Redecorating Reveals

Well, it's finally time for Show and Tell!  The latest house changes are finished, so I'll show you what I've done!

First up is the new entry way light.  A little background on this light.  I have been somewhat addicted to decorating blogs lately, and on these decorating blogs I found that people have been really enamored with this light from Pottery Barn:



   On those decorating blogs you can read about how people have made their own light like this, or picked up a similar model at a thrift store.  Well, I decided that was a pretty cool light as well, and was THRILLED when I found something kind of similar at my local Habitat for Humanity Restore.  For those who don't know, the Restore is a thrift store of building/house supplies, with proceeds supporting Habitat for Humanity.  So, I found the lamp, which was originally a lovely golden color, paid $3 for it (vs. $269 for the Pottery Barn version), took it home, painted it black, and ended up with this:

I like it a lot!



Next up is the bedroom redecorating. This has gotten the most laughs out of all my recent projects, because probably within the past year (or two at the very most) I already redid my bedroom decor. So when people hear I changed it they say, "But didn't you just BARELY change it?" Yeah.  But that's the way it goes sometimes with me. :-)

The desire to change things up started one day as I was reading a decorating blog, where I read about how white bedspreads are a pain because they get dirty easily. Since I had a white quilt on my bed, I could totally understand! In fact, I understood that so well that I decided to change it...I was sick and tired of brown spots on that get-dirty-way-too-easily white quilt. So, after a bit of thinking about it, I decided that I wanted red bedding. In the end, I went with the color scheme my niece Kajsa used at her wedding: brown and red...scarlet? Maroon? I don't know what color to call it. Better just take a look and see:

Here's the bed, with my nice red bedding. I made the toile pillows, and the little white accent pillow that has a red ribbon and brown fabric rosette on it. The brown pillow and the brown bedskirt were leftovers from the last bedroom decor. Don't you love the cool curtains with the red at the top and brown at the bottom that go so well? (Bought 'em that way, what a perfect match!) I also really like the metal scrollwork at the top of the window, and the cute little lamp for my bedside table.

On top of the armoire, I changed the candles to white ones (they had previously been blue), and added a wreath of red berries around the base of the candles to tie in the color scheme.

Over on the other dresser, besides a vase of flowers in the color scheme, I framed a cute card that I had given Craig at one time that was the perfect color for the room, and mod-podged a red scrapbook paper onto the picture frame that I already had.

I LOVE the way it all turned out!

But, with this new change in the color scheme in the bedroom, I was feeling like my mint green bathroom countertop in the attached master bath just wasn't quite cutting it.  Besides, the floral wallpaper border had been up the entire 13 years we've been here, and so (OF COURSE!) I decided to change it all to match my bedroom better.  What I hoped would be a 4 days process ended up being more of a 3 week process, but I really think it was well worth it!  Take a look and see:

I ended up painting my countertops.  That's quite a surprising statement to some ("You painted your countertops?" they say), but I have a neighbor that swears it can be done and work well for quite a few years, so after consulting with her I did it! 

The vanity got painted a really nice dark brown and I added oil rubbed bronze pulls, as well as spray painted my towel racks with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint to match.  After taking down the old wallpaper border, the walls of the bath were painted as well.  I also found a nice bath mat, a toothbrush holder and soap dish, and a few other decorative elements in the color scheme and added those to the room.

What I probably like best about the room redo, was that I took down the giant builder's mirror and replaced it with two framed mirrors.  I added two planters full of red silk roses between the mirrors (with the planters, a Savers thrift store find that originally had Santa Claus painted on them, being made over with the oil rubbed bronze paint as well!)

Well, with all that redecorating and remodeling, you'd think I'd been done, right?  But, like a late night infomercial, WAIT!  There's MORE!

I also replaced the "dressing room lights" light bar in the hall bath with this fixture:

(The light fixture looks from this angle like it's not centered over the mirror, but it really is!)

And, I replaced the broken doorbell at the front door and rearranged the family room furniture (sorry, no pictures of those things.) 

I'd like to say that's all the redecorating I'm doing for awhile...but I better not make any promises I'm not sure I can keep!