PLAYROOM REVEAL!!

I guess I've been promising this post for some time now.  The problem is I can NOT get this room finished.  Now, it is "finished"... but it's not perfect.  Is any room ever going to be perfect?  I have decided the answer is NO!  So, I'm going to show you this room in its current state.  Looking at these before pictures I can see we've come a very long way so the few things here and there that I want to add and change will just have to become future blog posts!

This room started as a weekend project with an accent wall, new furniture arrangement, and a few pillows.  3 months later it had grown into new floors, painting all the trim and doors, curtains, etc. etc. etc. The main wall color is Pale Smoke and trim and cabinet color is Super White both by Benjamin Moore. My husband saw the slight transformation and got on board!  He decided we needed new floors and enlisted his buddies to come help lay them one weekend.  BUT... before we could do that... all the trim and doors were wood tone so we decided they needed to be white!  It was one of the best choices we made and the worst task to complete!

Early morning painting... no fun! 

The payoff was totally worth it!  Goodbye 1981! 

The cabinets were all taken apart, sanded, primed, painted, and then got a coat of poly.  Then, about a month later all the cabinets were taken apart {again}, sanded{again},  primed{again},  painted {again}, and then got a coat of poly {again}.  I wasn't aware that oil based polyurethane would turn my white cabinets the color of a banana!  Sad and frustrating, but lesson learned.  While we had them down anyway we chose a brighter white (Super White by Ben Moore) and also painted the hinges in Krylon Fusion Metallic Shimmer.  The ACRYLIC top coat was tinted to the exact white as  the cabinet color to avoid the banana debacle from happening again.

The Hubs doing the sanding as I go right behind him priming with the big can of Kilz you see in the forground.

Benjamin Moore's Super White with newly painted hinges.

Two rounds of sanding, priming, painting,and sealing ended up

being totally worth it in the end! Look at the difference

in color from the above picture where we are sanding!!



Once all the painting was done and the floors were down it was just a matter of rearranging furniture and accessorizing.   I made two curtain panels to hide the giant holes on either side of the fire place.  I am assuming they were put there to store wood.  We use them to store toys, fabric, craft supplies, etc.  If you remember from the original post I wanted sliding barn doors to cover them.  Sliding doors are impossible because the actual fireplace sticks out about 4 inches past the wall.  There may be barn style doors in my future but they will be on hinges.  For now, these panels do the trick of hiding the junk. 

Good storage but U-G-L-Y!

The accent fabric here is "Spot On" by Waverly and the rest of the panel is a white cotton duck.  They are hanging thru a rod pocket on $3 tension rods from Big Lots.   Notice in the before picture the cubby on the left is perfect size to hold fabric bolts!

The wet bar cabinets received that same paint treatment as the other cabinets (both times) and you can read about the fridge transformation here.  The mirror was a gift from my sweet mom she picked out just for this spot.  I love how much light it reflects back into the room!  It is from Pier 1.

What were they thinking in the 80's?!?

Perfect place to clean dirty hands or mix a drink.  It's inevitable that people end up down here whether we are hosting a kids party or an adult party.

In came a new rug.  The one I was coveting from Dash and Albert!  We got rid of the worlds heaviest TV and sold the TV cabinet (it was where the gallery wall is now).  The new TV was a Christmas present from my sweet in-laws.  The couch was reoriented which completely opened up the room.  The gallery wall went up and that was enough for me to call the room "finished enough for now."

Gallery wall and custom lamp shade how-to found here.  I left plenty of room to add to it over the years.

I made this pillow from an old bird seed sack.  Love it!

Before

Inspiration Room from Traditional Home Magazine

The overall cost of this room was very inexpensive considering the amount of work that went in. We purchased the floors from Lowes on Black Friday for right at $700 ($1/sq. ft). We recruited friends to help install (cost... 1 case of beer for the boys :-). We spend about $200 on paint for the baseboards, doors, walls, and cabinets and still have some leftover. The Dash and Albert rug was 30% off so I got it for less that $250 including shipping which is pretty good for an awesome 8x10 rug. I owned most all the frames and just made them cohesive with paint. Mirror was a gift. Lamp $5 from Goodwill and refurbished. Waveryly fabric was $12.99/yd and I bought 2 yds for all the pillows, curtain trim, and bench cover. Other odds and ends maybe $50. Total cost came in under $1300. I'm OK with it because it feels like a brand new space that we want to spend time in rather than a dark, cold, dingy basement.

I wanted this room to have a playful feel because that is where we plan on keeping most of the toys (now I just need to work on my scaredy cat son so he'll go down there alone...). But, when we have big parties at our house this is the room where a lot of people end up so I needed it to also function that way. I hope you enjoy checking it out! If you have a suggestion for the TV wall PLEASE pass it on!!

 

Kandi