Miles and I officially did our very first do-it-yourself makeover. It wasn't a major overhaul like you would see on TV but it was a start for us and we are pretty pleased with the results.
We bought our house last summer. It's a perfect floorplan for our family, but was in desperate need of a facelift. It was built in 1980 and had one prior owner, a bachelor, and we figure most of the decor was here from day one. There was wall paper throughout and he did have the place painted. However, every room in the house had a mud colored "accent" wall and all of the trim was either stained dark brown or painted beige.
The first month we were here we spent an insane amount of money on a terrible interior paint job. (Enough story there for another post) Miles and I look at it as a super expensive "primer" as we are now taking each room one at a time and totally repainting them ourselves. The painters did remove all of the wallpaper, which was a job I did not want to do, and retexture the walls where the paper was removed and "primed" it for us to work our magic.
Project #1 is the boys' bathroom. As I mentioned in a prior post, there was carpet in the vanity area and two layers of peel and stick flooring in the bath area that had begun to peel up. So, we decided that would be the best place to start.
Miles pulled up all of the flooring and layed tile in both rooms.
He then replaced the toilet with a water efficient one. He put new baseboards down and stripped and repainted the doors and all of the trim. As well as, replaced all of the door hardware with brushed nickel knobs and hinges. He did an outstanding job on all of it.
I painted the walls. We chose Atmosphere Blue by Restoration Hardware. I hung a black window treatment and a long skinny black framed mirror that I found on sale at Target. I also hung 3 robe hooks, instead of towel racks, new tp holder, hand towel holder and all new door pulls on the cabinetry. I'm not a contemporary decorator and this was a stretch for me to use all of this nickel. But I like it!
I also installed a frame around the mirror. Ironically enough while I was doing this, Rhoda at
Southern Hospitality was doing the very same thing on her blog. Go see how hers turned out. They look great! Hopefully she will have a Mr. Linky in a few weeks as she inspired several others to do the same and we can all talk about our experiences.
We are going to replace the countertop, sink and faucet and then it will be complete. I think it will grow with 3 little boys in it's current state and now we can focus on our next project.
