Master Suite makeover
Our house, from floor to ceiling had some pretty funky colours when we bought it. It was so bad that they offered us a nice size painting allowance when we settled. M was a hard one to sell on the house though. He couldn't see the picture of how it *could be* past the dark and aged spaces it was, and felt the work would be too much/ too involved/ too time consuming. He had wanted the larger one story home in a newer neighborhood 10mins from here, with less character but clean lines... but it was nearly $50k more then what we negotiated for this home. I pretty much fell in love with our home's "little cottage" appeal from the moment I saw it from the curb.
When we bought the house last October the walls in the master bedroom were baby blue, the ceiling was blue, the carpet was a worn shaggy grey colour, and because of the layout of plugs in the room, there was a large tv armoire in front of the beautiful bank of windows to the back yard. (They had a queen bed in the master)
And then it became ours....
Our bed is the king bed we kept from the Florida house. Its amazingly comfortable (even though it was bought in a hurry) and spacious. And I'm so glad my friends and I went to all the trouble to get it back to us - it reminds me of a good time in our lives, even though it was brief.
Both drawer sets were part of a cheap guest bedroom set we bought last time we lived in the US. I really love them and love the eclectic look of dark wood furniture with white furniture in a room.
The arm chair is part of our florida lounge suite (which currently doesnt fit with the matching lounges in the den and I wanted a comfy chair to read by the windows in our bedroom anyway). The blanket chest is one of the few hand made pieces we bought while living in KL a lifetime ago, and the sheepskin rugs were bought when we went back to M's home town in New Zealand (which is full of sheep's) many, many years ago.
This shadow box was brown. I spray painted it white to match the room and added songbirds which is "our song" and the first song we danced to at our wedding ("Song Birds" by Eva Cassidy)
Ummm... I have no explanation for the wall upon wall of photos in this house but to say my family is beautiful.
I collect birdhouses (all over my house) and anything bird related. Each "book" under the birdhouse contains each of our baby's first photos.
I made the wreath with a discounted grapevine wreath, wrapped it in marked down synthetic yarn and lace ribbon, then I made some hand rolled felt rosettes. I adding two blue-brown birds because I love them and they go with the colours of our room but most importantly because they signify the home we are building together.
What we did:
We had the walls painted an egg shell medium grey-blue
The ceiling was colour corrected to an off white to match the rest of the house.
All the trims and the doors were painted a high gloss oil based shade of white
hand scraped, walnut coloured, engineered hickory hardwood flooring with varying widths were laid (throughout the *entire house*)
(I should mention all the wood flooring and all the tile (including the travertine in the bathroom) and granite counters we put in was from a place called the Dollar Floor Store and on considerable discount)
And 4" single panel plantation wood shutters were installed (looooove them a billion trillion - Probably my fave part of the room)
The master bathroom was really outdated. It had blue walls AND ceiling (including the *small* toilet room which made you feel like you were sitting in a smurf when ever you used it). The tile was black-grey with small purple feature tiles - this included the floor tiles). The cabinets (and in fact all the trim and doors in the house) were a brownish-white, but in good condition. The faucets and counter tops were original to the house (which is about 7 years old). The shower had great features (hello shower seat!) but was dark and boxed in.
And then it became ours......
(I love blue and green together!!!! Who ever said "blue and green should never be seen" just had no idea how pretty and earthy it is)
I picked out 16" travertine tile for the floors and subway size travertine for the walls. I found a really pretty tumbled glass and quartz feature tile. Originally I wanted all the walls to be laid in herringbone but the feature tile made that impossible, so it was laid subway style with two thin strip of the glass and quartz tile encasing a 2ft herringbone pattern at about head height and above the garden tub.
We framed out the builders mirrors glued to the walls with home depot crown molding and painted that with the same paint used for the rest of the trim in the house. Our tiler also installed the granite counter tops and put in new under-mount sinks. I installed the faucets *all by myself!* :D hahaha. The bathroom cabinets were painted to match the darkest colour glass in the feature tile.
Smurf no more. Now a quiet "green space"
I wanted to reuse the old shower screen as I felt it was still in good condition. M has been wanting a frameless screen for a while now (since out last Houston house) and given how much we had updated it, my argument didn't stand for long and we got a new one.
Bird love jewelry hanger.
We also added brushed nickle draw pulls to all the cabinets in the room.
The bathroom colour is a grey green (grey runs through all the colours in the house)
The cabinets are a dark rich brown
And lastly our walk in closet:
All we had done here was continue the wood floors in place of the carpet that was in there
(SO MUCH SPACE!!!)
And we had the painters paint all the trim and hangers/shelves in Alabaster high gloss to match the rest of the house (the wall colour is original)