New Bedroom

Here's a glimpse of my kitty Radius relaxing in my - mostly - new master bedroom. I've been dying to fix it up for the longest! The painting was done months ago, but that's as far as I got. But then a couple weeks ago the fiancee and I bought a new headboard and frame, and that sparked the redecorating effort. I love the bright white headboard against the charcoal walls, and the new taller bed (the old one was a low platform "Malm"from Ikea) is perfect sitting under a collection of old and new artwork (yikes, they are looking a bit crooked here!)

Remember the pineapple lamp and round table from my guest bedroom? I decided they were too cute to stay hidden away in a not-often-used room, so I brought them upstairs and gave them a new home! The little bench under the window was found at a thrift store recently - I covered the seat in a scrap of pink velvet (the same velvet I used for my guest bedroom headboard!) Now it's the perfect spot to rest a purse and maybe a new pair of shoes...

A close-up of my little bedside table. The lamp is from K-Mart, simply sprayed a glossy apple green. The cat paperweight is from John Derian and the fish figurines are Jonathan Adler. Meanwhile, I highly recommend Fabulous Fakes by Carole Tanenbaum. If you love vintage jewelry like I do, you will LOVE this book. Gorgeous photography... eye-popping jewelry!

The bedding is one of my favorite things about the room. Sometimes you just want something colorful and feminine and nothing else will do. I considered something from the fab new Orla Kiely line, but I wasn't in the mood for simple and modern. I think these sheets from Ralph Lauren's "Belle Harbour" collection are heaven - they are the perfect bold, vintage floral and they're soft as can be. Also, the rick rack-trimmed shams are from Anthro, the quilt is from HomeGoods, and the mod knit pillow is from Urban Outfitters.

Finally, I have to share these adorable painted storage baskets that I found at HomeGoods. They are made like boxes and are perfect for holding scarves, magazines, and whatever else needs concealing!  Cute, don't you think?! (p.s the platform peep-toe heels are Marni, via Neiman Marcus Last Call...)

Soon I will share more photos of the room. Next time I will try to get better angles so you all can get a better sense of the entire space...

Before and After Armoire

After a couple days of prepping and painting, we finally have the new armoire settled into its home in the master bedroom. As you can see, I went with a bold and sunny shade of yellow (Valspar's "Almond Puff" #3008-3A) in a nice semi-gloss finish. I don't have the proper drawer pulls on it yet, but otherwise it's pretty much complete. Here's a look at it's original, straight-from-Craigslist state...

Dirty and blah, right? But I knew the moment I saw the listing that it was the right piece for our bedroom. I was searching for a classic chiffrobe (with the closet on one side and drawers on the other) and this fit the bill. Also, I loved the curved top and the spindle legs, and knew the whole thing would look amazing with some TLC and a bright coat of paint. Oh, not to mention the $75 price tag... sold!

Now, when refurbishing this lovely piece, I didn't stop at the outside. The interior needed some loving too...

Seeing that I take up most of the closet space in the house, I wanted my fantastic boyfriend to be able to make use of the storage in this piece. So in order to make it slightly more masculine, I lined the interior of the closet with vintage map prints from Cavallini (though I'm thinking this would have been an even better choice) and painted the remainder of the wood trim in Martha Stewart's aqua-hued "Vintage Map" (#MS 337, also in acrylic semi-gloss).

Lining the walls was super easy. I simply measured the area I wanted to cover and cut the paper to size. Then after carefully applying a coat of spray adhesive to the area, I applied the paper and smoothed it down until it had completely adhered. $12 worth of decorative wrapping paper can really do wonders, don't you think? And now, Kevin has a worthy home for his gorgeous and pristine new Prada penny loafers (yet another wonderful NM Last Call find!)

The chiffrobe has some wonderful little details. This close-up shows the lock and key that adorns the sweater cubby. This also allows me to show a better example of the paint job. I started out by sanding the rough spots, followed by applying two coats of an acrylic all-purpose primer to the entire piece. Once the coats had dried, I applied 2 coats of the yellow semi-gloss. There were challenges in this process though. I found that the yellow paint was not taking well to the surface, even with the thorough primer coats. There was running and dripping and the coverage was not coming out even. So, instead of re-sanding and re-painting the whole piece, I decided to go along with the imperfections and play them up! Using small pieces of sand paper, I roughed up the surface and corners to give it an intentionally weathered look. After 30 minutes of random sanding, I had a finished look that was just enough "vintage" without veering into Shabby Chic territory (I hope!)

And so, another project checked off the list! I am very excited for us to have this extra storage - hopefully the bedroom will be much tidier, and more cheery, because of it!