Master Bedroom Remodel

We have lived in our home for 5 years now, and the master suite remodel was last on our list of updates. Here is what my bedroom looked like just after we moved in:

For some reason we thought painting the walls a dark chocolate brown would camouflage the honey oak woodwork. We were wrong.

Like most of our remodel projects, we start off by hiring an Interior Designer. See my post here on why this is an important step!

Most of the time I know what I like and hire an Interior Designer to confirm my decisions or tell me I'm way off base. For my bedroom walls though, I really had no idea what color I wanted to paint them I just knew I no longer wanted the brown color that they currently were. We went through the master bathroom design first and I mentioned that I wanted a blue color for the cabinets. When we got to the bedroom walls I admitted I had no idea what color I wanted them but wasn't opposed to color. She suggested painting the bedroom walls the same color as the bathroom cabinets as it will tie the rooms together. BRILLIANT! Its the small details that make a space, and these details are what designers are trained to do.

Picking the trim color was easy, I went with the color that was in the rest of the home. In the past I have brushed the paint on the trim for the windows. It was a tedious task that took forever, with 2 coats for primer and 3 coats for paint. This time I decided to spray the window trim, as I had 6 larger windows that needed to be painted. It took hours of taping and covering the windows, but just minutes to spray the primer and paint on and the finish was perfect, so it was well worth it.

We planned to get new flooring since I am not a fan of carpet, but it had been years since we did the rest of the flooring in the home and the flooring we had before was no longer available. Our Interior Designer recommended running the flooring the opposite way of the adjoining flooring in order to make a more obvious transition. She also agreed with my vision of a lighter wood looking floor so that was good!

I removed all of the trim and carpeting myself. This allowed me extra time to paint the trim before the flooring was installed. I planned to spray all of the trim, but had to prep everything first by cleaning and sanding. I made sure to label every piece of trim that was removed to make sure it was easy to put it back in its correct place!

The most challenging part of the bedroom remodel was the ceiling. There are certain design elements that I don't like, without any particular reason at all. Tray ceilings in the master bedroom are on that list. Now I know it is not reasonable to have the tray ceiling removed, so instead I decided to make it look more visually interesting by adding shiplap. My plan was to simply locate the roof trusts and run the shiplap the opposite way in order to secure the planks. After a lot of attempts with the stud finder, I realized that the roof trusts weren't as easy to locate as I had thought. I called my uncle who is an expert in roof trusts and over the phone he was able to walk me through the trust design for the roof of my house, and I realized it was not all running one way. Here is the collaboration picture I drew with the help of my uncle. Have I mentioned I started my college journey studying Architecture? I didn't finish with that degree, and this picture might help you understand why..

So, after all of that, I decided that I would do the best I could with nailing the planks into the truss but also used a generous amount of Liquid Nails on each plank before nailing. I also used my jigsaw to cute a hole in the middle for the new ceiling fan, and then my miter saw to frame the edges of the shiplap for a nice clean look. Then went through and patched and painted every single nail hole. WORTH IT THOUGH. This ceiling is the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and I'm so happy with how it turned out. Ceilings are getting more attention lately, I have noticed that builders are giving architectural design to ceilings and I love the concept. It draws the eye up in the room.

New bedding, a new rug, a new ceiling fan, new flooring, painted walls, painted windows and trim, shiplap planked ceiling and the room is complete! Here are a few before and after pictures for reference:

 So tell me, what do you think of this shiplap planked tray ceiling and bedroom update?

Want to see more of my refinishing? Check out Instagram and Facebook.

Top Transformations for Furniture

Some of the best transformations don't just come from paint, but when a piece is repurposed.

 This blog post is dedicated to a few of my favorite furniture transformations.

Lets start with this door. I picked it up at my local Habitat for Humanity Restore. It was less than $20. With my saw, some pocket screws and a new piece of wood for the seat, I made a unique bench out of the door.

 Before:

 

After:

Looks completely different right? This one was a keeper, it is currently in my own foyer.

One of the first major transformations I ever did was to convert an old radio into a bar cabinet. This was a big undertaking, even though some of the radio components were already removed, I had to remove the rest of the components, remove the gingham fabric, added a drawer, added a backing (copper tile look), added wine glass holders, and added a wine bottle holder (which can be removed if needed). Check out the difference:
Before:

After:

This one even won me an award in a General Finishes contest a few years ago. I have to admit it might be one of my favorites.

The next transformation I want to share is one that I recently finished. It involved a White Elephant gift exchange with another local furniture artist that I teamed up with. We each gifted each other a piece of furniture that would be considered ugly or dated. She gave me a coffee table to refinish. I decided it was better suited as an upholstered bench, so I removed the railings and top drawer, then added foam, batting and new fabric onto a piece of wood which I screwed onto the bench. But that's not all, I decided to also use the drawer that came with it as well and make another piece. I added a bottom to it since the old bottom was the coffee table part, then paired the piece with 4 hairpin legs to give it some height, and finished it off with card catalog hardware. It became a cute and modern end table!

Both of those items went home with the same person, I'm glad they will continue to live in the same home.


One of my clients wanted me to refinish a hutch for her, but she only wanted to use the bottom part and wanted to get rid of the top, so she gave it to me for free. It was a solid piece of wood, so I didn't want it going to the dumpster. Instead I added wood to the top and bottom, added wood to the doors (removed the glass) and added feet. It became a buffet!
Before:

After:

The last transformation I want to talk about is what was once an old desk. My husband was delivering a piece of furniture and he found this "beauty" sitting on the curb, so grabbed it for me. Its an old typewriter desk, but I didn't like the middle section as there was no longer a need for it. Instead, I cut the middle section out, and added a new side panel to each piece. One of the bottom pieces of trim was missing so I just replaced both.
Before:

After:

Now I know that turning a desk/vanity into two nightstands is not a new concept, but this project was new to me and I love how they turned out!

Check out my Instagram or Facebook page as I continue my journey of transforming furniture and cabinetry!