Red and Co-Ed: Creating a shared kid's room

 

When we moved into our house in 2010, we had two parents, and Auntie, a son, and a dog.  Now, three years later, we have two parents, no Auntie, a son, and a daughter.

I think a house is really always a work in progress.  A standing piece of work that reflects your place in life at that very time. Just think of how much a house says about a person.  Is it neat and organized? Comfortable and loungy? Modern? Void of live things? 

So when our daughter was born, we had to figure out just exactly where should would fit into our work-in-progress home. 

Though large, our house is only a three bedroom, and the third bedroom is a second master which doesn't make much sense for a toddler.  We had two other options: convert the loft to a livable bedroom, or have my son share his room. So, we asked our son where he thought she should go, and he was thrilled with the idea of having a roommate.

The only problem? Well, our son is ALL BOY, and we wanted this room...

To look like these rooms...

Here's where my mistakes have been made in the past: I always choose a theme that the kid's outgrow.  For Noah, first we did the monster theme...

 And then we did the Cars theme...

But this time, the theme was going to much simpler: RED. Yes, just a color.

So, here's how we turned a boy room, into a red co-ed shared room...

First, we had to make more room, so we turned the "L"-shaped bunk beds into stacked bunk beds.  This freed up a lot of floor space - AND - bonus! after the conversion we were left with practically a whole other bed frame which we put into to the loft thanks to hubby's handiwork.

The beds had to be retrofitted to go from a "L" shape, to a stacked set of bunk beds

Once stacked, there was so much more room!

I really like older homes because they have so much character.  That's so hard to find in a new home. I noticed that a lot of the rooms I liked so much had sort of a barn-like feeling from painted paneling, so I thought, "we can fake that!"  I found sheets of plain paneling at Lowes for about $9 a panel and had my husband nail them to our bland drywall walls.

Paneling was $9/sheet. Perfectly cheap, but it did require sanding and a primer in order to get the paint to stick.

We cut the paneling 7' tall, and added wood trim to the top and seams to give that sort of barn/attic look.  The wood trim was from the fencing department at Lowes, and only cost about $1.50 each.

Paneling and trim is up and ready for paint.

Great find!  This corner shelf was at Goodwill for $7.00 and fit perfectly in the corner.

Once the walls were finished, we sanded, primed, and painted the paneling and trim to match the antique white satin trim that already exists in the room.

A red candy-cane-striped rug became the inspiration for the decor.  I spotted it for $129 at Home Goods and couldn't resist.

I started placing items back in the room but noticed it still felt a little crowded.  The configuration of the room does not allow for a bed without at least partially covering the window (and, incidentally, it's the best view in the house). I experimented with a few things...

By pushing the bed away from the window a couple feet, I found that there was a whole new open feeling.  The room now gets more light, and the view is much less blocked.

Pushing the bed away from the window made a huge difference in the way the room felt and how much light comes in.

The final touch was adding the details.  I bought some pre-cut wood letters in both a girly font (for Nicollette) and a boy-ish font (for Noah) and painted them red.  Since Nicollette has 10 letters, this was a pretty spendy part of the makeover--almost $20 just for Nicollette's name.
 

 I finished off the look with two Pottery Barn comforters I found on Ebay, some flannel holiday pillowcases, a festive throw pillow, and two lanterns from Lowes.

 

Add some red canvas toy bins and some old-school antique toys, and you've got yourself a co-ed room that both kids can grow into.

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Wallpapering: Black and White and Read All Over

The Love/Hate Black and White Wallpaper

When I was 15, I talked my mother into letting me decorate my own bedroom.  With paintbrushes in hand, I painted the entirety of my attic bedroom in a color palette of two colors: black and white.

Thank goodness for liberal parenting.  They let me stencil on the white walls a black border that consisted of four symbols: a telephone, a female insignia, a peace sign, and...oh, jeez, I forgot!  Anyway, the black stencils, paired with a black and white comforter, black lacquer desk, and oriental room divider made quite the spectacle in my teen dream room.  So, needless to say, I think I've always had a bit of a fondness for the black and white color palette.  Which is why I was surprised when everyone else was so surprised that I recently retreated to my days of the black and white walls.

Fast forward [a lot] of years later.  My sister recently moved out.  If you recall, earlier I did a story on her Tiffany Blue Room which we conquered as part of a Spring Break weekend warrior project.  Well, when she left, the only remnant of her 3-1/2 years with us was one bright blue wall.  

Before - Tiffany Blue

Part of me wanted to see it go because it made me sad every time I walked by.  Another part of me just couldn't find anything in my juxtaposition of spare furniture to match.  And another part of me just wanted to experiment with wallpaper.  So I ordered some discount black and white wallpaper online and I gave it a shot. 

Let me tell you...prior to this project I had ideas of grandeur about putting wallpaper up on numerous walls in the house.  But after fighting with this--pardon my french--BITCH of a project, I no longer desire to wallpaper anything. 

After - Floral Explosion of Black and White Wallpaper

In case you are thinking of wallpapering your house, here's a few notes for amateur wallpaperers that I learned the hard way:

What I wish I knew about hanging wallpaper before I actually did it:

• "Pre-pasted" actually means "barely sticks."
• You must "rough" up (then clean) the walls with sandpaper prior to wallpapering or it slides right off.
• Water temperature is key to soaking your paper and bath water gets cold quickly.
• You need to buy extra wallpaper...not just because that "double roll" forces you to buy one more roll than necessary, but because you will probably use an entire roll finessing the first run of paper.
• First dip your paper in a bath of water, then fold on oneself to activate the glue.  Who knew?  Thank you You Tube...we would have wasted two rolls if we didn't look this up.
• Patterned wallpaper wastes a lot of paper matching itself up.
• Start with a wall that will be mostly covered...practice makes perfect.  Scratch that, practice makes "not too bad."

So, all that work, and I actually am kind of fond of it even though the entire process sucked and took almost 12 hours to do.  As for my sister...she will no longer sleep in the room because she said it makes her dizzy.  I guess when it comes to wallpaper, it's a love/hate thing!

How Christmas Happened At Our House

Me and my son Christmas Eve

Ok, so this post might seem a little dated, and in fact, you maybe thinking, "Am I really following a blogger who probably hasn't even taken her Christmas lights down yet?"  The answer is, "Maybe."  What I mean by that is, yes, my lights are down, but I have fallen a bit behind lately.  Mostly because there has been a string of illness flying around the house, and second, my consulting business seems to have gotten suddenly busy (and sorry folks, that's just a bit more lucrative than my AdSense account!).

But I didn't want to turn the corner to February without a small entry about Christmas.  I hosted Christmas Eve and morning this year and it was quite a hit.

Cranberry Almond Brie

First the fun stuff: The Menu. My brother made it up from California on Thurs night, so we started our happy holiday weekend with a batch of homemade spaghetti and--you guessed it--handmade spaghetti pasta noodles.  What a great way to kick off the holiday, don't you think?

For Christmas Eve, we followed up that ever-so-light spaghetti dish with a traditional Christmas dinner.  So, truth be told, I'm not much of a ham fan.  But since my brother is, and he drove all the way up from California to have it, I gave in and made a Cherry-Glazed Ham.

Here was our Christmas Eve menu and links to the recipes:

Cranberry Citrus Salad - Very light and yummy.  Recommend, especially if accompanying it with a heavy meal.

Cranberry and Almond Brie - Delicious.  Must have at every holiday meal from here on out.

Homemade Green Bean Casserole

Cherry-Glazed Ham - Liked it and would recommend it.  Even for non-ham lovers.

Cinnamon Apples - This was risk.  I mean, apples? I was worried only my two-year-old would like them, but turns out they tasted great with the ham.

Homemade Green Bean Casserole - This was such a hit at Thanksgiving, it was requested I make it again.  So I did.  I'm not one to turn away from rants and raves, afterall.

Cheesecake - This one was a little selfish. I enjoyed the cheesecake so much at Thanksgiving, I made it again.  But unfortunately, the only one who actually eats dessert at my house is my husband, and he doesn't like cheesecake.  So only one slice was taken out of it, and the dog ended up getting it.  He loved it, though.

The Decorations.

Well, you are just going to have to trust me on the menu, as I must have had too much "holiday cheer" Christmas Eve because I forgot to take pictures of anything cooked after noon (I do have some pictures of the lovely brie appetizer though).  Luckily, I did set the table early so I actually have pictures of that.

I used my good china--which happens to be Christmas China and the only China I own.  I found some gold chargers for a $1/piece at The Dollar Tree, as well as some napkins that matched.  Then I mixed and matched wine, beer, and port glasses, plus one port glass filled with Martinele's for Noah!

I Spent All My Allowance At Pottery Barn...

...And this is what I bought.  Happy Birthday to me.  Now maybe I can fill it with wine....hmmm, that might be tricky.

Music to My Eyes - A story about a piano

My piano is finally here!  Where has it been, you may ask?  Well, let me tell you a little story about a piano.

In December 2005, my dad was painting a building that used to be an old YMCA and my husband offered to help work on this job since money for Christmas that year was a little tight. 

While he was painting, my husband noticed an old leather-bound piano in the corner of the old auditorium, under a tarp.  He had nothing to give me for Christmas and remembered I had always said how beautiful I thought pianos were.  So, he approached the lady that owned the building and asked if he could barter some labor for the piano.  She said yes, and Josh came home with this 1950's Wurlitzer upright piano.

My husband exchanged painting a hallway for a 1950's Wurlizer

On the outside, the leather was peeling, the stain was damaged, the bench was broken.  But on the inside, the piano looked like it had never even been played.  All the parts were like new!

Josh and I spent the next six months sanding and deconstructing this piano, then my dad--conveniently an excellent painter with fabulous tools--came over and sprayed it a glossy, beautiful ivory color. 

After six years and lots of paint and sanding, the piano now resides in my entry, waiting for my son to be old enough to play it

So I had this beautiful piano, in great condition, and you would think that was the end of the story, right?  Well, two weeks after finishing "the Piano Project", we actually sold our house and moved onto a houseboat.  The piano, which has a 500lb brass plate in it, was too heavy for the houseboat.  I believe the contractor's words were, "It might not break the floor, but it might sink the house."  So, we sent it to my mom's house where it lived for the next six years.

A couple months ago, after my parent's moved and the snow cleared away from the pass, we decided it was time to bring the piano back to it's rightful owner.  So a trailer, some tie downs, a dolly, six men, and a long drive later, here it is, in my entry.

I must disclose, I can not play the piano.  In fact, I can not even read music.  I took guitar lessons a few years ago, but almost failed the course because I can not decyfer the notes on the lines.  Luckily, God did not punish my son for my shortcomings, and I can already tell he's extremely musical like my husband.  So piano lessons are in his future and hopefully my house will someday be filled with beautiful piano music.

So, until this piano can be music to my ears, it will have to remain music to my eyes!

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If it looks like Pottery Barn, and is decorated like Pottery Barn...

This is my dining room update.  None of which is actually from Pottery Barn, but I think I copied the look pretty well.

After I picked up my table, I went shopping for chairs and found these sturdy wood chairs and a bench from World Market that almost match.  Then I picked up two antique-looking ivory chairs from Pier1 and finished the new look with three decorative hurricanes.  Here's the before and after.  I think I have definitely "Pottery-Barned" my dining area.

BEFORE: The smoked glass top and white chairs were always getting "little fingerprints" on them.  The furniture was a bit on the contemporary side and the table was too narrow for the space.  The space was so large, the table was always extended, which put the table-legs in the way of the chairs.

AFTER: The distressed wood table will actually get better with time.  The chairs and table are all "kid-friendly".  The table is much larger and wider, filling up the space more appropriately and making room for eight at the table.

The wood tones play up the warmness of the Cherry floors, while the antiqued white chairs brighten the space.  Now I just need to paint the black bar stools antique white to match!