bedroom makeover

About four months ago, while I was feeling extremely pregnant and tired of doing ANYthing around the house, Sean commented on how much he disliked the wallpaper in Isaac's room. And although I didn't even want to think about taking on another project, I couldn't agree more with him.

 "You're right, it's ugly."

 So, before I knew it (really, I had no clue) Sean was peeling down the bamboo/raffia looking wallpaper. He managed to snap a few pictures on his phone before it all came down, because, let's face it...before and after pictures are the best.

 Do not judge (too harshly) on the before pictures. :) But let me point out a few of the many things we both thought were not-so-nice in these pictures:

 -pukey yellow trim around windows
-pukey yellow closet door
-black blinds (??)
 -pukey lighter yellow ceiling
-wallpaper
-picture placement
-empty clock-ish wall (??)
-angry birds eeeevvverrrrywheeerrreee. (I'll get back to this.)
-a book collection that was too overgrown. (We ended up donating about 40 books to an Eagle Scout Project.)
-the rug/scrap of leftover carpet (if you could call it that)

 As you can see, this room needed major attention, and now that Isaac and Eliza were ready to share a room, we wanted this to be a place they ENJOYED being in. Here are the before pictures: (I apologize for the low, grainy resolution!)





And


here are the after pictures: TA-DAAAAAH! (I'll explain a little here and there)


 We had a very limited budget. As in under $500 for the ENTIRE room (which included a new IKEA bed for Eliza.)

We bought matching duvet covers for the kids. The two pictures hanging above Isaac's bed are recycled frames we had from IKEA, with two prints cut out from a 2011 Ansel Adam's Calendar. I made this cork board cut-out of the USA for the kids to pin locations of their family members (who are spread out all over the U.S.) This project cost me about $9. We used scrap wood for the back of the cork board (since the cork wasn't thick enough to hang on it's own without curling.) My inspiration came from here.

 We also painted the walls a very light warm gray. Hats off to Sean for having to scrap ALL OF THAT DANG WALLPAPER OFF. That was a hard project. He did a beautiful job! We also spray painted the blinds white. That cost about $15 (we had to buy a few cans of spray paint.) We used a white paint we already had to repaint the ceiling. You wouldn't thinking repainting a ceiling would make a big difference, but it does!

It worked out nicely that Eliza's bed is right beneath the window, because it saved us the cost of another bed frame.
  Like I said, we went through ALL of the books in Isaac's bookcase. There were a ton. I filled the top two shelves of this bookcase (that use to be in Eliza's old room) with our very favorites. The rest were either donated, or were put downstairs in the play area. The only artwork in their room besides the Ansel Adams frames are all pieces we've bought at Pikes Market in Seattle over the years. We found a lovely artist that captured Washington in a great way. The calendar is from Crate and Barrel and was a really great price (and takes up a good chunk of the wall, which is what I was going for.) The kids love it, and can't wait to use it in 2013.

 

 a (very cheap) IKEA rug, which I had plans to paint large gray stripes on, but I have yet to find the time. But then again, I love how clean the room looks right now, so who knows if I'll get around to it! The gray box (which was downstairs) hides a lot of Isaac's trinkets. He has A LOT.
 

We painted the door, and HID all of Isaac's angry birds inside the closet. Actually, we call it their "bed" (it's a large box.) It works out nicely, and he can take them out and play with them whenever. I had a groupon from canvas on demand and printed one of my favorite pictures of the kids. It is directly across from their bed, in hopes that it reminds each other to love one another...always. :)
  And that's it! What do you think??