We started a BIG PROJECT for us at the beginning of March and we are so excited! It’s going to take some time – but progress is progress and I am so happy!
Sarah is probably the last one that should get a room makeover – but alas, she is! Sarah easily had the most put together room out of any of the kids, but her room has been given “guest room” status and so needed a bit of a makeover.
The MAIN thing was she just needed a bigger bed (that way we could finally offer family and friends something better than an air mattress!). We got her a new mattress in February but we couldn’t stop there!
Mark has one week off – one week on with work so this is going to happen in chunks here and there. Week 1 was:
- Supply Run
- Prep the Room
- Skim Coat
- Paint
- Bedding
Supply Run
This is what Mark and I did for our anniversary date – but hey, it made us happy! It was nice to take our time wandering around Home Depot and making sure what we wanted to do – was doable for us!
Prep the Room
I am pretty bummed because I did not get a true “BEFORE” picture of what Sarah’s room looked like before we started taking things down. BUT, we needed to deconstruct Sarah’s daybed (which is going to get a new home in Lydia’s room), take down everything from the walls, move other large furniture out of the room, and cleaned the walls.
Skim Coat
This felt like the biggest piece to this week. Our “plan” (you know how I love my plans!), is to do board and batten in Sarah’s room.
In true Elise manner, I needed to make things complicated. Our walls are HIGHLY textured (I do not like it at all and will never understand this style) and I wanted it to have a smooth – TRUE BOARD – look to it. We played around with the idea of getting thin paneling for the walls but decided against it (though I am still not sure if that was the right choice or not).
So to give our walls a smooth look we decided to do a skim coat. This was really the only thing that took us out of our comfort zone this week. We got ready mixed joint compound and a mixing attachment and went to town. It definitely took a little trial and error (and we still need to go back and touch up some areas) but we LOVE how it turned out.
You take the joint compound, mix it with your mixing attachment on your drill, and then Mark would roll it out with a heavy nap paint roller and I would use a trowel to scrape it down the wall. This was tedious work. But the hardest part is definitely getting into the corners and other tight spaces. But it achieved the look we were going for and we are really happy! Once we were done, Mark went through with a damp sponge and gently scrubbed the wall which helped smooth things out and get rid of any dust like material.
Paint
Next up, PAINT! If you know us – we love color! Our home is all the same muted brown color and it just does nothing for us. So painting it our go to! It is important for me to have the kids involved in the planning of their rooms. I want their rooms to feel like THEM! Sarah picked the sweetest bedding (I love it so much!) and she wanted pink!
We toyed around with the idea of doing pink on the bottom but we are so happy we did it on the top! We love how it turned out and love the pink color (we have done pink before and did not love the color as much as we wanted to on the walls – so this was a BIG WIN!).
<< Also, just to clarify, we did the skim coat just where the white part is. The pink sections are the normal textured walls. >>
We love the BEHR Marquee brand at Home Depot and used Blank Canvas (DC-003) for the white and Malted (N160-2) for the pink color.
Bedding
The bedding was the first thing we received for Sarah’s room and I loved finally putting it all together once we got it painted. She loves it – especially all of the fluffy pillows! We also took out Sarah’s blinds (we love the openness without them) and added some curtains. It is so bright and beautiful – just like our Sarah.
Next Steps
We have quite a decent little checklist in Sarah’s room still. Here are the highlights:
- Board and Batten
- Bedframe
- Nightstands / Bookshelf
- Lighting
- Decor
- Paint closet
- Shelfing in closet
We can’t wait to move things along and start making our house feel more like us.
