Master Bedroom Reveal

You've seen bits and pieces of our master bedroom through our nightstand and headboard posts, and we're finally ready to show you the full reveal!

 

So here it is, our long awaited master bedroom reveal! We chose to keep a light and bright colour palette, similar to the rest of the room's we've made over in our home so far and also keeping in line with our master ensuite.

 

The walls were painted a light grey blue and we stuck with a white, blue, green and grey colour palette. We actually painted the walls after getting some chairs for the bedroom and used the fabric as a jumping off point for colours. We then found the curtains at Ikea on clearance and liked how they grounded the space with a darker teal colour in the same colour family.  Our only mistake, was that this made it very hard to find a fabric for the headboard that incorporated all of these colours. We finally came across this fabric from Tonic Living:

 

Via

 

So that fabric, fortunately for us, had all of the colours in our room in it...and matched pretty perfectly, so it was a no brainer. We used it to upholster our headboard and create a few pillows with the left over fabric.  All we have left at this point is to hang the photos sitting on our nightstands, and maybe to put something above the headboard on the wall. I have a few ideas in mind, but we'll see what we end up with.

 

Before we show you the reveal, lets look back as to how this room looked when we first moved into this house:

 

 

Very red, very yellow and very much not our style. So we pretty much started over. The laminate floors were ripped out and replaced with dark bamboo, the walls were painted, window coverings replaced, light fixtures changed, all door hardware replaced...it was a complete overhaul.

 

So here it is, the master bedroom reveal!

  

You might remember our post on when we re-did this dresser, but if not you can refresh your memory here. The dresser is from Ikea and it was not originally white, so we painted it ourselves in Benjamin Moore "Simply White". All of the trim, doors and baseboards in our house have also been done in "Simply White".

 

We added in a rug from Costco, which we had planned to move to our family room, once the new floors are installed. However, Clover loves the rug and so do we, so if we replace it, the new one will need to be just as cozy! The curtains are from Ikea, and although they look quite blue in the photos, they are actually much more of a teal colour.

Our nightstands were made over with a fresh colour and new knobs. We blogged about that transformation here.

 

 

We get a great deal of light in this room (and the light colours certainly help, but I love how the room always feels light, bright and relaxing.

 

Our vanity chair was also made over in the same colour as our nightstands, you can read about that here, and we love how these pieces nicely fill up this corner of the room. Plus it's a great space for me to use when getting ready if the bathroom's occupied.

 

 

We chose 2 slipper chairs for the space by the window (both from HomeSense) and they became a starting point for the colour palette for this room.

 

 

 

Another few shots of the gorgeous natural light this room gets (and how BLUE they make the curtains appear!).

 

 

Overall, we absolutely love this space. The bedroom, ensuite and closet colours all work perfectly together and we definitely gravitate towards light bright colours. We feel relaxed and happy when coming into this room, and that's most important to us.

 

Many of the projects in this room were purchased second hand and we re-did them ourselves, as well as many of the major aspects:

- Painting the entire space

- Designing the space (as well as the master ensuite which you can read about here and closet which you can read about here)

- Installing the floors

- Painting the dresser

- Creating the headboard

- Painting the vanity table

- Painting and upholstering the vanity chair

- Painting the small table between the side chairs

- Hemming the curtains

 

We truly feel our hardwork has paid off and the change is exactly what we were hoping for:

 

We only have a few things left to do: hang the photos beside the bed, finish up with what we want to do to the wall behind the bed and that's about it!

 

 

We've compiled a source list of everything in our master bedroom. If there is an item we have not listed and you would like to know where we got it please post a comment and we will reply!

 

Dresser- Ikea

Headboard- DIY Project

Headboard Fabric- Tonic Living

Nightstands- HomeSense

Vintage style Telephone- Sears

Picture Frames on Nightstands- Wal-Mart

Lights on Nightstands- HomeSense

Slipper Chairs- HomeSense

Side Table- Second Hand

Picture Frame on side table- Gift from Shannon at Burlap and Lace :)

Small Hydrangea Plant on side table and on nightstand- HomeSense

Vanity Table- Second Hand DIY Project

Vanity Chair- Second Hand DIY Project

Mirror above Vanity Table- Second Hand DIY Project

Plant on Vanity- HomeSense

Light on Vanity- HomeSense

Jewelry box- HomeSense

Bench- HomeSense

Tray on bench- HomeSense

Rug- Costco

Fireplace- Canadian Tire

Vase on Fireplace- HomeSense

Judy- HomeSense

Plant Pot- Ikea

Wooden Box- HomeSense

Bedding- HomeSense

Throw- HomeSense

Pillows- HomeSense

Ceiling Fixture- HomeSense

Mirror above dresser- Sears

Lamp on Dresser- HomeSense

Vase and flower on Dresser- HomeSense

Love sign- gift from our friend Lauren at our wedding :)

Picture Frame on Dresser- Indigo

Curtains- Ikea (clearance)

Curtain Rods- Lowes

Knobs on dresser and nightstands- Home Depot

 

Paint Colours:

Walls: "Reflecting Pool"- ICI/Duluxe Paints

Trim/baseboards: "Simply White"- Benjamin Moore

Dresser and vanity table: "Simply White"- Benjamin Moore

Nightstands/Vanity Chair: "Polar Jade"- Benjamin Moore

 

 

We hope you all enjoy this space as much as we do! Now off to relax :)

 

Melissa and Ian

 

 

Linking up to:

 

Better After

Liz Marie Blog 

Dream Closet- Martha Stewart Closet System

You read what we did to our small closet, but the small closet was peanuts compared to what we did to the walk-in closet. I'll be blogging about its progress in a few separate posts as there is a LOT to write about for this closet!

In our bedroom, we have 2 closets- the walk-in and the small hanging closet. You can read about what we did to our hanging closet here. However, the hanging closet was actually done after we finished the walk-in. The walk in was a major project for us, one that took about 8 months of planning, saving and designing.

When we moved into this house, the walk-in closet had wire hanging shelves that we weren't crazy about. They hadn't been planned out very well, and we found that things fell through them, and it didn't help us to keep the closet as organized as we would have liked. So we started to plan our new closet design.

We first needed to decide what kind of system we planned to install. A custom system was out of the budget (and didn't make sense for the size of this closet), we didn't feel we had the time or expertise to build a closet ourselves, and most of the systems we found did not allow us to input our own measurements. Eventually we came across the Martha Stewart Closet System. We found this system best suited our needs.

The system allowed us to choose from multiple options, to include the actual measurements of our closet and make changes and additions online. The first step we took was to obviously take everything out of the old closet and strip it down to nothing. We then measured the closet and took note of the kinds of storage we needed the most.

We began designing our closet online. We determined that each of us would have one side wall, and we would share the back wall, but wanted to keep the design balanced. So each of the side walls would look the same. Here's how the first side wall (wall A) began:

 

 

We could have added more hanging, more shelving, drawers, etc, but this seemed to be the best option for us. We planned to dedicate the entire back wall to shelving and drawers, so we wanted to include more hanging on the side walls.

 

Wall C, looked the same as Wall A:

 

 

Wall B (the back wall) was then designed as follows:

 

 

When we looked at the plan all together, we had enough shelving for everything we needed, enough hanging storage and drawers to hide things we didn't want visible.

 

Although this system was affordable, it still took us a while to save up for it. After about 8 months, we felt it was time to just go for it. We ordered the system and away we went. In total it took us about 4 days to put together (however, we only did a few hours at a time each day).  

 

We're actually working away on another bedroom in our house right now and once again used this system to design a closet for it...it literally took me about 10 minutes, so easy, and Ian's not too worried about installing it.

 

However, the installation of this closet, wasn't the easiest :S. Stay tuned for our next post about the progress of this closet!

 

Melissa and Ian

 

 

Wallpapered Closet

Some of you may have seen our sneak peek on our Facebook page of the Wallpapered closet that we finished a few weeks ago, and here's how it all went down.

Ian and I are pretty much able to work together on almost every project in our house. We've done it all- building, painting, designing, etc., but wallpapering has not yet been one of those projects. Although we could have attempted to try this incredibly 'bonding experience' together, we decided to bring in the experts. Call mom.

My mom and I had wallpapered a room in our house together before- the dining room, which we haven't posted about much since that room is still a work in progress, but here's the wall we worked on together:

 

So I knew mom was the perfect person to call when I decided to wallpaper our small bedroom closet. 

 

Our master bedroom has 2 closets (I know awesome eh?!) one walk in and the other just a small hanging closet.  

Its a bit difficult to get a picture of the 2 closets since they face each other and there isn't much room for photo-taking, but here's a picture of the small closet so you can see what we were working with:

That picture also gives you a sneak peek of our Master Bedroom (which I will be posting the reveal of soon!), and shows your our wall colour, so I wanted to choose a paper that went with that.

We didn't need to wallpaper this closet, so this became more of my project...mainly since Ian has never wallpapered and didn't really think we needed to.
I chose to take on this project since a.) it was an easy space to wallpaper, b.) an inexpensive project - since we only needed 2 rolls  c.) if we messed up in the closet no one would probably ever know. Well except you all of course, but I'm sure you wouldn't judge :) So on with the wallpaper!

We chose "Blue Mountain Blue and Silver Strippable Non-Woven Paper Prepasted Wallpaper" that we found at Lowes. Between the 2 papers that my mom and I have worked on in this house, this paper was by far the best. The paper we used in the living room cost more and was much more difficult. The paper from Lowes was easy to install, less expensive and appeared to be good quality. I would definitely recommend this paper.

The first step to wallpaper this closet was to set up the room. I used old sheets and drop cloths to cover the floors and actually taped a drop cloth to the baseboards in the closet (with painters tape), to avoid any drips or anything getting on the floors.

I also 'sized' the walls with wallpaper size. For any of you who have wallpapered before you may know that this step is considered optional, but makes putting up the paper much easier in the end (and easier to take down). This isn't the exact size we used (the one we bought isn't available to view online), but this one from Lowes gives you an example of what the size looks like and does.

The room then began looking like this:

We also made sure to patch any holes in the wall and sand everything down first before sizing.

After measuring and cutting all the pieces first, we put up our first piece:

And after smoothing it out, it looked much better. It took us about 3 hours to finish the closet and in the end, we ended up with this:

 

 

So once again the mother-daughter team did pretty well! (I think we wallpaper pretty well as a team!) When Ian came home, I can honestly say he was very pleasantly surprised.

 

The next step was to build shelving and a hanging rod. Since the other closet in this bedroom (the walk-in, which I will be blogging about next) has tons of shelving and drawers, we decided to dedicate this smaller closet to just hanging.

 

We went to Home Depot and had some melamine particleboard sheets cut to the size of the closet. We then brought home the scrap pieces to use for building support for the shelves. Up first went the side braces:

 

 

 

Then the middle and the other side:

 

 

 

Then we attached the hanging rod to the side braces:

 

 

 

 

placed the wood shelf on top and done!

 

 

Finally time to move our clothes back in:

 

 

So there you have it!

 

This closet has been waiting to be finished for almost a year, but in the end it only took us a weekend to finish it. We now have ALL of our clothes in our bedroom instead of spaced out throughout the upstairs closets (yea!) and its a nice surprise when I open up this closet and see the beautiful wallpaper poking through.

 

Have any of you wallpapered lately?!

 

Melissa and Ian

*The opinions on this post are entirely our own. We were not endorsed by Lowes to recommend any of these products*

What we were up to...

Just a sneak peek at what we were up to this weekend...we had some fun with wallpaper and finally finished up our second closet!

 

 

More to come on this project soon :)

 

Melissa and Ian

Shine a little light...

Lighting is one of my favorite things to shop for. Seriously, when it comes to home decor, Im a big fan of lighting. Mainly because there are so many options out there and lighting can seriously change the look of a room.

It might also be because the lighting in this house was terrible when we moved in. Every single light fixture had a bulb burnt out. Every single one (we checked). Thats got be a record or something.

There are still many fixtures we want to change, but so far we've done about 6 main ones...not bad. Recently my mother in law mentioned to me that all of our fixtures were very 'sparkly'. I hadn't actually thought about it, but she's right....every single one is 'sparkly'. I now feel that someone needs to stop me from buying sparkly fixtures....oddly enough, Ian doesn't seem to mind or even care. Huh.

Anyho, this is my last sparkly fixture for a while. I swear.
Dont judge the sparkly fixture lady!

So our master bedroom has a hallway to leads into our bathroom and into our closets. It had a bulb hanging from the ceiling when we moved in (have I proved my point about bad lighting now?)

I wanted to change it out, but we didn't want to spend a lot of money on a light for this little hallway.

Months ago, my parents we renovating one of their properties, and had removed the old fixtures. I remember walking in to see what they had done, and spotting 2 old chandeliers. My parents graciously let me have them (Ian wasn't crazy about the idea at first...), but I could see their potential. Problem was, they were covered in nicotine from the previous owner (who was a heavy smoker). Ewww (now you can see why no one else wanted them).

I brought them home, took them apart and let all of the crystals soak in soapy water for a full day. After a few days of cleaning and preping, the chandeliers looked ammmmazing! The first one had to be rewired and Im saving it for another room in our home :) The second one was perfect for our hallway...perfect and FREE!

Putting up this fixture was another story...

The hallway began looking like this:

and after 2 evenings, 1 very frustrated husband and a few words that are too inappropriate to type, we ended up with this:

A close up of the sparkle sparkle....

and it even looks pretty with the lights off:

Do you see the ring around the top of the light? That was originally gold, but I used silver leaf paint, to paint it silver. Turned out pretty well. I got the paint from Michael's, and you dont need much at all to cover a surface- I barely used anything in the small jar to cover the entire ring (inside and out).

At night it casts a really neat shadow on the walls too:

I think it adds a bit of vintage flair to the room, and of course more "sparkle, sparkle". He he.

I love it. Funny thing, how often did I previously turn this light on for use? Barely ever. How often do I turn it on now? Every day. lol

As I said before, lighting really makes a difference!

Designer Debate...the thrill of the hunt

Last night I was having a belated birthday dinner with my wonderful Maid of Honour, and of course we got into a conversation about fashion. Typical Melissa-Melissa convo topic.

I met her at the restaurant and even before we said hello, it was the usual "I LOVE your outfit, where did you get that?!". :) One of the many things I love about her!

As we started to exchange the locations of our fashion finds, I started to realise that 3 out of the 6 things I had been wearing were actually from Zellers (gasp!). Now, I know you might be thinking- seriously...this girl has been telling me about finding great deals for less, and in all actuality shes been buying everything from Zellers....figures. Well dont jump the gun yet, because Zellers has a great line of clothes- PURE by Alfred Sung. A true frugal fashionista does not discriminate against labels!

One of the fashion blogs I follow religiously, "O My Heart" is another awesome Canadian blogger, whose outfits are generally a combination of boutique finds, online shopping sources, the odd Joe Fresh piece and the occasional "surprise" find.  She has been recently wearing this chunky pearl necklace in a lot of her posts, that she found at Urban Planet.

Not being label-bias, I went to check it out (although the 90's "Stitches" commercial was playing in my head the entire time) and found the exact necklace there for $3.67. Yes, you read correctly- $3.67 (ok technically it was $6.00 on clearance for 50% off, but still came to $3.67).  I couldn't pass up that deal (pictures to come). Ive worn it twice now (since Monday!) and have already had a bunch of people compliment me on it.

SO, the point of this rant was to prove that great fashion finds come from all places :) Its all about the search! I feel this whole idea of women searching for great finds came from primitive times (stick with me here....) Men had to hunt for food, and women were the gatherer's. We'll maybe women didn't want to be gatherer's. Maybe they wanted to hunt too! As so, then there was Winners. Its all relative.

Ok back to Zellers.

In the past I have gotten some great finds there, including- a super cute black men's wear blazer:

A brown mens wear blazer:

A few pairs of flats, and a super cute pair of cork wedges. In describing these wedges to Melissa, I decribed them as cork with a very vinatge looking patern- grey with a small white and yellow floral print...super cute. NOT grandma-ish. Again, picture proof to follow.

I also recently found a black of cute black wedges from Payless:

Inspiration source for the wedges: O My Heart again.

So keep an open mind when hunting for great fashion finds.

I feel I am revealing a secret here to you- that my clothes are not designer (gasp! lol) 
I'm not a regular at Chanel, Prada or Jimmy Choo (sigh, but wouldn't we all LOVE to be? Thanks to Carrie Bradshaw's closet for making us all so familiar with them...)

p.s check out this super fun link to her closet ;)

I am a true believer that the top 3 most important things to look for, when shopping for clothes are:

1. Quality
2. Fit (for your body type)
3. Longevity

Regardless of where they came from! (Again, thanks for that lesson mom!). We all might have those few special pieces we spluge on though...(hey, every girl needs at least 1!), but you can look fabulous for less!

Its all in the fun of the hunt...