♥ Simple and Rustic ♥

Sometimes I think my brain is in overload.  I have plans, ideas, and just everything else that's there waiting to be addressed or brought to life and it really bugs me when I can't get to them.  One of those things has been getting the bedroom we remodeled decorated.  I've collected a few things but being somewhat of a perfectionist about stuff like that and thinking I'd rather wait and do nothing until I have what I want or need, I tend to procrastinate on getting what I do have up or out.

But......I did go ahead and hang the twiggy star wreath over the bed and I have to say that I just love that simple rustic look!  Things are definitely coming together.  Jason made me a pegboard and that old ladder has been painted and we're going to distress it.  So there will be more to come later, but for now........here's how the wreath looks above the bed.....

And I made another stop by the Antique Gallery the other day and came home with these goodies.  I can't wait for Luke to be able to read that book..........I just love old books!  Not sure yet where the jar with the red lid will go.  I have so much red everywhere that it could fit in so many places, so we'll have to see about that.  The basket is going to go in the bedroom most likely.

Anywhere I just had to share a little bit.  :)  Thanks so much for stopping by!  And if I haven't been by to visit much lately, please don't give up on me......I will!

Have a great day!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥ 

♥ Update on Bedroom Makeover ♥

When we start a new project around here, it seems like something always slows us down, but I guess that's pretty much the normal for everyone.  Also, we should have learned by now to only have one project going at a time.  But it seems we haven't learned that lesson yet!  In the midst of this, we have been doing some projects outside as well, or at least starting on them. 

But........the bedroom is painted.  The floors are down.  The trim is stained and back up.  The furniture has been moved into place.

Now it's time for the fun part......decorating!  The furniture was inherited from Jason's dad.  See the brass hardware?  It's getting a makeover.  I also just purchased bedding yesterday.  It was meant to be.  :)  I'll have to tell you more about that when the bedroom is all put together. 

So there's still work to be done, but this part is the part I really enioy!   :)

Have a great weekend! 

♥ Tammy ♥

♥ A Little Progress ♥

Before we got too sick around here, and mostly because of Jason's hard work in one particular day, we made a little progress on the bedroom makeover.

The wallpaper border was tough getting down, in spite of the fabric softener trick.

The entertainment center was torn out.  Jason plans to reuse the wood to make me a cupboard for The Cedar Loft.

Repairs were made to the walls.

The flooring is stacked and awaits us on the sunporch. We got a great deal, so we got enough to do the master bedroom too.  Guess that will be the next room on the makeover list!

Actually, the painting is done, but that will be for another post.  Here you can see what the paint swatch looks like with the laminate flooring.  I took one with the flash and one without.  It's so hard to capture that true color.  It reminds me of a gray/green.

We hoped to be done by now, but then we didn't plan on the flu hitting our house.  I'm happy to have as much done as we do.   Hopefully this weekend, we'll get that flooring done!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing our bedroom remodel adventure!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥    

♥ A New Remodeling Project ♥

We can't ever let things rest for too long, can we? 

We have a small makeover project in the works. 

We've talked about redoing Colt's bedroom for a few months.  We had already decided we would do nothing to it for a year, just in case he wanted to come back and find things as he left them.  :)  He's been living out in his own apartment now for over a year and a half.

When Jason's dad passed away last April, we took one of his bedroom's furniture and Jason's sister took the other.  Since then, it's just been stored in that bedroom with the door closed.  I have done absolutely nothing with that room.  I honestly don't even like to go in there. I miss Colt being there. About the only time we ever go in there is when we're playing hide-n-seek with the kids (we like flashlight hide-n-seek) or when I was wrapping Christmas gifts.

The messy room awaits a makeover.....a glimpse of the furniture. 

So we decided it was time.  We finally picked out a color for the walls.  And the yucky carpet has to come out.  So basically this room will get a makeover of a new wall color, a new floor, and new furniture (new to us anyway).  And then of course, the fun part will come.......the decorating part!

Here's the paint color sample:

The photos didn't really capture the true color.  Here's another photo, but still not like seeing it in person:

Jason already took back the sample of the rustic laminate flooring when he ordered it.  It's called Hickory Praline.  I didn't realize he was taking the sample back or I would have gotten a photo of it first.  Oh well, you'll have to wait until the real thing is here.  :)

The plan is to start this weekend.  Not sure how far will get as we have to tear out a custom built entertainment center, take down border, and get the walls ready for painting.  If we could have it all painted by the time the weekend ends, I'll be one happy gal!  The floor will hopefully follow the next weekend or two after that.

I could probably chronicle our lives by the chapters of home remodeling projects!  We've completely redone several rooms, one project at a time!  I always dread the mess, but love the outcome.  Doing it ourselves is always worth the time and mess in the end, and besides doing it ourselves fits our budget much better.

So here we go again.........  :)

♥ Tammy ♥

Labor of Love for Luke

It seems like we've been remodeling or redecorating since forever. I'm happy to say that Luke's bedroom is finally finished! It's really been a labor of love with Jason building his bed and nightstand and shelves, and us painting and staining it all, then putting it all together and decorating it! It's been fun too!

Anyway, I won't keep you waiting any longer. Here it is:









It's a very small bedroom, only 8 x 12, so it was a little challenging with furniture arrangement. The reason this bedroom is so small is my fault! lol! When we were building our home, I wanted our stairs to turn (and have a landing in the middle), which cut into that bedroom's space, reducing it's size and closet space. Joy endured it for 11 years and it's worked out alright, especially since we have a playroom area upstairs. However, we've wished many times we had just gone ahead and just adjusted the size of our house a few feet while we were building to make it that much longer, and had a bigger bedroom. But it is what it is! :)

Maybe one day he'll realize how special it is to have a bed made by his daddy (which I love by the way).



A little closer look at the headboard. I love the beadboard he used in it.



Jason also made the nightstand, complete with a little drawer of his own and a shelf for his favorite bedtime story books at the bottom too.



And the accents in here had to be red...Luke's favorite color, according to his foster family. These are the letters that Dan of Yesterday Once More so generously made and sent to us for Luke. Thank you so much, Dan! They're perfect for Luke's room and add so much character! The pegboard was repurposed from Joy's previous bedroom, given a coat of red paint.



I bought this dresser used before Colt came home to us. It was a really ugly dark dark color. Jason and I stripped it, and refinished it. It was used in both Colt and Joy's rooms when they were younger. Now Luke gets his turn using it!



Remember the prints I bought? I bought $1.00 unfinished document frames from Dollar Tree and painted them blue to frame the prints.





This one's my favorite print of them all! :)



I wanted no frill shelves...just basic plain straight line shelves, so that's what Jason made. We treated them to a coat (actually three coats) of red paint also. These shelves with fill up with Luke's toys and goodies when he comes home. Until then, we're leaving them as is and waiting to see what "belongs there". :)



I love these little overalls. I saw them over at Barbara's selling blog. It's one way I was able to sneak a little primitive in there...with the dirty distressed blue jean overalls! I thought they were adorable with the homemade sling shot hanging out of the pocket and the patches. It's hanging on a truck plaque that was handed down to us and I repainted it to match his decor. The stop sign over in the corner was a gift from my sister-in-law, Missy, at Christmas time, for Luke. It is actually supposed to be one of those that you use in your garage that starts flashing if you get your car too close to it or brush up against it. We just thought it would be cute in a bedroom done in transportation.



And aren't these just the cutest little things? Colt's girlfriend, Amber, picked these up unfinished at Dollar Tree and brought them over this past Monday. I had fun painting them to go in his room.



This red shelf started off life as a changing table for Joy, with a padding on top. Jason made it too. It used to be white. It was then turned into a shelf later for Joy's room, then given a new coat of red for Luke's room to hold some of those toys.



Oh, and Jason and I tallied up what we spent in here and it was right at $465. That included all the following: Building the bed, building the nightstand, building the shelves, all the bedding, curtains, and lamp, the laminate flooring, the ceiling fan, shoe molding, new white outlet receptacles, the transportation prints and frames, the painted plaques, and all the paint and stain for the walls and furniture.



And just because Jason and I took SO many pictures, I'll leave you with a few more!









Now all we need is our little Luke to complete the room with his personality! :)

My Carpenter's Been Busy....

This weekend we had a fairly productive weekend as we spent most of it at home trying to accomplish some things around here. Joy hasn't been feeling well, so we just didn't get out much at all.

The plus side to that.....my carpenter's been busy out in the workshop working on Luke's bed.......and I've been working on closet organization and cleaning out old toys and all the stuff we've somehow managed to accumulate. How can 4 people have that much stuff stashed away? I figure adding a 2 year old little boy and all his stuff to what we have would be overload! Besides that, we were looking at all the dolls and girl toys upstairs and thinking it might be a good idea to box up some of the stuff that Joy's outgrown and donate some of it and put some of it away for safe keeping for her one day.....and make room for a few boy toys.

Anyway, back to the title of this post, I slipped out to the workshop yesterday afternoon and snapped a picture of Luke's bed. Jason's really been working hard and doing a great job...I love it! I found a picture of a bed that I liked and we made some adjustments to fit Luke's room better...and he went at it! I don't want to ever take for granted that my husband can do these things and that he's willing to do so! (I sent him a little note in his lunch today telling him how blessed Luke is to have a daddy that is making him his own special bed).



Since this picture, he and I stained it. Maybe by this weekend, I'll have more pics to share.

The walls and trim are painted in Luke's room and I HAD to hang the valance to see how it was going to look against the green. Now I can't stop walking by and gazing at his room! :)



And the weekend of Easter, we laid the laminate flooring in Luke's room.



We've also been painting some accents for his room (red). And you know adding the little finishing details is really my favorite part in completing a room!

Maybe with another productive weekend, we can pull it all together. I hope so! I'm ready for these redos to be over for awhile. We need to focus on gathering everything we'll need for travel to China! (That will be fun too)!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great Monday! :)

A Bedroom Fit for a "Tween"

Yay! It's finally done!



Joy's bedroom fits her personality so well! I'm so glad we accomplished that....and I'm glad it's finally complete!



She picked the bedding out herself and it was one of her bigger Christmas gifts, so she's had it for awhile waiting for us to get to the bedroom redo. The bedding was the inspiration for the all colors. She is not-so-much a pink girl (anymore). She wanted to bring out the aqua. The color on the wall is called Pool House.



The full size bed used to be mine growing up. I received it as a birthday gift on my 12th birthday. Jason painted it white for Joy. It does have a matching dresser, but she preferred to use her old dresser. I think she liked the shape of it better. However, Colt said he would like to use the dresser in his room (minus the mirror) because it's bigger than his old one, and Luke will get his old one (the one that was used for Colt & Joy as babies/toddlers).



Joy's old dresser was already painted white, but we wanted to give it a new look. Here scroll down a ways and you can see it behind the desk/chair as it was before. Here it is now:



Joy painted the drawer pulls pink. I painted the decorative indentions with the accent colors from her room.

Remember the old armoire from here?



What a difference the white paint made on it! It looks so fresh and crisp now! Joy is using it for all her dance clothes and gear. She loves this piece of furniture. (Maybe there's hope for one of my kids loving antiques yet)...



On top is a "Grandma's Flower Garden" quilt (quilted by Jason's grandma), and Joy's trophies. The stitchery was stiched by my friend, Betty. It's in a Goodwill makoever frame.



Jason made this desk and bulletin board for Joy awhile back. If you've read my blog for very long, you probably remember when he made this.



We added the gerber daisies and the little sign (that Joy loves by the way)..."Anything boys can do, girls can do better". (Gerber daisies and sign were both 50% off at Hobby Lobby).




However, it got a new coat of paint too. The white we used on all the trim and furniture in the room is called Mocha Cream. She's already loaded up the bulletin board with pictures.



One feature we knew we wanted for her room was a ballet barre and mirror. She's wanted this for awhile. She dances constantly! We bought a large dowel rod (4 ft.long) and painted it white and Jason mounted it. We had a mirror cut to fit and added the vinyl quote above, by Joy's request.



It would be very hard to pick a favorite thing in her room because I find myself going into her room and just standing there taking it all in, but the chandelier would definitely be among my favorites. I can't take the credit for the idea of this. Joy wanted to use her old chandelier, but it was very "girly" as in pink and minty green with rosettes on it. (I have a picture of it somewhere but I have looked and looked and can't locate it right now). I was thinking of brown ribbon tied around new white shades, or even different color ribbons tied around them. However, Colt's girlfriend, Amber (who is very creative), suggested painting each one of the shades on the chandelier one of the accent colors in her room. Joy loved the idea, so we went for it. I painted each shade with craft paint....one aqua, one pink, and one lime green.....then trimmed the top and bottom of each one with brown ribbon. And wow....I loved it....we all loved it!



We positioned Joy's bed on an angle, sort of in a corner. This allowed for better furniture placement in the room. It was fun decorating that corner behind the bed too.





Speaking of Amber, she's very talented with painting designs and she said she would paint Joy's letters for us. If you can't remember what they looked like before, you can see them here. And now they are perfect for her room! I just gave Amber a picture that came from the front of her bedding for inspiration and told her to do whatever she wanted to them that would coordinate. I knew whatever she did would be perfect, and it was! Thank you, Amber!!



The vinyl tree, flower, heart, and peace decorative stickers came with the bedding set (along with a canopy that we didn't use). Joy arranged those the way she wanted them. The tree reminds us of the tree down the road from our house that Colt named when he was little....Max PJ. I did a post on that once if you'd like to read it.....here.



Then that brought the inspiration for the next touch. After the letters and the tree vinyl stickers were up, the corner behind the back lacked something. It was really bugging me and that's one of the reasons I hadn't posted the pictures yet. I did a little brainstorming, thinking of adding some type of decorative stemmed twigs or something. I couldn't really find anything we liked, and definitely not at a price I liked. So in the end, Joy and I went out to the wooded area of my mom and dad's house next door and picked up twigs. We asked Jason to spray them with a coat of the same paint that was used on her furniture. That's just what it needed for that corner! I think a light shining on it from behind the bed would be great too....we're working on that.



The lime rag style rug came from Hobby Lobby - 50% off.



The lamp came from Gordman's - 20% off. That picture frame was a birthday gift to Joy from her friend, Molly Grace, at her last birthday party. That's her very first ballet picture in the frame. And the feathers and beads in the vase behind the picture frame were also purchased from Hobby Lobby at 50% off.



The table it's all on has been a little of everywhere in my house. You may remember seeing it most recently in my living room with the pump lamp on it. Jason gave it a coat of white paint too.

Over here between the dresser and the desk, there's a blank wall. Joy says it's the perfect spot for a flat screen TV. And I said, "Well you better get to saving your money." :) In the meanwhile, we're thinking of possibly putting up a framed poster, either dance related or maybe a guitar chord poster (that way she can sit on her bed and learn her guitar chords)!



The curtains are sheer panels purchased off of ebay. It seemed to need a pop of color over there, so I purchased ribbon by the roll from Hobby Lobby (also 50% off) and added streams of pink and lime ribbon to the curtains.



Joy and I came to an agreement....She can use her closet door for one poster at a time. My thinking was that she had her bulletin board, but I remember what is was like to want posters in my room growing up too.



We added a few flowers to the aqua bottle vase hanging on the doorknob of her closet.



We had lots of doors to paint in there! Besides the closet door, there were two more doors. One leads out of her room and the other is the attic/furnace room door.



I love Joy's new bedroom! I would have loved to have a bedroom like this at 11 years old! But now what I love even more is that we really repurposed lots of things in this room and didn't spend alot of money.



I've always enjoyed watching budget minded decorating shows the best, where they were given a budget and redid a room within that budget. So I decided to figure up what we did spend on her room. Here's the breakdown:

Bedding - $99 (this was a Christmas gift to Joy though, but I included it).
Paint & Primer - $96 (Walls,Furniture and Trim)
Mirror - $54
Ballet Barre & Hardware to Hang it - Can't remember but I think around $15
Vinyl Quote - $14
Curtains - $14
Rug - $12.50
Ribbon - $10
Lamp - $11
Craft Paint - $6
Flowers/Feathers/Beads/Mini Sign - $13.00

That's a total of $344.50 (and actually $99 of that was a Christmas gift). I think it's more gratifying (and challenging) to decorate a room with a conservative budget....and see what I can do with it. Actually I wouldn't know what it was like to spend whatever I wanted because I've never done that! I can't imagine some of these budgets I see on HGTV for rooms! Wow!

Two more last pics for you....just because I took so many! :)





Now it is on to Luke's room.....We've already picked out the color. I've removed the border and cleaned walls, and Jason took out the trim. Jason also repaired and sanded the walls (wow....lots of nail holes it there), applied the primer, and we just finished putting a coat of paint on it. We're hoping it might only take one coat! We have some busy weekends ahead and I'm feeling like we need to hurry and get this room ready, after all we received our LOA this weekend and God is really moving and opening doors to bring us to Luke quickly. I want to leave the few weeks before travel open to thinking clearly about packing and everything we will need to take with us. With that time frame, it is definitely motivation to finish his room!

Thanks for hanging with me and being interested in seeing the finished bedroom project and for waiting so long....hope you en"joy" the pictures of the new bedroom fit for our "tween"! :)