Friday, June 1, 2012

my parent's house... redecorated. {part 2}

Welcome to part 2 of the "parent redecoration project."  Last week, my sister and I spent time in Houston redecorating my parent's ENTIRE house.  (Here's part 1, in case you missed it.)  Today, we'll be checking out the upstairs bedrooms.  

The upstairs bedrooms are all used as guest rooms... they needed to be pretty and functional.  The changes were pretty basic...  the biggest being new bedding.  A couple of things to note before we start... 1) My parents had all of the rooms painted prior to our arrival... huge help. (paint color is Latte by Sherwin Williams)... and 2) all photos were made with the trusty iPhone, so pardon the poor lighting and graininess... Okay.  Now... we shall begin...

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BEDROOM 1 (before)

BEDROOM 1 (after)
Initially my sister and I were both just "eh" about this bedding (Tuesday Morning).  In the bag it just looked okay... but the moment we actually put this colorful comforter on the bed itself, it immediately became our favorite!  I love the richness of the colors.  This bedding effortlessly turned this little guest room from drab to fab.

A HUGE goal for this redecorating project was to be purposeful in using items that my parents already had.  Sometimes this meant getting creative... we traded lampshades... switched pictures from room to room... kept bedskirts... used sofa pillows on beds and bed pillows on chairs... broke up matching furniture sets... etc, etc... you get the idea.

This bedroom was no different.  See that awesome bedside lamp??  We found the base for six bucks at Goodwill.  Six.flippin.dollars.  Every other lamp we saw was upwards of $40.  I think my parents were a little freaked out once they heard we did some of our shopping at Goodwill for their redecoration project.  But I told them if they could figure out what item in the house was purchased at Goodwill and they didn't like it, we would get rid of it.  We initially went in Goodwill in looking for a stool... then we stumbled upon the $6 lamp base... which happened to be the perfect color of teal for this room.

See that pretty "mirror, mirror"... to the right of the bed?  We dug that out of the back of a coat closet from my parents house.  I know they've had it for years, because I remember it from when I was a child.  We thought about spray painting it, but decided the gold worked nicely in this room.  Speaking of gold... what do you think about those pretty gold ruffled pillows on the bed??  I love them.  We stole those from my parent's master bedroom (pre-redo).  I love the texture they add to the bed. 

On the opposite wall of the bed is a pretty vanity my parents have had since they've been married.  The vanity is a part of a 3-piece set that my parents used many, many years ago when they first got hitched, then I used the set all through high school, and then my sister used it when she was in high school too.  Needless to say the furniture holds fond memories for all of us, which has protected it from any major updates... but I can't say the same thing for the little wicker stool.  We found that in my parent's closet and it seemed to almost beg me for a coat of spray paint.  I love how the fun dose of color plays off the traditional curves of the vanity.

Things I would still do... Get a fabulous headboard to really frame the bed.  There is a headboard back there... somewhere.  It's behind the pillows, and doesn't do much good as a headboard if you ask me.  But if a headboard's not in the budget, then I think I would move the picture on the left wall so that it hangs over the bed.

Moving right along...

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BEDROOM 2 (before)

BEDROOM 2 (after)
Again... the biggest change for this room was the bedding.  If this bedding looks vaguely familiar to you, go back up and take another look at the "before" picture from bedroom 1.  Yep, same bedding.  Well, almost.

We purchased a simple white coverlet and shams (Stein Mart) to really lighten up our old comforter.  Somehow this bedroom ended up with a little bit of a cottage/country feel to it.  I think it's the coverlet mixed with pictures of my grandparents old farm... it ended up having a bit of a nostalgic vibe.

Speaking of nostalgic... the desk on the opposite wall was my grandfathers... and I love it.  We kept it pretty simple by just adding a couple of vintage books and flowers.  

The bedside table was also kept pretty simple with a pretty picture frame, a lamp, a few books, and a sweet little bird nest to keep with the cottage theme.

Things I would still do... Get some big euro pillows.  This bed truly doesn't have a headboard and I think some big euro pillow would really help frame the bed a little.  I'm also still not sure how I feel about the bedding in this room... it ended up feeling a little bland to me, but I'm not sure if that's just because the other bedding was so colorful?

Moving on...

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BEDROOM 3 (before)

 BEDROOM 3 (after)
I'm not sure if you can really tell what's going on here... there is basically a MASSIVELY HUGE bed in this guest room.  This gorgeous 4-poster bed is absolutely to-die for... However... it is also for giants.  I'm pretty sure they sell this bed with a step stool.  Luckily for my family, we all have mile-long-legs, so we only need a running start.  Only half-kidding.

This bed used to be in my parent's master until they upgraded to a king size bed a few years ago.  It's a miracle that my sister and I didn't both get hernias when moving this bed.  Seriously.  We were both sore for days though... which I'm pretty sure is solely from moving this ginormous thing.  Biggest change for this room was probably the furniture placement.  We wanted to put the bed between the two windows to help anchor the bed.  We also moved the vanity (that was previously covering one of the windows entirely) to bedroom 1.

Since the bed is so ginormous, we kept the furniture to a minimum in here.  Just a simple dresser (the one that matches the vanity from bedroom 1) and a little chair and reading table in the corner... (it's cute, take our word for it).  The new bedding (Tuesday Morning) was kept simple and clean... not too modern and not too traditional.

Things I would still do... get bedside tables... for giants.  The problem with a ridiculously tall bed, is that it's practically impossible to find bedside tables.  Trust me... we looked.  Eventually we started looking for stools or anything with a little height.  Still no luck though.  This is my mom's homework.

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So there you have it... parent redecoration project... part 2.  Stay tuned next week for more!!

3 comments:

mleslie43 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mleslie43 said...

Of course I love all the changes and a bit biased since we are the home owners! The pieces that you referred to as your grandparents furniture actually were "MY" Grandparents and these pieces (vanity, dresser and desk) are close to 100 years old! Thank you for keeping them in the decor! LOVE IT ALL!

Garretts said...

awesome! the simple change (well, i guess it was a beast) of moving that 4-poster bed made that room incredibly diff.

great work! i also love that you left your mom with homework ;)