Teen Boy Room - Day 2

It was a busy weekend. I decided that while The Builder was painting my our master closet, I needed to get another coat of paint on the wall in the boys room!

There's no art work up yet. I thought I wanted a desk in between the two beds, but now I'm questioning how well that would work. I might ask The Builder to make a farmhouse nightstand like he made for our bedroom. We could stain it to match the beds (which The Builder also made!) and would give them a small amount of storage. I haven't determined the rest of the wall. I need to buy the moose head (you can see his collection on the bed!) and get the night stand built and then go from there. 

Here's a better view with the drapes:

It looks like I matched the paint color to the drapes, it came out so perfect! I'm more convinced than ever that I need to warm up the other walls though.  That cream is too pale. I think the lamps need to have the color changes. A brushed bronze would go with the rustic them much better than the nickel finish they have now! When the blinds are closed and the drapes are dawn, the room is dark. That should help with the summer heat as well since this room gets full afternoon sun.  Thus the difficulty taking good photos!

I have some other ideas that I want to play with as well. Right now the boys are thrilled with the small update.  More to come!

30 Day Challenge Reveal!

OK, I passed the deadline for the 30 Day Challenge. And ultimately, I'm OK with that since this is a project I'm going to cross off my list (for now...more on that later).

Today we started here:

Yep, except for putting my sewing table back in, nothing had been done in a month. My reality is I have four kids and The Builder has been working nights. Not conducive to completing projects. But I couldn't let another weekend pass without making the final push, and I'm so glad we did!

This is the hook of death. The Builder calls it the cranium buster. Either term works well. It was wedged in between the new dresser and the new bookshelf. It left an awkward space and if you happened to lean over to put a book or magazine away on the shelf, I had a bad habit of almost knocking myself out! I briefly debated leaving it there in case I ever wanted to put that low bar back in. However I have two bars still in place and the option of putting back the third one above the sewing table. I'm never going to use this fourth bar. So out it came!

We ended up with this lovely painted wall with no cranium busters:

(side note, I have double closet doors and I opened the one that is always closed so I could take a better photo - and discovered I think I like using this closet door better. Go figure). The other side of the closet also has a long bar, so as you can see, plenty of room! If you're trying to picture where the cranium buster is, look above two feet below the lower of the two shelves and smack in the middle of that newly painted wall on the far right. Yep, that's the killer spot.

At this point, I was pretty darn pleased with what I was seeing!

The Builder was really ready to stop at this point in the day. He did the last bit of painting during half time (it was NOT a good game!). But there is one thing that is really, really missing. The lights that I bought to mount on that bottom shelf for better lighting at my sewing table. I bought them on my second trip to Ikea and I really need them. The chandelier is pretty, but not as bright as I actually need for task work. Lucky for me, I think The Builder just wants me to quit complaining about this closet, so he very patiently wired them up for me:

I love them!!  This took a bit more patience for The Builder because the directions are minimal on install these at best. It also involved a Home Depot run to get the right screws (it didn't come with screws to install them!) and figuring out why they were flickering and being finicky. Turns out one of the wires was stapled too tight and was pinching the wire. Once he figured that out, they lit up beautifully!

Here is the 95% finished project:

<sigh> I love it! It is exactly what I was picturing in my head when I started this project. I have my space back to sew, my clothes are easy to find again, I've gained storage (a ton of storage) and it reflects me! I am very thankful that The Builder is happy with his little 2 foot space for his clothes. No worries, he has a nice large dresser that he uses for most of his things. And that he has no issues with a girly closet. I think he's happier that my crap stuff isn't all over the bedroom when I want to sew, lol.

And then, when I posted this photo, I realized there was still something missing....

For me, a room isn't really complete until it has an E somewhere in it!  (yes, it's like being at Disneyland - only instead of looking for hidden Mickey's, you look for hidden E's - it's just my thing). The Builder bought me this one when we first moved to TX. It's been in my bathroom, but I always knew that I hadn't found the right spot for it. But next to the only painting I've ever painted (and the only one I will ever paint) it's absolutely perfect!!

Here's a quick photo of the bookshelf I mentioned:

There won't really be an empty shelf once I pull out all my sewing books. Since I'm a self taught sewer, I've bought quite a few books over the years. It was one of the reasons I was insistent that I needed to find a place for a bookcase in the first place. All of these are within grabbing reach if I want to look up a technique. The chest of drawers is to the right of it. Nothing special to see there yet, just plain white drawers that match my closet perfectly.

So as I mentioned, I consider this project to be 95% done. And if I never did another thing to it, it would still be wonderful. But there are few more things I really want to get done!

1. The peg board needs to be painted and hung correctly. I don't want it to stay white. I want it to blend in and be less noticeable. Also its not mounted to the wall, it's just leaning. It works, but it's not finished.
2. I have a vinyl saying I want to put on the chest of drawers. I didn't have my settings right the first time I tried and I ruined the pink. I have black. It could be black. But I want it mimic the painting. So it needs to be pink.
3. I want to paint the bins black! I know, they're storage, they're practical, it shouldn't matter that they're blue. But every time I look at them, they irritate me! And I'd like them to both be the type that have the fold down door. Much more practical for searching for fabric then having to unstack them to rummage through.

Small things. Things that if they never get done, won't be the end of the world!

One final look at the before (in all it's shame!) and after:

Teen Boys Room (Proof I'm Not Afraid of Color!)

My middle son turned 13 this week.  I'm a mom of three teenagers. It's horrifying to write that!

Back in July I posted this link  for inspiration.  I let my older son have the final say so on the room. As long at my 13 year old can have the moose he loves in his room, he's not overly picky. I can't say the same for his older brother!  When I was looking at room inspirations, he couldn't find anything he liked. Plaid was out (he wears plaid, but he doesn't want it in his room...). He didn't want anything blue. And here is what he finally picked out:

Do you see it?  The plaid? Yeah, I was confused. What it came down to though was the color of the room. He loved it. He didn't see anything other than the color. 

What I'm discovering is that my kids are not afraid of color. I think they get it from me. The Builder took one look at that Roycroft Copper Red and said "I want no part of that". He seriously hated the color! Well I bought the comforters, the drapes, even the paint. And they sat.  I was working on finishing the hall bathroom, my 30 day project, and this got pushed to the side. The Builder made sure to tell me he had to finish the bathroom project. The Builder is color phobic!!!

But I could see my son's vision with that room. This rich coppery red needed to get on the wall:

I really like the natural color in the color swatch above. We had a custom paint mix when we repainted their room last year. I have no clue what color it is, but it's light and creamy I think Natural will warm it up a little without overwhelming the room more with the bold color here.

The Builder wasn't so impressed after the first coat:

Yes, it's streaky. I wasn't surprised. When we lived in CA, several of the homes we lived in I used a red color. The first home we ever bought, I picked a color called 'Dare Devil Red' for my entry way. It took four coats to get it smooth and streak free. In the last home we lived in, I painted the back splash Antique Red. I did use a tinted primer, but I still ended up with three coats of paint. So I totally expected to need more than one coat of paint on this room. Plus one color looked much brighter than the inspiration photo. And my son was clear he wanted the color duplicated as closely as possible. 

So then it was time for coat #2:

Yes!  This is what I was looking for. Even The Builder, when he saw the second coat, was dually impressed. I still need to go back and do some touch up's along the cut in. And I really want to paint the rest of the room the Natural color. I'm going to let the paint cure completely overnight before I hang up the curtains and put the beds back in place. So there are no finished photo's this evening.

And then there is the moose head I found to imitate the antlers in the inspiration photo:

This will fit the bill for both of my boys, so I plan to order it this week from the Etsy seller. Restoration Hardware has an amazing set of moose antlers too.  That cost $500!!!  Seriously, who would buy them. Clearly someone or they wouldn't sell them, but that cost is crazy.

So tell me, are you color phobic or do you go for it?!