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the (mostly) finished bedroom!
We’ve been making progress on one area of our house and surprise – it’s not the basement! Which can only mean one thing of course – yep, we were able to get another extension on our building permit. When I submitted the request I asked for a couple extra months and was excited to see that instead they gave us till October. A few days later, I realized it was October 2015. Guys, if we have not closed out this permit by October 2015, someone please stage an intervention!
Anyway. The bedroom! You may recall this post from October when we first talked about our grand plans to re-remodel the space (we first tackled it in 2008) and then there was this post from November about choosing paint colors. Well, those paint swatches lived on the wall until about 3 weeks ago when we finally decided to commit to finishing the room.
I managed to snap a few crappy photos on my phone of the progress, but we didn’t feel it was super important to document the process. Spackle, sand, mask, paint…ho hum. (We also completed most of the work in a single weekend, so it was very go-go-go.)
There was no good reason for the delay other than it just wasn’t a necessity project. Kyle had already fabricated and installed the new headboard (which we uninstalled to paint as seen in the photo above) and we’d purchased the Flor tiles, decided on a paint color and bought the curtain track hardware for the wardrobe. Honestly, I think it was all the prep work that had us dragging our heels (that and the fact that Kyle and I both generally hate to paint).
We decided to leave the bed in the room and cover it (along with the wardrobe). This worked fine although painting between the wall and the wardrobe was a little challenging.
I should also mention that Kyle was awesome and did 95% of the work in here while I kept a curious toddler at bay and maintained my long-held role of “finder of things” and “extra pair of hands”. I painted Avery’s nursery while pregnant and could have kept up the tradition but underestimated how difficult it would be to paint during nap time and after bedtime only (especially when my bedtime seems to be about 30 minutes after Avery’s these days!).
One more progress photo before we get to the big reveal. We got a new (bigger) bed last year and had to get rid of our old headboard and frame. The new bed came with a simple metal frame so we opted to add a custom DIY maple plywood skirt around the three exposed sides (after painting and installing new carpet tiles). The joints are biscuited and glued at the corners and for now the assembly is just sitting on the floor. Eventually, we’ll attach it to the metal frame at the head.
Although most of the wood in our house is fir, we opted for maple in the bedroom to change things up and better match the existing IKEA PAX wardrobe.
A few accessories later and here we are! We still need new night stands – these are actually the discontinued Offi TV stands that we bought in 2008. We like them but had to turn them 90 degrees to fit which is a little awkward. Sadly, we haven’t been able to find any that we liked and could also afford (ahem, like these Blu Dot ones in “smoke”). There’s always the DIY option but again, too many other projects taking priority at the moment.
We’d also like to do something above the headboard. A single piece of art doesn’t seem like the right solution so we’ve been thinking of a narrow ledge for smaller art and objects (that can be changed out similar to what we have in the dining room) or maybe something more three-dimensional like a textile or sculptural piece that stands off the wall. I’m also ok with maybe doing nothing – I kinda like keeping the color on the bed and pulling the eye down towards that. I think it helps maintain the horizontality of the headboard.
We never really loved the curtain and track solution of the previous remodel (an IKEA tension wire and two brown curtains). We considered adding custom doors instead (either DIY or Semihandmade) but this would have been a more expensive solution and we would have had to move the fan/light to accommodate a door swing. After installing the ceiling-mounted KVARTAL track in Avery’s room, we decided to give it a go in our room. We were even willing to go with custom drapes (with a color! or a pattern!) but could never find something that we both liked. So in the end, back to IKEA. This time we used three panels instead of two which works so much better. (The middle unit mostly houses dirty laundry, jeans and other odds and ends so we were ok with this solution.) I think the lighter gray compliments the darkness of the walls while feeling airy and bringing some lightness to the space. I was worried that the linen material would be too transparent but that hasn’t been an issue at all. (Yeah, they could be hemmed a little bit. I washed them in hot water and was excited to see that they shrunk the perfect amount…until I ironed them. I’ll get to it.)
The paint color is Benjamin Moore’s “Ashland Slate”. It’s not quite as dark as Avery’s room (where we used BM’s “Baby Seal Black”) but we really like it. Kyle did two coats using BM’s Aura line and finished the whole room in just under a gallon.
The plywood skirt hides the bed frame and box springs but is still short enough that we’re not hitting our legs on it when we get in and out of bed. Although we’re all about using every inch of space in our house, the bed frame is low enough that we couldn’t get much usable space under there anyway (it had mostly become home to dog hair and errant tennis balls). This detail also allowed us to run the carpet tiles only partially under the bed (like a reverse area rug), saving us a few bucks.
The duvet is from IKEA (already owned) and I picked up the pillow and blanket from West Elm. We’re not big into accessorizing but I think these two additions really help tie everything together. The overall color palette doesn’t stray from the rest of our house, but what can we say – we like it! Besides, when you live in a small and fairly open house there’s a good argument for keeping things simple.
Another project we took on was building a custom valence to go over the window. Last year we swapped out the ugly brown curtain for a blackout roller shade from IKEA. It works great but having the shade face-mounted above the window (we have a translucent roller shade mounted within the window frame) always bothered us. So, Kyle built this valence out of maple trim boards (with a few coats of polyurethane for good measure). We also switched the positions of the roller shades so when the blackout shade was down there would be less light leakage at the sides.
The bedside sconces are from the Artemide Tolomeo line and the same ones we splurged on six years ago. Fortunately, the distance between the wall and shade was enough to accommodate the new headboard and we like how the two overlap each other.
Now, if you have a keen eye you may have noticed in that first photo that the new headboard covers the switches for the sconces. Fortunately, we found a solution in a Pico product line from Lutron. It’s a wireless remote that uses RF technology to operate the light. It has an “on” and “off” option and also a button that goes to a presetting of your choice. While at a lighting conference a while back, one of our friends dubbed this the “sexy time” button. Naturally, it’s the one button Avery always presses first.
Since we have about 5″-6″ of extra space between the wardrobe and the wall on each side, we decided to use the corner piece from the KVARTAL system and extend the track back into the recess. That way, if we wanted we could push the curtains back fully into the recessed niche. When they’re in the extended mode (as pictured above) there’s enough extra curtain that they can partially recess which helps to make the system feel more built in. For the money, I like the system a lot but it’s not perfect. Although we installed everything with as much precision as we could, the curtains don’t glide seamlessly over the seams between tracks.
Here’s a close up look of how the track is installed.
I regret not taking a photo of how the headboard is installed, but this shows how it does in fact stand off the wall by a few inches, creating a nice little shadow line and working with a room where the walls are not perfectly plumb and square. The detail is actually pretty simple – we made a French cleat out of tapered 2x’s with one attached to the back of the headboard and the other attached to the wall. The headboard cleat sits on top of the wall one (basically like this), ensuring a snug fit.
Like the nursery, we opted to leave the ceiling white. In this room, that meant repainting in “Super White” over the really bad yellow “white” paint that we used years ago.
A few more detail shots:
At the base of the IKEA wardrobe, Kyle installed a new piece of maple trim (glued in place to avoid exposed fasteners). This helps hide the edge of the carpet and the wardrobe toekicks that we installed backwards on all three units. (Until now, we had a piece of scrap masonite cut to size and glued to the raw MDF face.)
This room was the only space that had fir floors and during the first go-around we tried to salvage them as best we could. Over time, Bailey did a pretty good job gouging them out again and because they were never really great floors we decided to cover them with Flor carpet tiles (we used tiles from the “Suit Yourself” line in Pumice). We love it! The install was fairly easy – Kyle just removed the base shoe at the other three walls and then re-installed it a bit higher (before we repainted) to allow the tiles to slip underneath. (The shoe was originally installed because after we replaced all the lath and plaster with the thinner drywall, there was a small gap between the base trim and finish floor in some spots.)
Here are a few more detail shots of the valence. Kyle glued and biscuited the joints in his shop and then attached it to the wall using long screws that go through the top of the end pieces at an angle. We left the top open to simplify construction and keep it from becoming a dust shelf.
In the end, we didn’t really pick one of the three schemes that we originally blogged about but I think it’s a hybrid between a few of them. Although I’d been crushing on that West Elm chair, I finally decided it wasn’t all that practical (having one kept me from being able to open my drawers all the way) and that maybe, just maybe, not having one would force me to actually hang up my clothes. So far, so good!
All in all, we’re really happy with the space. It’s cozier and more peaceful than it was before (and way less frightening than when we moved in!). We’re finding that we spend more time as a family in there too – mostly on weekend mornings or in that hour before bedtime when everyone is winding down. Working our way through a stack of children’s books (a few of which have been read so many times that I had to hide them to save my sanity) is a nightly ritual and our bed has become a welcome alternative as both Avery and my belly get bigger and it’s been more of a challenge to fit on the glider in her room.
Most importantly though, the room is golden-approved. A light breeze through the window and Bailey will gladly nap for hours on end in there.
finishing the living room
It’s been just over two years since we completed the big overhaul to the main floor of our house. The living room (which used to be the dining area) had a slow start with furnishings but over time we added a new sectional, a coffee table, this rug, a transforming side table and a much-coveted LCW chair.
And now we’re changing things again and attempting to truly finish this space. It started a few months ago when we moved the coffee table downstairs. At first it was a temporary move to accommodate my PEPs group (10 moms and their babies in our living room, definitely a record!), but Avery was also at the age where floor time was becoming more fun so we decided not to bring it back up. (We knew we’d have to relocate it eventually when she became more mobile.) The downside to moving the table was that it now exposed the pretty uneven wear of the shag rug. I’d been secretly looking for a replacement rug for this area for a few months, but couldn’t find anything that was the right price, size and material. And then we finally had a stroke of luck during an impromptu weekday lunch last week (the excuse, the sun was out!). We stopped in our local Crate&Barrel where I saw this sisal rug, but at $399 it was more than I wanted to spend. On our way out, we passed a stack of floor models on sale and what do you know, there sat the same exact rug, on sale from $399 down to $219. Kyle negotiated the price down to $199 and with that we rolled it up and took it home. It has been a long time since we had a moment of karma like this and it felt good.
I’ve always liked the practicality of a natural fiber rug but Kyle has been reluctant because of its coarseness. It took him a few days to warm up to this one, but we’re feeling good about our (non-returnable) purchase. We’ve owned IKEA fiber rugs and this one really is quite a bit “smoother” underfoot, which I’m guessing is related to the quality of the weave. We were also pleasantly surprised how much a light-colored rug brightened up the space (these photos were taken on a typical overcast day).
The rug is 6’x9′ (our previous one was 5’x8′) and it’s a much better fit for the space. Our layout can be challenging because you clip the corner of the living area coming from the front door, but with a thinner rug it’s not awkward at all. We still put down a blanket for Avery, but more so to protect the rug from spit-up. (The great thing about having a stack of homemade quilts is that you just keep layering one on top of the next until you run out. Then I just throw them all into the wash and repeat the cycle.)
She looks pretty bald in these photos, but her hair really has gotten longer – by millimeters at least!
The new rug definitely puts us one step closer to the space feeling truly complete. Now we just have to deal with that shameful secret next to the front door:
I know! We still have this ridiculous TV stand that Kyle bought in college from…I don’t know, Target? (Let’s hope it was Target!) We’ve been working on the design for a media console of sorts for over two years now (first seen in this post) and it just keeps getting back-burnered.
Despite the mismatched nature of everything, we keep putting it off because what we have is functional and more or less gets the job done. Plus, the previous design we came up with was very custom and a bit fussy and made us tired just thinking about it. (Paralyzed by design, you know how that goes.) But now that we have baby-proofing on the brain, we knew it was time to come up with something – preferably something that was inexpensive and easy to execute.
So this is what we’re thinking – we’ll purchase an IKEA Besta unit to house all the “equipment” (with frosted glass doors so the remotes will still work), then make a bench element out of two fir 2×10’s that will bear on the Besta unit on one end and a pair of metal legs on the other. The subwoofer and records will go under the bench. The turntable will go on top of the bench (for now), but will also be able to move to the Besta unit once Avery tries to play her Sesame Street records herself. (We have some ideas for the records themselves if that becomes an issue.)
The cushion is a new idea. There have been a few times where we could have used extra seating in this space and I like the idea of Avery reading a book up there, Moonrise Kingdom style. Of course, we’re having a hard time finding an inexpensive cushion option…anyone have some good sources? I know it would probably be easy to make, but we just want to get this done. (P.S. – Kyle wants leather and I’m leaning towards a color/pattern.) Finally, the speakers and TV will be secured to the wall or bench to keep from being accidentally pulled over. I know our friends give us a hard time about baby-proofing our house, but I think we have it easier than most. Besides the obvious (stair and loft ladder) we have very few potentially unsafe items at her level and most of what we have is along this wall.
(Side note: that Artemide floor lamp keeps showing up in our renderings yet it is not in our lives yet. Why?)
So there’s our living room, in its current and forecasted glory. We can do this! (But really, if it’s April and we have yet to post about our finished living room someone please call us out.) After all, blogs are all about being held accountable, right?
Dining / Process
The first time we walked into our would-be house, it felt like stepping back in time…back to an era where crushed green velvet and plastic medieval chandeliers were in vogue. Before moving in, we tore up the green carpet, painted, and replaced the light fixture. Since then, we have replaced the windows, put up some temporary window trim and installed new roller shades.
Update – we gutted this room! Click here for past posts that chronicle the transformation of this space!
August + September 2006
Because we were dealing with plaster walls, we needed to do some patching and repairing prior to painting. Oh hello again green couch, you did come in handy.
The white primer alone really brightened up the room. We alsmost reconsidered our green color [and maybe we should have, considering our recent tendency to stick with white walls in cloudy Seattle], but we also wanted the space to feel cozy.
Cutting in the green paint. We chose a Benjamin Moore color that we then had matched to a zero VOC paint from American Pride.
Green paint good! We painted the ceiling and all the trim white as well.
August 2009
Here are a few shots of the “current state” of the living/dining room.
In the last three years, we’ve fussed around with the layout (usually coming back to the couch straddling the framed opening), replaced the windows, added (and then removed) an area rug, and for the most part left the space as is. Once we determined that we would eventually gut the space, it didn’t make much sense to do anything else.
Since we demoed the basement, the dining room has served as our home office and until the porch is completed, it serves as the mudroom too.
→ Dining / Before
→ Dining / After
Bedroom / After
We reused our bed frame (IKEA) and the night stands are actually TV stands from Blu Dot that we got on sale from Design Public. We scored the duvet cover on sale from Velocity Art and Design (we had seen it a few months earlier, but it was too expensive) and the reading lights were a splurge from Artemide.
The wardrobe is three IKEA Pax units with an IKEA cable rod and curtains. It’s just the right amount of storage and we completely avoid the reaching-across-each-other-for-clothes dilemma. Even better, we can easily close the curtains if we want to hide the wardrobe (a solution that was much cheaper than buying doors and is more functional when you have two people using one wardrobe). We also installed an additional set of brown curtains and curtain track over the window to keep the space darker during the summer when the sun rises at 5:00 a.m.! During the months we don’t need it, we can push the curtains back into the recess between the wardrobe and wall.
Nearly a year after completion we finally put up some homemade artwork. Read all about the birds here.
A detail shot of the bedroom. We really liked the simplicity of the night stands and their ability to provide some storage space for books, magazines, etc. We found that our old night stands (with 2 drawers each) ended up becoming junk drawers so this arrangement helps us eliminate that unnecessary clutter in the bedroom.
→ Bedroom / Before
→ Bedroom / Process
→ Resources
Dining / Before
The original dining room was one half of the main living space, defined only by the glorious, faux medieval chandelier.
My favorite part are the burn marks on the ceiling.
We pulled up the green carpet the day we got the keys. Instant improvement.
