guest room mood board

Not too much is happening here, other than painting, painting, painting. We are getting there though, and wall wise we only have the verandahs left. And then some windows, and doors and railings. But we are getting there.

To occupy my mind I have been planning on decorating the downstairs guest room. Until now it was painted in Antique White USA, and had a queen and a single bed in there. Total.
It is quite a big room, has no built in storage at this stage, french doors out onto the bottom verandah, and a window that is also under the verandah. We have guests semi regularly, sometimes for a weekend or for longer stays and it is quite nice that they can be downstairs and have their own space. The single bed is great for the family and friends with kids.

Our guests, as well as coming to see us, also come for the beach, so we want to bring that relaxed, beachy, coastal feel throughout our house and into the guest bedroom, but without screaming Beach!

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Some of the artwork and cushions might change a little, (sadly especially the mandala, it might be a little over budget for the guest room, but maybe for our room!) and the bedside tables are definitely white, not pink! We own the drawers, I'm going to have a go at the headboard with some linen. The hat stand is for towels and clothing until we have some hanging storage. Maybe some hooks on the walls would work too. The floor mats are for our wooden floors and to stop sand.

I'm on holidays now-thank goodness!-and we have some visitors coming next week, so I'm going to start the headboard this weekend. Wish me luck!

quilt shopping

I've been hinting about the need for a new quilt cover for our room for awhile now, but L didn't see the need. Although I still like the one we have it is only a Queen size for our Queen bed, and I would like it to be King size. We recently bought a new bed for downstairs, so I figured it was a good time to shuffle this one to another bedroom, and have a nice new King sized quilt on our bed. Plus it's been about 2 years-time for a change. L came on board as recently he has had a few crazy dreams about spiders and snakes in the bed and is blaming the patterns on the pillows. It would be ok if he didn't start trying to kill them by whacking them!

I've had a few ideas, and I'll check them out in person over the weekend.Initially I was all about colour and pattern. We already have a plain white quilt cover in the blue bedroom, and our current quilt cover is mostly white too.

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But I think I have changed my mind, and will go for white, and bring in colour through sheets, cushions, blankets  and other items like art and books and pretties. Considering we still have to paint the room, and don't really have a full plan in mind, and the fact I keep changing my mind might make this a much wiser option.

I would love linen, but it's probably out of our budget at the moment. But I can dream...

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Hmmm, it's definitely time for us to do some work on our bedroom.

just adoorable....

This was my last weekend of holidays. My last holidays before the wedding. I had the house to myself. Originally I planned to pretty much relax, go for a walk or two, do some yoga and some school work to get ready for the term. Then on Thursday afternoon I decided to go to two shops to buy supplies for not one, but two entirely separate projects.
Remember these cupboard doors in the spare room? We had matching (but bigger) ones in our bedroom. We always hated them, and planned to paint them, but just never quite got around to it.

Before-boring, matt chipboard

Now look at them! White paint is magic!

After!

Bright and glossy!

It ended up being a bit harder than I thought. I planned on having all four doors in the garage, and do them all at once. I took the two spare room doors off and carried them downstairs to the garage. I took one of the ones from our bedroom off, and realised two things.
One-Being taller and wider it was a lot heavier-I couldn't actually carry it by myself.
Two-Even had I been able to carry it, it was too tall to fit through the doors, and I don't think I would have been able to negotiate the corners and furniture.

I ended up having to do the doors in our bedroom one at time, in the bedroom, on saw horses, which wasn't ideal, and added quite a bit of time to the project because once I finished the other three doors, I still had one to go.

My working environment!

I lightly sanded with 180 grit, vacuumed the doors, and then washed them down. Then 2 coats of the sealer/primer-quite a bit of the colour was showing through after 1 coat, and I was afraid they might bleed through.

I was getting pretty worried while priming the last door. They were just sucking in the primer on the first coat, I wasn't sure I would make it! I was literally scraping the last of the primer out of the tin. 

I am so happy with how they look-they really make the rooms so much brighter, reflecting light around. I can't believe we left it so long. L was pretty impressed with me too! 

I did another project over the weekend too, stay tuned!

learning curve

I just started. Like ripping off a bandaid I just had to start the painting. Otherwise I would have fluffed about not making a decision for another few months and never would have started. 

We decided to paint one of the downstairs bedrooms to get rid of the awful green paint, and so if we were hopeless at painting for our first go we didn't have to live with it forever-it wasn't staring us in the face every day when we were hanging out and watching tv. 

We did learn a lot as we went, some of it is probably pretty obvious if you've painted before, but despite reading heaps of advice, and talking to people at Bunnings there were a few things I would change. 

• Definitely do the prep on Friday night. I had planned to, but then was tired, and didn't have everything I needed.
• Don't plan a florist appointment for 10 o'clock, and then go shopping after that. 

This all meant it was 11.30 before I even started prepping the walls by washing them down and giving a light sand. I then had to pop out again for a drop sheet. In a west facing room, on the hottest weekend in months this wasn't ideal. 

• Just buy the good canvas drop sheets in the first place, because the plastic ones are hopeless, don't stay put and tear really easily. 
• Use an undercoat if you are going light. Our green ceiling still isn't covered after 2 coats. Frustrating. 
• It's much easier when there are two of you-so don't start on a day when L is playing golf and then working.

On Saturday I did the prep and cut in and painted the ceiling twice. 

On Sunday I had to go out and buy undercoat for the walls. I cut in and L rolled. 

 

Yesterday we both went to work all day, I went to a friend's house to work on our wedding invitations (they look so good!), after dinner there was nothing on tv, so we decided to put a coat of paint on. With both of us working together it took just over an hour to cut in and roll. It looks so much better already! Can't wait to put on another coat and do the trim. 

more blue room

Thanks for the feedback from our spare room. I thought I would give a little update to the room, answer a few questions, and give some detail shots.

Doona cover and cushions

The dresser I did up. 

I got a little over excited on the distressing I think. I will eventually go back and put another coat of paint on. As soon as I did it, I was all "PUT IT BACK! PUT IT BACK!!" I should have thought beforehand-less is more. I was over it and frustrated by this point, so just chucked it in. 

I mentioned in the last post about DIYing a bedhead. Unfortunately it wont be happening in the short term-We would need a new base for the bed, and it won't fit into our budget a the moment. :( The current bed frame has a 'foot' on it, and I don't think we could cut it off without impacting on the structural soundness of the bed. Basically if we cut the leg posts off below the metal foot, I don't think the legs would be stable enough. 

BUT, in saying that I would love to do this idea from the Feb 2013 Home Beautiful.

Sorry it's sideways...

I made it bigger so you could see... Aren't I nice?

Terrible photos-white on white on white-but it is pressed metal (often used as splash back) glued to a MDF backing, with a wood frame, all painted white. You can't really see the detail in this picture, but it is really pretty. 

Or a pretty standard wrap batting and fabric around some MDF and staple. They are pretty common these days. Either way, I think it is a while off. 

 

Meanwhile, this is our current window coverings. Expensive. My 2 year old nephew visits, and needs something to block out the light for his sleeps. As you can see by the glass, privacy isn't an issue. Our bedroom has zero window coverings at this stage. I like waking up naturally to light-although in a QLD summer when it gets light at 4 in the morning it is a bit less than ideal!

A few people mentioned the weird box things next the the cupboard. Here's why. The first picture below used to be a hallway once upon a time  but they turned it into some stairs when they built it out. The VJ wall on the right backs on to the cupboard in the blue room. When you turn right to continue down the stairs you can see what happens to the roof. This is where the stepped boxes come into play. The little ledge that runs along the left side is floor level of the top floor. 

The first level of stairs

Look at that lovely green. Hope those weird boxes make a bit more sense now-so you don't hit your head. 

Blue room list
Buy chest of drawers
New bedhead
Replace boob light with down lights and fan
New doona cover
New rug
Window coverings (ok-not done... :) )
Hang art (and buy)
Hang mirror (and buy)
Bedside tables
Paint the cupboard doors
Repaint (although this will be one of the last rooms we get to, I like the colour)

Oh-writing that list shows me that we still have quite a bit to do... 

the blue room

Yay-internet is back! It's amazing how much I rely on it now! I'd go to check a recipe, or a random fact, or check facebook. Nothing. After a month of it cutting in and out, and hours on the phone trying to get it fixed and saying that it wasn't out modem, reconfiguring it didn't work last night, so probably wont tonight either..., before it finally, completely died, someone finally came out today and fixed it.

Funnily enough, the room in our house that is the most 'done' is our guest room. It's a really nice room, and if it didn't have such a small cupboard we probably would have almost chosen it as our master bedroom. I'm really happy with it. We need window coverings, but other than that, if nothing changes for a few years then all good.

Our spare room

The weird box cut outs are a bit weird. They had to cut out some of the room for the head space for the stairs they added in when they placed the old house onto the new downstairs. It's a little odd, but works as a kind of bedside table.
The cupboards are awful. Why they didn't pay a little more for white or mirrored doors is beyond me. Instead they left them as this weird uncoated chipboard. To be in their mind....

This looks over the top balcony

When we first moved in our room look like this. An old doona cover, on a rug that was left here from the previous owners (you can see it rolled up in the corner) in a photo above. The bed was a hand me down from a friend who moved overseas. Nothing too special.  Actually, looking back I don't like it al all... Making do with what we had.

 It didn't stay like that for too long though. Same bed, and same prints, but have moved.

The doona cover is a plain white textured one from Target. I picked it up when they had a big sale. I picked up the cushions the same day-also from Target. The rug was crocheted by my darling grandma. The drawers are from a local op shop. The top was in bad condition-it had a burn and some stains, so I painted the top. Preblog, so no pics :( Sorry.

It's not going to win awards, but I thinks it's calm and relaxing.

It needs window coverings-it's quite a bright room, and gets afternoon sun from the far window. I think I will probably get white roman blinds.
We've recently got rid of the old 'boob light', and replaced it with some down lights and a fan. I'd also like to make a new bedhead, but that would mean buying a new frame for the bed, so it's probay down the line a bit.

What do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Edited to add-I meant to say that painting those doors is right up there on our job list. Just working out the right products to use, and waiting for some sunny, dry weather!