We moved into our 1970s ranch almost two years ago. The logistics of transferring seven people and their gear from a house in one state to a house in another state with the majority of the help coming from the Ark Bearers Incorporated (that would be the children) was rather daunting. We chose to minimize the stress by just moving into our outdated house without doing any upfront remodeling. We've been chipping away at the 70s decorating scheme ever since.
It feels so good to walk through our rooms and begin to see a reflection of our decorating personality. I often stop and stand outside the children's bedrooms for a minute or two just to take in the changes. The kids just laugh at me.
This is a before picture of the kids bathroom. Some of the kids couldn't see over the top of the sink when we moved in without the help of a stool. The walls were painted a lovely shade of poop brown. We called it The Cave. What began as a quick coat of paint morphed into a remodel.
Four months later we have two sinks, a new floor, several coats of Sherwin Williams Pearl Onion paint, some new faucets, mirrors and fixtures and a new tile saw. I love tools! This was Stuart's first attempt at tiling. He did a great job. My favorite parts of this bathroom are the little wall that he built to hide the toilet and the staggered cabinet heights. This works perfectly for the littles and the bigs.
This is a before picture of the boys room. Our house has large eaves so we don't get much natural light. All the rooms were painted in dark colors which didn't do much to maximize the light that did find its way in. The furniture is jumbled in here because we hadn't yet figured out what worked where yet. It takes a while to make the best use of each space.
Here's an after picture of the same room. We transferred the beds from the girls' room, bought some bedding on super clearance off the internet, and painted the walls with Venetian Lace (also Sherwin Williams). Stuart put in some recessed lighting and traded out the brown and gold ceiling fan for a plain white one. John made the glass ornament hanging from the fan at the Corning Glass Museum in New York with his Grandma Carole. The drawings are just oil pastel scribbles that we made for VBS a few weeks ago. Eventually, John and I want to paint some of the maps from The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings to take their place. I bought a 63 inch pair of white tab-top curtains from Wal-Mart for less than twenty dollars and cut them and inserted some apple green fabric to create an easy custom look. The gold carpet is staying for now. We are striving for livable, not perfection.
It feels so good to walk through our rooms and begin to see a reflection of our decorating personality. I often stop and stand outside the children's bedrooms for a minute or two just to take in the changes. The kids just laugh at me.
Comments
Xandra
Much love,
Angela
I wanted to share with you a fun project I did for my husband many years ago, when the LOTR movies came out. I had an elderly gentleman in our church create a "frame" of sorts- he took old barn wood slats and attached them together in the back and made a hanger. Then I made a full size copy of a Middle Earth map found in the back of Kevin's LOTR book. I stained the whole thing in brown tea for a few hours, crumpled and tore the edges when dry, and then burned the edges to give it a very *used* look. Modge-podging it to the "frame", it looks very authentic, and he's so proud of it that he took it to his office to hang!
Anyway, there's a thought for the walls... :) Love to you!