It’s that area over by the window – the bookshelf has always bothered me there. It just felt too cramped – especially when every. single. book. is taken off the shelves. I either wanted another shelf for the other side of the window to balance it out or wanted to move it out of that spot completely. I couldn’t get a second bookcase because it’s actually a hutch that goes on top of a desk – and I got it on my one and only glorious trip to the local Ballard Designs outlet years ago. We went with an empty mini van and couldn’t see out the back window on the way home. ;)
Enter the moving of furniture. I slid the sucker over by our stair way and it turned out to be an absolute perfect fit!:
So I thought up a solution I think turned out pretty well. I measured the size of the top of the hutch, then went and had a piece of wood cut to the same measurement. I also grabbed six “bun” feet to raise it off the floor a bit:
I measured the same distance in all around and drilled starter holes for the feet:
The bun feet didn’t really twist in super tight, but they work fine. I also got a piece of trim molding to dress up the base of my new “bookcase” and cut it with my miter box to fit around the front and the two sides:
A coat of my trusty Black Suede paint from Home Depot and it was done. I absolutely love how it turned out!:
It’s just that little something it needed! I removed the meeeellion stuffed animals and now it’s such a lovely, warm spot when we go up and down the stairs:
I didn’t attach the base -- just set the bookshelf on top! The accessories can be seen as you come up the stairs, so because I’m just a little bit crazy, they had to be items that look good from both directions – which is harder than you’d think, especially when you’re shopping your house!:
The corner where the shelves were before is SO empty now, which I’m OK with for now --- I’m enjoying all the space.
Before:
But now I have an idea for something fantastic by each window! Yippee! I love moving stuff around!
I’m working on a mini redo in our family room I hope to show you soon. It started with a rug and it’s spilling into the rest of the room. :)