The Bedroom Project... (Part 1)

As I mentioned previously, we recently (and quite suddenly) decided to renovate our "master" bedroom.  I put "master" in quotes because the sad room is actually quite small.  All of the bedrooms are in our 1964 house.

Here's how it came about...

The Hubs and I spent a week down in Myrtle Beach. During this time, we slept in a king sized bed at the condo in which we were staying.  It was nice.  Roomy.  Yes, very roomy.  You see, back home, we have a full-size bed (also known as "the double").  It was my bed from before we got married and we just never upgraded.  Plus... I LOVE my bed (the double).  It was going to be hard for me to find another bed that was THIS perfect.  I dreaded giving up my happy little sleep nest.  But we talked about the fact that perhaps it was time we moved up to a bigger bed.  We briefly discussed a queen size, but then I decided I am a selfish sleeper and I really, really, really wanted a lot of space.  So we agreed we'd think about maybe, someday, possibly purchasing a king-size bed.  You know, sometime in the future.  Maybe when we got a bigger bedroom, because certainly a king-size bed would fill our tiny bedroom.

Yes, this is my "old" room.  And  yes, it's a total freakin' mess.
Hmmmm... do you think that's why it looks small?  The clutter?
This is standing in front of the closet, looking toward the south window.

Please, oh please, forgive me my clutter and terrible, nasty mess.  I cannot say much in my defense other than... well, a lot of this mess is left over from Christmas, believe it or not.  That, and I really just got overwhelmed with... clutter.  The table in the corner was supposed to be my sewing table.  The Hubs surprised me with it last spring, encouraging me to sew more.  I never once used it for sewing.  It just held... crap.

Seriously, do NOT tell The Hubs I posted these totally embarrassing photos!
This is standing in the doorway looking at the south wall (bookcase) and
the east wall (window).

Mortifying!  But you always want 'before' photos, right?  *shame*
And this is standing in front of the bookcase looking out the door, closet to the right.

Talk about skeletons in my closet!  Look away!
Same spot in front of the bookcase looking straight at the closet, east wall to my right.

When we got home, while sharing the adventures of our vacation with a friend, I mentioned the bed conversation.  Later that afternoon, she brought me a sales coupon for beds.  I took it home and shared it with The Hubs.  We talked about going the following Saturday to look.  That Saturday approached and I got cold feet about spending the money.  Another week passed and we decided to just go try some out. 

We came home having purchased a king size bed.

Next, I was mildly whining about I wish that we had time to renovate the bedroom before the new bed was delivered (at that time, it was a Tuesday and the bed was to be delivered the following Friday - 10 days).  Her response?  "You've got PLENTY of time."  The bug was planted.  I told The Hubs that I thought we should renovate the room.  I passed the bug on to him.  I shared the colors that I wanted to paint it.

Blue on the walls, brown on the baseboards, closet door and door frame, vanilla bean on ceiling and the inside of the window frame.

The first major step, however, was to get the ancient, dusty, musty, dirty, NASTY wallpaper off the walls. 

Nasty.  Ugh... more embarrassment!!
This is the south-east corner where the bookcase was.

Have I ever mentioned how much the woman who lived here before us loved wallpaper?  Well, let's just say it borders on fanatical.  And much of it was 3-D, as in, it had raised surfaces to it.

The scratches and gouges are from accidental scrapes with the fingernails and kitty claws.
To the left of this photo you can see how she artistically overlapped the wallpaper about
a quarter of an inch.  Every.  Single.  Panel.  In.  Every.  Single. Room.

So, we mapped out our schedules and started with removing the wallpaper. I must say, I LOVE the steam machine we bought (eons ago).  It was wonderful.

Southwest corner, standing in front of the closet to take this photo.

Above is The Hubs, ankle deep in wallpaper and glue.  I was ahead of him peeling down the wallpaper, while he came around behind me with the steamer and scraped off the glue.

We were so thankful the walls behind the wallpaper were painted or it could have been a mess.  We removed wallpaper previously in a room in the basement that she had adhered to just plain ol' drywall - no paint, no primer.  Chunks came out of that wall!

We had to stop every now and then to de-glue The Hubs' feet.  Literally had to peel this stuff off the bottom of his slippers.  It was funny, though.

Standing where the bookcase was, looking at the north wall.

Whew!  It was a good six hours of straight wallpaper removal.  We gave up on the closet door, figuring we could remove it from the track and do it outside of the room.  Later.  But even this... what we got done... was such an improvement.  It was exciting!

This is what we did on weekend #1.  The Saturday and Sunday after we caught the bug to renovate the room. 

Now there are 5 short days before the bed is to be delivered.

What did we do?  We spent the rest of the Sunday relaxing... y'know, because we had all kinds of free time to get the job done.  No worries about working during the week.  Plenty of time, right?

Stay tuned...


... more bedroom renovation coming up...