Bedroom Redecoration 2015

Another fun project completed on the farm!

BEDROOM REDECORATION


While my boys were enjoying their second year at sleep away camp, I surprised them when they came home after three weeks with redecorated bedrooms. (I am addicted to HGTV and would give anything to have Jo and Chip from the show 'Fixer Upper' come renovate my whole house! Sadly, they won't come to Massachusetts. Sigh.) So I did what I could in my kids' rooms thanks to Home Depot, HomeGoods, Target, and the Brimfield Fair. It was a very busy three weeks, fun and exhausting.

Here's the funny part of the story. Before they left for camp, I asked my kids if they would be interested in having their bedrooms painted while they were away. Ryan said, "Sure!" right away. I don't even think he bothered to ask why or what color. Ben, on the other hand said, "Well, I don't want you picking out the paint color when I'm not home. And actually, I really don't like the smell of new paint, so never mind, I don't want you to paint my room." Uh, okay. Hmmm.

So, off the kids went to camp, and I started picking colors for Ryan's room and while I'm looking, I made the executive decision to paint Ben's room, too. Eek. I felt bad to go against his wishes, but his room really needed some updating, and it was now or never. So I forged ahead, praying that he would be happy with what I ended up doing!

Of course, I totally forgot to take real "before" pictures. But here is Ben's room after we took apart his bunk beds. Basically white walls with accordion door closet doors. Nothing exciting.

  

I had a plan for Ben's room. I wanted to farm it up a tiny bit, and give him a somewhat mature music-themed room. And luckily, I have a handy husband who could help make my vision a reality!

For our first project for that room that I wanted to replace the accordion closet doors with a sliding "barn door" instead. A quick trip to Home Depot for planks of pine, screws and hardware and we got started on building the door.

Handy husbands rule!
This started off as just single planks of wood,
and now it's an actual door.

Once the door was built I started painting it with a stain that said "weathered grey" because I wanted it to look like old, old weathered wood. You know that beautiful silver-grey color?
Unfortunately, I learned that you can't really buy that color. Maybe that's why old wood is so special, because you just can't make it happen with stains or paints. I HATED the color the stain turned out to be. It was just kind of blue. It had to go. So we had to sand it all off. :(

Get that horrible stain off!!!

Well, actually, we didn't sand it all off. We sanded MOST of it off. 
We actually left some, and added more in other spots to give it balance and dimension before searching for a better solution.

I'm only smiling in this picture because I had finally finished sanding off most of the ugly stain.
I was NOT actually very happy at this point! LOL!
I was so sad that we had made this beautiful door and then almost ruined it with a bad stain choice.

So then it was off to the internet to figure out just how to get that weathered grey look (without actually waiting for it to happen naturally! I only had 3 weeks!) I found a website that gave a recipe for a natural stain for the weathered-wood look. It involved first painting the pine with strong black tea and letting it dry. Next I had to make a solution by soaking steel wool in vinegar for a few days. Finally, I painted the door with the vinegar/steel wool solution, and voila! As the wood dried, the pine turned a beautiful natural greyish-brown color. It's definitely NOT the weathered grey I was originally hoping for, but it really was beautiful and looks great in his room, so we kept it.

Ben loves music. It's definitely his thing. So Jonathan and I had fun finding some old records at a thrift shop to hang on his wall. I also took some piano sheet music of some his favorite songs and framed them for over his bed. I ordered guitar hangers and framed a poster. Lastly, we added in a rug and bedding and his room was complete. Now I just had to pray that he wasn't going to be mad at me for redecorating his room when he specifically had said not to do it!

Here are a few pictures of Ben's finished room.

The closet door may not be weathered grey, 
but it looks beautiful with his grey walls.
(These photographs don't show the grey color correctly.)
Love the black barn door hardware.
Hung the records and his guitars.
Found a bean bag type chair for that tiny alcove.

Music poster up on the loft.
(He can sit up there!)

Framed piano sheet music over his bed.
They are songs he learned by Journey, Bon Jovi and Queen.
The sheet music even has Ben's handwritten notes on it.

Oh! And the icing on the cake for Ben was that he got his bunk bed upgraded to a queen bed! So even if he didn't love his room renovation, I knew he was going to be psyched about the bigger bed.

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Now, onto Ryan's room. Sadly, I didn't think to take any before pictures of Ryan's room. But I found the picture of his room from the listing from when we bought the house 2 years ago to give you an idea. Take away the pink and it was pretty much the same yellow room.

The before picture, from before we bought the house.

Okay, the inspiration for Ryan's room....Ryan loves living on a farm. (He said that he hopes that he gets to raise his own kids on Glen Hill Farm. So sweet.) So, for Ryan's room, I thought I'd actually decorate it with all things Glen Hill Farm.

We painted Ryan's room the same calm grey color I used in Ben's room. I made a collage for over his bed which has pictures of all the chickens, dogs and horses that have been a part of our farm family so far, and I placed a big poster of our Glen Hill Farm eggs on top of his armoire.

The rest of the touches I found for Ryan's room were from the Brimfield Fair. First off, I found some throw pillows for his bed that were made from chicken feed bags. So cute.

Next, I found a vendor that sold these cool metal animal cut outs.
Cow, dog, pig and chicken. Perfect!

I added a comfy chair and hung his ukuleles on the wall next to his bookshelf. (He's way into music, too.)

I found all sorts of little farm accessories at the Brimfield Fair for his shelves above the windows. A wire chicken-shaped egg basket, a stuffed pig, a toy John Deere tractor, a sheep, and two tiny metal mice. So cute! And I had metal letters for his name.

I also bought some fencing at Home Depot and stained it with the tea/steel wool/vinegar treatment and put the fence around his bed. I hung a burlap bag on it where he can store his book, since he doesn't have room for a night table. Lastly, I found a box for the foot of his bed to store his throw pillows while he sleeps. Ryan's room: Done!

There wasn't much resting while the boys were at camp, trying to get these rooms finished before they returned. But I definitely had fun as all the pieces came together.

When the boys returned home, Ryan said, "Did you paint my room?" And I said "Why, yes!" and we did a big reveal just like on an HGTV show. It was so fun, and he really loved it!

And then my Ben said, "Wow, this is so awesome! I kind of wish that I had let you redecorate MY room, too." And I said, "Well, I am SO happy to hear you say that because guess what....I DID redecorate your room!!!!" And we opened the door to Ben's newly decorated room and (thank goodness) he LOVED it. Phew!

Two rooms down, and the rest of the house to go! Someday we'll get it all done!

Oh! The chickens got a tiny renovation, too! We added a cupola to the coop. So cute and it should help with heat and moisture ventilation, too.