Monday, April 23, 2012

My Young House Love Moment

Tonight is my first night away from my husband. It marks the start of what is sure to be a very long 5 weeks. One of the things that I put into motion to make my time here easier was a room makeover. Granted, we are going to be here at least a year but I knew it would be good for me to get the room ready for my solo time in it. Plus, my parents have been living in this house for 23 years and have done zero upgrades on it. Yay for projects!

In my parents large house I have actually lived in every room. They are all painted a different color and decorated to each person's personality (all by me btw.. toot toot) and my last room living here 3 years ago was 3 different shades of purple. The purple room however, was not available so I had no choice but to move into the 'red room' that was originally supposed to be a nautical themed den for my dad. All that ever happened in that design process was me painting it and drawing up a schematic for the floor to ceiling beauty and the beast-esq book shelves. Basically, when I moved out the design process stopped there. The dark brick red was perfect for my dad, but I am generally a bright cheery person and needed a lighter color that gave the room more life.

I really love the YHL blog, you can check that out here. The blog is about a DIY couple that are re-doing an old house and they chronicle everything each step of the process. Be careful, its addictinig to see what projects this great young couple accomplishes almost daily. They also served as a great help to me when it came time to re-decorate my new room. Here is my version of a YHL post ;) Get ready for some over sharing, just like on YHL!

Here are some before photos... you just feel depressed looking at it dont you? Except when you see Beckaboo- he puts a smile on everyone's face ;)


This closet used to have a book shelf in it, my husband came a week early to cutom build me a closet.

The 'bed' is called a studio day sofa and i got it at Cost Plus for $250. It's what I'll be sleeping on the next 5 weeks. The arms fold down into a bed. And yes, that is my preggy pillow that I still sleep with, no judging.
First things first, I had to paint over the depressing brick red with a vibrant and cheerful teal. In fact its called 'true teal' and I found it on the glidden website. It's really awesome actually because you can select a room and colors and 'paint' the virtual walls so you can get a feel for what it would look like. It was also less than $20 for a gallon of paint!
I had to give myself motivation to keep painting.
Next is the inspiration behind the entire room. I scored these wall clings on my last day of work at Cost Plus, so not only were they already on sale but with the discount I only paid $6 for these. They are basically stickers that you can put on the wall- even textured walls like mine, it just needs a little extra love to get all the air bubbles out but the whole process was super easy!
This is me applying it. It was so fast and easy I did all 6 of them in less than 15 minutes. The smaller ones were even easier.

The only thing about those wall clings was that I could only get the sheet of 6. I wanted to do an entire wall with them but I got the last one, and none of the neighboring stores had them either. I had to move on to plan b- painting a stencil. I have painted a lot, so for me stencil work was not intimidating. I was just worried about finding one that was similar to my wall sticker. I had planned to do them in a different color to give the design depth, then when I found this gem, I decided to add another color as well to really give it a great look. The paint was only $2.50 for both colors- i just got the testers at Home Depot, they will tint it for you and its perfect for a little job like this.
The stencil is from Michaels. Here's a money saving tip for you- if you have a smart phone download the Michael's app and they ALWAYS have a coupon available. In fact, they send you more as soon as you use them so they can cater to the products that your most likely to buy. I only paid $4 for this after the 40% coupon from my phone.
Just a light sprinkle of paint...
And viola!

Then I repeated the process with the lighter shade to get this:


I really love the contrast of the black clings and the ligher and darker blue stencil. It looks even better in person!

Here is the final product of all my tinkering...


 Notice the smaller wall stickers under the window?


There is the day sofa that has now been converted into a bed. My mom gave me those cute throw pillows to go with it. I love that my music station (as i like to call it) looks out into a really pretty part of my mom's garden in the back yard. If that view doesn't get creative vibes going, I dont know what will!


This is probably my favorite spot of the room. I really really really love my shoes. When you are a size 5 its super hard to find cute -adult- shoes in that size, so when i find them i get them. Most of the time i have nowhere to wear them to, but I just love looking at them! Oh, and my mom snuck in the sign that says "Cheyenne's room" that a neighbor made for me back in elementary school. Sometiems its a good thing that my mom is a hoarder.


 This side is still a work in progress. My husband is going to put up another curtain to cover the closet. Also, its pretty aparent that I am in need of a hamper. I have to fix my easal... someone *coughmyhusbandcough* broke it during the move otherwise it would be on my desk.

And this is my work station. In the near future you may be seeing more of my writing works in print, but that is still a road i am traveling on. More paintings from me though, that is a definite future. I am hoping to set up an Etsy account so people can purchase my artwork. The favorite of all my pieces is still the heart series. (The one above my bed) I only brought my very favorite pieces with me and left the rest with my husband so he wasn't living in complete desolation until he can join me out here.

There are still a few projects left to do. Hang the curtains over the closet, hang the shelves my dad gave us, paint the trim on the window and door, replace the door completly ...ect. I spent some time this afternoon priming and painting the things the shelves sit on. Forgive me, I have no idea what to call them. They were brass colored and looked like rope so i painted it a deep teal- they are still drying or I would have got a photo of it haha.

So thats it! I hope you enjoyed the room makeover, I did! I feel like I should mention that besides my husband coming out a week early to make the closet, the rest was done in a period of 24 hours. I am officially unpacked. I live here. It still feels weird- I keep feeling like I should be getting home before its too late, and then i remember that I AM home... It will take some getting used to for sure. But, a cute room helps!



PS- spell check isn't working for some reason so I apologize if there are any crazy words in here that I didnt catch!

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