Master Bedroom redo

I decided I couldn't stand waking up another day in my tragically non-modern bedroom any longer. I was victim to buying items at rummage sales, department stores and thrift shops that were practical yet ugly, didn't compliment the room, or were just a poor choice.  

The east wall, foot of the bed.

The dresser is against the West wall. It was a "I just got divorced and need a dresser and this one's only $20 at a rummage sale and they will even deliver it for me, so yey!" purchase. This dresser holds my present husband's stuff. Don't you love the gold trim accents? The table in the corner is just a three-legged accent table from Walmart that I've had since 1998.


It all had to go! First the decals came down off the corners of the walls. The old dresser moved out (there was a second small horizontal dresser that isn't pictured as  I had already moved it out of the room. It was on the north wall and held the TV and my items.

The drapes, all though not completely ugly, were ill fitted for the room. I also drew the conclusion that I have small windows that are very oddly placed. They needed to be "bigger" and more centered to the walls.

I could have painted the old dressers to be more modern, but that wouldn't have solved the space issue (which was that we needed more space.) So I got one larger dresser for my husband to share instead of each of us having our own.

Here's the finished product:

The bed is now against the East wall which is longer, but the door from the closet opens to it. I made the window "bigger" by using two curtain panels that cover the window and part of the wall. Also hung them up by the ceiling instead of on the window frame. Common decorating tip to elongate the wall. New drapes were on sale for $9.99 each from $19.99 each at Shopko.

Score! I got the paint off the mis-tint shelf at Menards. Be sure to check out that shelf before you go through the agonizing process of selecting a color out of that terrifying wall of paint chips. While this is not the color I would have picked out had I been on my own, it turned out to be perfect! The finish was satin (perfect for an adult's bedroom) and it only cost $5 instead of $22!

New bedding from Macy's, was $400 but got on super cyber sale for $169. Watch your cart when you shop online! What is full price today might be less than half in a few weeks!

This is the South wall  (where the bed was originally). Got a new  metal tree wall hanging. ($35 down from $100 at my local furniture store). "Bigger" window again.

The West wall. My existing jewelry armoire where the Walmart accent table used to be. New dresser ($538 down from $899 at the furniture store). Yes, Big Bang Theory is on.

My new six foot mirror from Shopko. Have been seeing a lot of these in magazines  lately and with the loss of my  dresser mirror I needed a new one. Originally $199, on sale for $99. Debating if I want to keep my preexisting wallpapered wall as the wall paper doesn't match the new paint, but I do rather like the pattern.

My free chair. Curbside find, was originally covered in a really ugly and dilapidated wheat patterned fabric. Ripped it off and put on the really pretty black and white fabric. It already had the really nice white paint job, just needed to be cleaned up. I made the pillow, too. It's upcylced from a ton of old buttons that I had on hand, an old pillow case from a bedding set that I no longer use, and some left over fabric from another project.

I stained and painted my little nightstand to match the mini-dresser. giant pain in the ass! It's a Sauder or something of the like, so really had to sand down the top to get to the actual "wood" beyond the MDF veneer.

I have nightstand lamps! I'm such a grown up now! Previously the only light in the room was from the over head light. I found this irksome as sometimes I like to read before bed while my husband likes to conk out, the selfish jerk. Anyway, these mini lamps were perfect and they don't take up much space.

Mini dresser before. I had to sand the whole thing as it had quite the coat of  shiny finish on it.

Here's the finished product. It's a copy of another Pinner's original.

I sanded down the whole thing, then put three coats of ebony stain on the top. Then primed, painted and distressed the rest of it. I got the drawer pulls from a rummage sale for .25c each, and the house numbers are from Menards, less than $1 each. The paint color is Dutch Boy Vanilla Custard, also from Menards (we don't have a Lowe's, Home Depot, or a Benjamin Moore in town, so I use actual products that real person would buy, not everything is Sherwin Williams like in Country Living.)

A tip for distressing, don't paint all the way out to the edges! Then when you sand down the painted parts to get your smooth finish you don't have to sand all the way through it to get to the wood again.

I did the same thing to my Sauder night stand. It was a huge pain in the butt to get through the "finish" to get to the sweet spot that was still showing the "grain". Then primed, painted and distressed the base.

I made the Love sign as well. Click here for the tutorial.