House & Garden Projects

Bedroom: January-February 2003

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The first task was, as they say on 'Trading Spaces', to clear the room. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of available extra space to store things. I took out the bed and the books and bookcases and painted half the room at a time. I wish I had taken 'in progress' pictures! The old paint was just a flat, very, very light yellow. When I first moved in, I didn't like the color, but it sort of grew on me over the past year. I just wanted to punch it up some. So I chose a three-step sponging process using Glidden latex paint in three shades of yellow. The base coat is called 'Celestial Sun' and is a sort of butter cream color. When that dried I sponged on 'Ribbon Yellow', a slightly darker shade. Then, to lighten it up, I sponged on 'Soft Yellow'. The two sponge coats were applied full strength, not diluted with water or glaze (maybe in another room?). It's difficult to get a good picture, but this close-up (right) will give you an idea of the result.

The painting of the room took me a total of four days because I waited at least eight hours between coats of paint and I could only do half the room at a time. It took me another week or so to make and paint the new shadow boxes on the wall over the bed, and yet another week to pick up the chest of drawers. I shopped around a bit during that week and still went back to the first one that had caught my eye.

The new furniture arrangement (see plan at left) was designed to open up the middle of the room and to allow for a chest of drawers I picked up at an antique store in Delavan. Finally, I added some sheers with rose appliqués to dress up the windows. It's still a work-in-progress, but the pictures below show I succeeded on those two counts, at least (again, a full gallery of before and after pictures is available - click here). Still to be done, I need to pick out a new rug (something larger, possible covering the entire open space on the floor), and possibly refinish the chest of drawers (I already changed the hardware on it). Plus I want to build a new computer desk with additional shelves above it, and build new bookshelves to replace the Sauder-type kit shelves I have now. Ah well, someday!

Full gallery of before and after pictures - click here

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