Two-day Makeover

I love (I mean loooooove) budget decorating.  I find it incredibly satisfying to transform a room for peanuts.  And with the amazing array of resources available today, budget makeovers are more and more doable, if you know what you're doing.  And lots of people do.  But lots of people don't.  And in this economy, it can be tough to hire a decorator.  I've been thinking for a while about offering a new service to clients who want a quick transformation but don't have a lot of money to spend.  I called for guinea pigs on Facebook, and the Two Day Makeover was born.

The idea: Two days (of my time), a small budget (of their money) to spend at local retailers, and a little bit of elbow grease can yield a remarkable makeover.  Ready for the proof?

Enter Lisa, a friend from grade school.  She and her husband swapped rooms with two of their daughters (they have four fabulous kids) but never painted over the "Cinderella Blue."  They bought a bedframe and filled the space with hand me downs.  Functional, but not exactly a soothing retreat.

As so many of us do, Lisa and Dale fulfilled the needs in this space as they arose, without an overall design plan.  A TV was propped on a pair of (non working) speakers, on top of a small side table.  An old cabinet was pressed into the corner to hide its unfinished side.

One piece of an old sectional was crammed in another corner, and Dale started hanging his caps on the wall hooks left over by their daughters.  (I am guessing that Lisa would like you to know that this photo was taken mid-project, and that all the extra stuff in this picture is makeover material.)

A hand-me-down dresser got a coat of black paint, but the sloping ceiling of the attic room meant the mirror had to sit off center.

The biggest problem (and its common in these converted attics) was just how unbalanced the room felt.  The open stairwell split the room and almost everything was in the large half.

But the room was nice and big, and Lisa had a number of great pieces to work with.  Don't you just love POTENTIAL?

Thursday morning, I arrived to check things out and discovered that the room had a larger challenge than I had realized from the photos:  large scale panels along both long walls concealed storage, and needed to be left relatively clear for access (you can see one next to the dresser in the photo just above).  Holy space planning challenge!  After a bit of rearranging, we found the right spot for the bed--nestled between two storage doors--and everything else fell into place.

Ready for it?

Ta da!

Moving the bed to the side wall opened up the window and balanced out the long, narrow room by moving the most massive piece to the center.  We were then able to place the lowboy dresser on the far wall, and balance it with the sectional piece.  (there were actually other armchairs available in the house, but nothing would fit up the stairs!)  A pair of velvet throw pillows and a brown chenille throw balance out the sectional, and the placement makes you overlook it's armless side.

The dresser had a matching tallboy, which came out of the closet and took up residence at the far end of the room (essentially facing the lowboy).  The vertical shape is a much better fit for the narrow wall, and the surface is a good spot for frames photos.  

White curtains with a quilted floral motif soften both windows and make the far end of the room feel finished.  Black cafe rods hung high heighten the tallest part of the room, drawing the eye up and de-emphasizing the sloping walls.

How pretty is this duvet?  Lisa already had it, and it set the color palette for the room.  The softer green paint instantly brightened the room, making it feel much bigger and airier, and a satin finish blurred the edges to make the walls recede, whereas the old semi gloss (washable, for kids)  highlighted the surface of the walls, drawing them in.

The corner that previously housed the sectional got a proper entertainment unit, which is tucked out of sight upon entering the room, and provides storage for books, remotes, and odds and ends.

And the bed got spruced up with a bright orange accent on the shams.  Pairs of side tables and lamps lend balance, and their round shapes break up all the blockier pieces in the room.

Not bad for two days and a couple hundred bucks!

So, where did we spend our money?

Paint: Behr "Outback," $52.00

Curtain Rods: Black cafe rods from Target, $10 each

Everything else, Ikea:

Bedside tables, $20 each

Curtains, $40 each pair

Oval Mirror above dresser, $10

Pillow shams, $6 each

Baskets, $5/ set of 3

Total: $219

Okay, and then Lisa cheated.  We were planning to use a media stand from her garage, give it some spraypaint, new knobs, and wallpaper the glass doors, but she decided it was too short for the space.  Another trip to Ikea (unbeknownst to me) yielded a 100% perfect media stand in the As Is department.  So that basically doubled the total to $400 (ish).

Still, not bad.

So again, the before:

And after!

(Three notes on the photos: we couldn't find the appropriate hardware to mount the oval mirror, which WILL hang on the wall; the square artwork across from it will be replaced by a framed photo of Lisa's kids, and there is a painting that belongs on the wall above the stairs.  I'm impatient, what can I say?)

Local (Twin Cities) readers, if you're interested in a Two-Day Makeover, you can email me at heather@heatherpetersondesign for rates and more information.

Ta Da!

At long last, the ottoman is done.

Maybe.

Shall we review? (Is it embarrassing to admit that I am seeing this in my mind as a flip book and the song running through my head is that old Music Together classic, Happy Puppy Dog?).  Here goes.

In the store

Glass = Dangerous for kiddos.  I know, let's make it an ottoman!  Cut wood.

Get foam

Paint Frame purple.  Oops!  Spraypaint black.

Reupholster with the wrong fabric.

Reupholster with the right fabric.

Freehand some rub n buff.  Oops!

Tape off the stripes and try it again

Ah, finished.  No?

More gold = More tape.  Lots and lots of tape.  Table bondage.

Perhaps should not have done this step under the influence of a glass (or two?) of wine.

But it turned out okay and let's be honest, I will probably not fix it.  One more time: Before.

And after.

Love it, hate it, or total ambivalence, you gotta admit it's quite a big change!

Oh.  Why is it only maybe done?  Well, I'm thinking all the gold precludes the need for nailhead trim, but I'm going to live with it for a while before I make the final call.

What do you think?  

Thanks for sticking with me on this one.  I'm usually a done-in-a-day, for-better-or-probably-for-worse kind of a gal when it comes to projects, so this one has been a bit of a stretch.

What about you: are you in the middle of any interminable projects these days?  Do tell!

Guest Room: After!

I was going to wait until the final projects were complete in this room, but I've been thwarted where one is concerned and plan to take my time with the other, so I might as well get on with it.  More on those projects later.

This room has been a slow evolution, from a beige box with white bedding to a dramatic space with intense color.  I love it.  I have to say, it has become my favorite room in the house.

What I started with: the turkish rug, the mid-century X-base desk, the hotel bedding, and various art and lamps to work with.

What I ended up with:

 

I've blogged through this process more than any other room.  Some posts: At first I thought I could make do with very small interventions in the space, but I was wrong.  The need for raspberry silk curtains presented itself first.  Then I hit pay dirt with a custom headboard on craiglist for just $35, which I recovered with splurge fabric, after first trying to dye my own substitute.  I stalked mid-century high boys to fit into the niche.  Then, when I found a bleached wood mirror on clearance at Home Goods that just needed to be in the room, I got the big idea to paint the whole shebang navy.  I spray painted some wall sconces.  And tomorrow I'll do one last post, telling you how to make your own custom pleated lampshades, like the little wall sconces over the bed, which are perhaps my best Ikea upgrade to date.  Hmmm....I just took away any illusion that this room came together all quick and easy.  But it did, really, after I did all that processing to figure out what the room wanted to be!

It's probably the most "formal" and traditional room in the house, but I like that it uses the same formula from the dining room, where the trad leanings (silk curtains, Turkish rugs) are brought down to earth with the more casual mid-century furniture.

So what's left to do?  Well, this feels like a room where more is more, and I would love to add navy silk tassel trim to the leading edge of the curtain (I found some BEAUTIFUL tassel trim from Ralph Lauren at my favorite outlet for $30 a yard, which is a deal, but still, I would need more than 5 yards....).

Of course, that lovely mid-century chair at the desk, a fabulous gift from my friend Sara, needs to be stained or painted--I'm thinking it should be the same stain as the desk.  But I will admit this is LOW on my priority list.

I'd kind of like to turn the curtain rod and rings brass.  As if by magic.  The dark one, which I bought for lighter walls, gets lost now, and brass would stand out and work with the lamps and the drawer pulls, but I'm wary of spray painting pieces that are meant to rub together.

I would like to cover the standard-issue blackout shade with navy ticking, as well as the lampshades on the brass lamps.  Don't they just want to have this fabric?

Oh, and the ceiling.  I would very much love to upholster that ceiling in ticking.  But here's the thing: thwarted.  No one in the Twin Cities carries navy ticking.  NO ONE.  I went to all the major stores, and Hancock's ticking is printed, not woven, JoAnn's only has the super heavy duty canvas kind,  Treadle yard goods has every color except navy, and my old stand by, S.R. Harris doesn't do ticking.  I honestly think of this as the most ubiquitous fabric around, but so far no dice.  And obviously I can order it online, but it's the principle of the thing. 

Oh yeah, and also those lovely Indian block-print pillow cases, the ones I have had for more than a decade and love love love?

Well, they are shredded.  The cotton is super thin and has literally fallen apart in long rips on each side of both cases--totally beyond repair.  So I need new shams.  And there aren't any readymade ones that I'm down with.  For fabric, I love this take on what I already have:

It's a bolder, stronger graphic floral, and I love that it has the yellowish tone from the desk.

But then I also got sort of inspired by the ikat I ordered for the living room throw cushions.

It's really too many colors, but it has sent me down the rabbit hole looking for a blue and red ikat in just the right scale.


So, what do you think?  I'm in no rush for those.

Oh, right, and if you are still reading, you are either related to me or REALLY interested in this kind of thing, so I'll share the breakdown of the budget.

Headboard: $35, craigslist
Headboard fabric: Calais linen in Indigo, Calico Corners, 1 1/2 yards at sale price of $17/yard, plus shipping and handling came to about $46
Dresser: $75, craigslist
Curtain Fabric: S. R. Harris, 5 1/2 yards at $40, less 65% off = $77
Zig zag pillow: Kohl's, clearance for $13, but I had a gift card so FREE
Wood sunburst mirror: Home Goods, clearance for $24
Curtain Rod and rings: About $35
Brown ceramic lamp on dresser: Home Goods, $49
Navy and white shade on brown ceramic lamp: Target, $19
Ikea wall sconces: $13.99 a piece, plus a package of navy double fold bias tape, about $3, total around $31
White throw on bed: Ikea, $19.99
Paint: $75 (one gallon primer and two gallons of paint)

Grand total: $499

Of course, I had some great stuff to work with, but I love that this room looks like I spent a whole lot more!

If you would like help transforming a space in any style on any budget, email me at heatherjoypeterson@gmail.com