Meredith's Bedroom Makeover

I started this project on August 16th and finally finished this past Sunday but let me tell you it was so worth it.

Here are the befores (put on your sunglasses and ignore the mess)

The South end

Chest of drawers before

 Scrapbook area before:

North end before;

Meredith found this mirror at a local shop, painted by a  local artist and knew she wanted it in her room.

If you are familiar with the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, then you know one thing leads to another!
We started with paint, Ground Coffe from True Value for the walls, then white for the trim and ceiling.  The walls are beadboard, we installed that years ago when this room was intended for a playroom only and I didn't want to deal with sheetrock dust all throughout the house.  My contractor and I settled on this for a good solution.  Who knew it would be so "in" right now!   My older two played Barbies here for hours and you could close the door and not worry about the mess.  With four girls, we eventually needed this room for another bedroom.

I went to a flea market with Paige at the end of August and found these two prizes for $17 total

Here are the afters for them

Then a new quilt for the bed, curtains, lamp, artwork, slipcover for scrapbooking shelves the room was starting to look better.  I really wanted to paint the furniture but hubby isn't one for painted furniture and this furniture was my grandfather and grandmother's, so antique.  After buying Altar'd Painted Furniture Ebook, I really thought I could paint this furniture and be very successful.  The bed and nightstand were in the worse shape so I told hubby I would start with them and see how it went.  Well, he was super-impressed and said, do the rest it looks fantastic.  This is what took the longest time, sand first, liquid sandpaper, three coats of paint, glazing, and finally three coats of poly.  Needless to say five pieces of furniture were labor intensive but so worth it.

I will let you see:

 Meredith made the canvas with the Silhouette machine, lamp is from Target.  She saw a bedroom in a makeover magazine that had two contrasting colors and she wanted the yellow to be bright.  I looks fantastic.

Dresser after, pulls from Hobby Lobby.  This room is difficult to arrange, our home is a story-and-half, so the side walls are short.

 Curtains, bench fabric, pillows are all from Moda's Botany fabric line.  I used the jelly roll in the quilt, the colors perfect for the mirror and the wall color. 

 Hubby's winter job is intalling laminate flooring and getting rid of the awful berber carpet!

Nightstand

 Bedroom including scrapbook area, her room is big 12 x 24 so there is another room for crafting.  As you can tell, she has been making cards.

 Hard to get a good picture with the south window.

 New storage for the 12 x 12 paper, purchased at Sam's club.  I need to figure out how to recover the office chair.

 Full view of South end

 Side angle

We are all so pleased with Meredith's room.  The deal was I work on the room, she makes her bed every morning and works hard to keep her room neat and tidy.  Happy to report she is doing just that.

I am sharing this on:




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Ottobre

I am wearing my new knit top from the latest Ottobre Woman Magazine

or you can see the line drawing the design is #4

I am wearing the top to work today and I would change two things:

1. Lengthen the arms by 1".  I rolled up the long cuffs, so my top is 3/4 sleeve and it looks better than too short long sleeves
2. I made a 38 and the shoulders are a bit wide, I will take off about a 1/4" from the next one (I have view #1 cut out and ready to sew - just different sleeves)

It is made from an ITY from Needle Nook Fabric.

Here it is on my dressform:

There are a couple more things I want to make from this issue, it is a good one.

A Bird's Eye View

I was going to take pictures of a new Ottobre top for me but a friend invited my husband to go flying yesterday. He told my husband to bring a camera, so I had no camera during the daylight hours to take a picture of my new top.




Hubby did take some photographs of our farm after I had to show him how to turn on the camera and what button to push! (you can tell who takes all the pictures around here)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, it was so nice, I really appreciate it.

Ruffled Flower Pillow

I am just about finished with the redo of Meredith's room, a couple more things and it will be done.  Here is a pillow I made for her room.  I saw it initially on on Cluck Cluck Sew and knew I had to make this pillow for the room.  Just the other day I saw a very similar pillow on Moda Bake Shop

Here is Meredith's pillow using scraps from her quilt

I pleated the fabric with my seam ripper as I was sewing it onto the fabric. I think it looks darling in her room and it was fun to do.

Another Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, won't say the number but it wasn't a big birthday, at least for a couple of years. 

It was a wonderful day, Paige and her husband came for the day, Erin came home, too.  My parents came out for dinner and yes, I cooked my birthday dinner but to have 8 people I love around the table sharing my birthday, it was worth it.

I had Jesse (Paige's husband) take a picture of me with all my girls.

Other good news.....the fire department was not called to extinguish this fire:

I did it in one breath, I hope my wish comes true.