I've been busy working on various projects around the house, but the problem with that is that none of them are quite done yet, so it's hard to show the progress I've made. I've finally done enough work on our bedroom that I can post some photos, even though the room isn't finished yet.
Apparently I'm really bad at taking before pictures, since I just searched through all my old photos and can't find any since we moved in. Here's a photo from when we looked at the house. The color in the photo looks kind of yellowish, but in person it was more apple or lime green with a cream sponge job to tone it down a little. Not terrible, but not what I'd put in a bedroom.
This is the view from the hall door. The first thing I did was take down the hideous old fan (apparently no picture of that, either, but it was very large and ugly- wood fan blades, greenish metal faux finish on the rest, ugly glass lamp shades) and paint the ceiling flat white (my favorite color for ceilings)- it really lightens the room up after the drab beige that was there. I then installed a new white fan that is much less obtrusive. In general, I don't love the look of ceiling fans, but out here they're a necessity, so we looked for the least offensive style. I then painted the walls a light blue-gray that I mixed myself from paint we had. I was able to take in a sample and get it color-matched when I needed more. I installed crown moulding and painted it semi-gloss white and touched up the trim around the windows and doors and the baseboards. I also painted the doors- closet, bathroom, and hallway, because like everything else in the house they were builders beige. I love how crisp and clean and bright the white looks!
This view is from the bathroom door, on the same wall as the hall door. We used to have the bed on the wall on the left side of the room, but we're trying different arrangements, anticipating the day we'll need room for a bassinet (not that we know when that will happen, but you know me, just being ocd and planning ahead). I don't love the bed being in front of the window, but the room does feel more roomy.
Mr M and I designed and built this bed about 7 1/2 years ago, in the parking lot of the apartment building we lived in. We got a lot of comments from the other tenants- mostly amazed that we would even try such a thing. We love it, but we have had to tweak the original design a bit. We didn't want to use bolts to hold it all together (they look ugly), but quickly realized we had to do something to keep it all together. So we went with eye hooks and cables, which turned out uglier than bolts would have been, but you know what they say about hindsight. All these years I've been meaning to make some sort of cover for the cables, but never got around to it. That is on my list of things to do to finish off our room, as is a bedskirt and nightstands.
I'm not convinced I like the dresser/hutch combo where it is. I might move it to the other side of the bed, or get rid of it entirely, replacing it with two nightstands rather than just one. If we keep it, I'll put different knobs on the drawers and get rid of the scalloped trim on top. I think the wood works well with the log bed, so I won't paint it. At least not right away :) The blue bench that you can only see a corner of in the lower right corner of the photo is a work in progress- it needs a cushion still, and I might end up repainting it now that the walls are done- I'm not sure I like the two blues together. I'd like a rug for the floor, but haven't yet decided on color, size, etc. The green bins on the shelf are pretty close to the former color of the room, and I'll paint them eventually. I'll also change out the lamp on the dresser- I like that it's a touch lamp, but I'm not fond of how it looks. But it was a wedding present and has been useful over the years.
The white fuzzies under the bed posts are pieces of carpet that we stuck to the bottoms years ago to protect the wood floors of the house we were living in.
I love how our room is much brighter and calmer. I actually want to spend time in here now :)
