Reader's Favorite Decor Archives - Blue i Style

Modern Dining Room Makeover

blueistyle — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 02:29:00 +0000

I couldn’t be more excited to share our dining room makeover with you! This has been my eighth One Room Challenge, and as always it was a race to the finish line… but we made it and the space turned out better than I had imagined. It also remains one of the hardest spaces in our house to photograph, so I hope my pictures do it justice.

Our kitchen dining area was the first to be decorated when we moved into our house ten years ago this month. That’s because it was one of the few rooms that we had furniture for after moving from our downtown loft. The moving company delivered our table and sideboard and we hung the same shelves and art that we’d had in our loft for the three years prior. Let me remind you where we started just six weeks ago…

Although I still love teal, I was ready for a more neutral backdrop in the kitchen, and I was really ready to update the glass furniture, and especially the curved glass shelves above the sideboard that really dated the dining room decor.

In addition to updating the style of the dining area, my other goals for the space included adding more storage, making the kitchen island more of a focal point, and finding a way to finally decorate the large, blank wall below our long, thin kitchen window. Add in a new rug, art, and a few new accessories, and our kitchen dining area has a very fresh new look!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Our house has lots of these high, skinny windows, and they’ve always presented such a design challenge to me. Over the past decade, I’ve slowly figured out creative ways to decorate around them in various rooms of the house. In the kitchen dining area however, I just couldn’t get it right. We added the words years ago, and I still love the quote, but the big blank wall below it was mocking me. Finally I found an inspiration photo where an entire wall was filled with three rows of large black and white photos and it struck me that I could create a similar look with two rows of framed photos below the window.

In the inspiration photo, the black and white pictures were matted with rounded corners. I couldn’t afford to get custom mats cut, so I instead used Photoshop to round the corners of the photos before printing them, then trimmed the excess white in the corners off and mounted the photos on top of mat board inside of these 20″x24″ frames to achieve the same look without the custom price tag.

Now instead of just seeing a big blank wall when you look across the dining table, the view is so much more interesting!

I especially love that all of the photos are ones Scott and I have captured in our travels, making this art display personal and meaningful to us.

As for my favorite feature in the new dining area, it’s a toss up between the wall of photos, the new tile, and the dining table. The X-shaped legs add so much interest to the space, and they also show of the mid-mod dining chairs that I searched for long and hard!

And I love the way the angles of the new chandelier mimic the angles of the table legs.

I wanted something for the center of the dining table that would be simple and streamlined, but would also be substantial enough to not look dwarfed by the 104″ long table. I selected a teal, velvet table runner that adds a gorgeous pop of bold color and then added a line of chunky candle holders.

In addition to changing the style of the furniture in the dining area, I also wanted to add more storage because… well, because you can never have enough storage!

To keep the project on budget, we opted for inexpensive storage cabinets from IKEA. I painted the light wood base black, and added modern, matte black cabinet pulls to give it a higher end look.

Pairing a gray cubical shelf with the white cabinets adds interest and gives me a new place to display some books and accessories, and I look forward to decorating this space for each season and holiday!

Another major change in this space is on the front of the kitchen island.

Where it was once just drywall painted the same teal color as the other walls, it’s now a graphic black and white tile!

We’ve had these clear, acrylic barstools for years, but they look better than ever in front of this statement tile.

Of course, we also updated the lighting above the island as well. I love these faceted pendant lights almost as much as I love their price tag (under $100 each).

Despite being a busy, bold pattern, the tile adds style to the overall kitchen design without being overwhelming.

Of all the changes we made in the kitchen on thing that stayed the same is the chalkboard wall. Most days this wall is covered in the kid’s drawings, but right now it features the owl mascot of my sons’ elementary school that I drew there for a Mom’s Happy Hour I’m hosting next week.

It used to be that when you rounded the corner from the entry way into the kitchen dining area, the big blank wall below the window was the first thing you saw. Now the first view of the space is so much better!

Looking beyond the dining table, you see the double-sided fireplace at the far end of the room.

When we bought the house, there was a chandelier hanging at the far end of the room, suggesting that the table should be right in front of the fireplace. We had an electrician move the chandelier electrical to the center of the space, allowing us to create a cozy sitting area in front of the fireplace instead. The small, black swivel chairs face the fireplace {which is also open to our back patio}, or can turn to face the dining table or the television above the wine rack.

Just behind the sitting area is the same wine rack we’ve had for many years.

I really loved the blue and teal over-dyed rug that we had in this sitting area before, but the style just didn’t go with the new tile on the front of the kitchen island. I started searching for a new rug that would still add some vibrant color to this end of the room without competing too much with the graphic black and white tile. I was thrilled to find this new rug on sale! It really lightens up the space and still has the deep teal color that I love. And the old rug has found a happy home in the upstairs hall.

To the left of the sitting area is our kids’ play kitchen. It was a gift from Santa four years ago, but still gets played with every day! I love how similar the style of this play kitchen is to our real kitchen, with the dark wood, silver appliances, and light brick backsplash.

Looking past the play kitchen is our back door and mini-mudroom.

Here’s a view toward the same corner of the kitchen, looking across the newly tiled island.

When we bought the house ten years ago, the kitchen cabinets stopped short of the back door, leaving an completely unused corner. A few years after moving in, we added matching cabinets to create a super functional mudroom-like space, complete with a bench, extra storage, and shelving for all of my cookbooks. This space looks about the same as it did before the makeover, but I did update it with a new rug and a couple of new teal, velvet pillows with a subtle paisley pattern.

That’s a wrap on this round of the One Room Challenge. Here’s one more look at the final before and afters…

SOURCE LIST:

104″ White Lacquer Dining Table

Teal, Velvet Table Runner

Tall Chunky Candle Holder

Short Chunky Candle Holder

Whtie Flameless Candles

Mid Century Modern Gray Dining Chairs

20×24″ Black Frames

Storage Cabinet with Doors

Storage Drawers

Storage Open Cubical Shelf

Matte Black Cabinet Pulls (Small / Doors)

Matte Black Cabinet Pulls (Long / Drawers)

Mobile Chandelier

Faceted Pendant Lights

Clear Acrylic Barstools

Black and White Graphic Porcelain Tile

Area Rug Under Swivel Chairs

Black and White Striped Rug

Teal Velvet Pillows

Kids’ Play Kitchen

The post Modern Dining Room Makeover appeared first on Blue i Style.

Shared Boys’ Bedroom Makeover

blueistyle — Thu, 11 May 2017 04:12:00 +0000

We’re all jumping for joy over here because the boys’ new room is finally finished! It’s bright and fun and a little wild, just like Beckett and Cooper, and I am so excited to show it to you!

This is One Room Challenge number seven in the books. It’s always a rush to the finish line, but once the room is done, it’s so much fun to take a step back and see what we’ve created through the lens of the camera. The boys were very active participants in designing this shared bedroom over the past six weeks, and it makes me so happy to see how much pride they take in their new space!

Let me remind you how the room looked as the nursery…

BEFORE

We first designed the nursery when I was pregnant with Beckett, who is now five, and then when Beckett was two he moved to a new room and Cooper took over this space. In the nearly four years that Cooper occupied the nursery, not much changed, other than the crib being converted to a toddler bed.

But a while back the boys started BEGGING to share a room, and specifically they requested bunk beds. The room is on the small side, but more than that, its proportions are awkward because it’s long and thin. Coming up with the right layout was a challenge, but we ended up with a space that that actually provides them with tons of storage for books and toys, and lots of open floor space to play.

Ok, let’s talk about the rainbow books for a minute. You might think, “Ugh, what a blogger thing to do!” But can I let you in on a secret? It wasn’t even my idea or my doing. Yep, my five year old son is OBSESSED with all things rainbow! He loves to draw and color – and it’s all rainbows all the time! He begged for a set of rainbow colored bowls on our last trip to IKEA. And when I asked him to help me bring some books in to fill up the shelves, he immediately started sorting them by color and asked if we could make a rainbow. What you see here is about two hours of his very diligent work! Of course, I don’t expect the boys to keep the books organized this way… so it’s totally up to Beckett if it looks this way next week or not. As long as they are on the shelves and not all over the floor, I’ll be a happy mom!

I know you guys like details, so I’ll link to as many of the products in the room as I can. Some of these are affiliate links – meaning that if you buy something that I recommend, I may make a small commission, but you still pay the same price. Win/win.

I don’t remember ever being very into stuffed animals as a kid. I mean, I had them, but I didn’t name them and create stories with them and LOVE them. But my boys are seriously into their stuffed animals and treat them with so much love and care. I feel like they are everywhere we turn, so I knew I needed to create a dedicated space for them where they could be put away but still easily accessible, and that’s where these adorable “wild animal” hampers come in.

When the boys and I started talking about updating this room and making it a space for them to share, there was never a moment of doubt that they wanted to keep the animal theme. It’s all animals all the time around here!

This collection of animal posters is really where the whole plan for the room began. As soon as I spotted them, I knew the boys would love them, and they have special meaning for me as well. All four are vintage travel posters posters from Qantas Airlines. When I studied abroad in Australia for six months in college, I did a ton of traveling around the country – always on Qantas Airlines.

Of course, boys who love books as much as ours do need a comfy place to read. We found this blue corduroy bean bag chair {which has now lost it’s oomph, but I’m replacing with this one or this one} and “Never Stop Exploring” pillow that fits the space perfectly. And because it’s so lightweight, the boys can easily move it around the room {or out of the way to get to the toy baskets at the end of the bed}.

We got really lucky when it comes to the bunk beds… they fit perfectly into this little nook, with only about 3 inches to spare. Had they not fit here, they wouldn’t have fit in the room at all. There was literally no where else they could go that wouldn’t block a window or a door.

Since the boys are still young, I was a bit nervous about traditional bunk beds with a ladder. While they can both navigate a ladder just fine, I worried about them knocking each other down in the midst of well-intentioned play. So I was thrilled when we found these bunk beds with stairs instead. And best of all, there are three large hidden drawers in the stairs, as well as extra storage shelves on the end.

Beckett has a major thing for maps, so it was a no brainer when I came across these world map duvet covers with animals on the various continents! And how cute are the orange and white plus-sign sheets?!

Thanks to GelFoamBed, who provided the new mattresses for the bunk beds, the beds not only look good, they’re also the most comfortable in the whole house! You can read much more about the mattresses in last week’s post, including why the boys think they are magic! There’s also a great discount code in case you are in need of new mattresses for your home.

The tiger and rhino pillows I bought at H&M Home are discontinued, but here’s a similar tiger with sunglasses pillow and a few debonair rhino pillow options.

The one piece of furniture in the room that did not change is this fun cabinet – called the Eiffel Bookcase – with the open center. It just moved from one side of the room to the other.

Above the cabinet hang three white faux taxidermy heads, including the cardboard elephant that they boys helped me put together this week. They are SO proud that they made him!

In the orange frames are photos that Scott and I took on our South African safari a few years ago. The boys were very young when we took that trip without them, but we spent lots of time reading them books about the animals we would be seeing before we went, and showing them photos when we returned. I really think that is what cemented their love of animals, so it seemed fitting that some photos from our safari be on display in the room.

We went on safari during spring in the Southern Hemisphere, which meant that we were lucky enough to see lots of very young babies – including a giraffe that had been born just the day before. When choosing photos to frame for the room, I decided to go with five of our favorite mom and baby shots.

Cooper’s love of animals is rivaled only by his love of cars and trucks, so it was important this room reflect that as well. He has lots of transportation toys in baskets behind the doors of the Eiffel bookcase, but some of his favorites are on display in the white wire basket in the center opening.

And the two side-by-side rugs are so, so much fun. The moment I spotted these rugs, I knew that Cooper would see the white dotted lines as roads.

He has already been having so much fun driving around his favorite dump truck and digger.

The rainbow zebra poster was a must have for my rainbow-loving kiddo. Bonus points to anyone who can identify the colorful things on the shelf behind the tall giraffe. If you said vuvuzelas then you must be a true soccer fan! These instruments were originally used to summon distant African villagers to community gatherings, but are now more commonly used at football matches. We bought these two hand-painted vuvuzelas for the boys during our trip to South Africa, and I just love the way the colorful patterns look displayed on this shelf.

My favorite DIY project in the room is the orange doors fronts on the bottom of the IKEA Kallax bookshelves. I thought about painting them, but then came up with an easier {and temporary} solution. I’ll share the “how to” details on this easy transformation soon.

The animal head handles on the doors I spray painted white to match all of the other white animals in the room. I had intended originally planned to use on these on the boys’ dresser drawers… before we decided to ditch the dresser in favor of two bookshelves.

Since I only had six of the animal-head handles {and they’ve since been discontinued} I decided to only install six door fronts on the bookshelf, leaving one spot open for a basket and blanket.

Behind each of the orange doors are blue bins to keep the boys’ toys organized and make clean-up quick and easy!

That framed photo on top of the bookshelf is one of my very favorite photos of my boys. It was taken at the San Diego Zoo last fall, and I just adore them in their animal print sunglasses carrying with the Fisher Price binoculars that were mine when I was a kid. They called that zoo trip their “safari,” so it seemed fitting that this photo be on display in their new safari bedroom. And I finally found the perfect place to use my mini cinema light box.

For those who are wondering what happens to Beckett’s bedroom {the one I designed for my first-ever ORC three years ago} now that the boys are sharing this room… the answer is, nothing is changing. That room is staying just the way it is – argyle wall, necktie play tent, belt shelves and all. B & C spent most of their time playing in that room already, so it will remain a play space. We’re calling it their “lounge.”

The open floor space in this new room is perfect for playing cars and building, while the round play table in the center of the lounge is great for puzzles and board games. We are leaving Beckett’s toddler bed in the lounge as well, so that if they boys ever need to sleep apart, they can. And the rest of the time that bed can serve as a couch for reading books {oh yes, they still have two more shelves full of books in that room as well}.

Oh, I almost forgot! Remember how I told you that we were making over the boys’ bathroom at the same time as the bedroom?! While we managed to fit a lot of the boys’ favorite things into the bedroom {animals, maps, rainbows, trucks}…we paid homage to their love of super heroes in the bathroom instead. We finished that space a couple of weeks ago, and you can tour the sophisticated super hero bathroom here!

Thanks so much for stopping by for the big reveal! Thank you also to Calling it Home, and media partner House Beautiful, for hosting this wonderful event!

Now be sure to head over to Calling it Home where you’ll find links to the finished spaces of all 200+ other One Room Challenge participants. Grab your coffee and settle in … there are SO MANY amazing rooms to see!

SHOP THIS ROOM

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A Sophisticated Superhero Bathroom Makeover

blueistyle — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 14:46:00 +0000

No one has ever accused me of being afraid of color! In the nine years that we’ve lived in our current home, I’ve painted nearly every color you can think of on our walls. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, teal, gray… our house has seen it all.

But there is one bold statement that I’ve always wanted to make that intimated even me. BLACK! Sure we have a skinny black chalkboard wall in our kitchen, but I’m talking a whole black room… all four walls. BOLD!

Well, guess what? I finally went for it and I love it SO MUCH! I can’t wait to show you all of the details! Thanks to my sponsor, Lowe’s for helping to make this project a reality!

You’ve probably heard me describe our style many times as Modern Graphic Family, and today I’m so excited to show you a recent weekend makeover that is a perfect example of we strike a balance between bold, stylish decor and life with kids. This “before” bathroom was perfectly fine, but it definitely didn’t say “little boys live here.”

Since this bathroom is attached to Cooper’s bedroom {which the boys will soon be sharing}, I’ve been wanting to give it a fresh new look that better reflects the kids. But I was a bit stumped because this bathroom also has a second door that opens into the upstairs hallway, and it’s positioned such that you look directly in at the toilet when you reach the top of the second floor stairs.

As a result, I really wanted to create an updated look for this bathroom that the boys wouldn’t outgrow too quickly, and one that would also blend in with the rest of the house. That sounds like a tall order, but it turns out it was actually pretty easy to achieve.

I came up with an idea to create a sophisticated superhero themed bathroom. I envisioned black, white, silver and gold, rather than the standard primary colors that often come to mind for kids’ spaces. As the plan started to come together, I hit up my local Lowe’s in search of the perfect shade of black paint.

It’s so nice to be able to look at several different brands of paint all in one store, and I wound up bringing home swatches from Sherwin Williams, Valspar, and Olympic. Sherwin Williams had the widest variety of black options, and while they may all look alike, in various lights they actually look quite different!

It can feel overwhelming trying to pick just the right color of paint. I always analyze the undertones and wonder how it will look once it’s actually up on all of the walls. Thanks goodness for the Lowe’s Love Your Paint Guarantee, which takes the stress out of picking a paint color! I wound up choosing Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black, and it’s a perfect, true black. But if it had turned out not to be quite right, I could have simply returned the unused portion of the can to Lowe’s within 30 days and they would have replaced it with a new color or refunded my money.

I originally planned to just paint the bathroom and add some new art, but I decided that if I was ever

going to update the mirror and light, now was the time. I knew that any framed mirror I picked would end up being a bit smaller than the existing mirror, so it was much easier to remove the mirror now, sand the adhesive off of the wall, and paint the entire area behind where the new mirror would hang.

Once we had a totally blank palette, I was ready to start painting. I gathered up all of the paint supplies that I picked up at Lowe’s, including a small 4-inch roller {perfect for the tight spaces in the small bathroom}, a disposable paint tray sized just right for the roller, an edging tool, and a paint can lid for pouring and storing.

I always have such a hard time pouring paint from the can into the roller tray without dripping everywhere. It’s a job I always delegate to my husband because he has far superior pouring skills. I had never tried a Shur-Line paint can lid before, but it caught my eye when I was browsing the wide selection of painting supplies at Lowe’s, and now it’s my new favorite thing! You just snap it on to the top of the paint can and use the narrow spout to pour the paint. Then when you’re done pouring, the spout folds down for storage. No more hammering a paint covered lid back in place and searching for a paint can key to open it again!

Before I got started, I did have a few concerns about whether painting the walls black would really be a big enough change from our existing gray bathroom walls. But as soon as I rolled those first strokes onto the wall, I could see that it was definitely going to be the dramatic difference I was hoping for!

This bathroom is quite small, with lots of very narrow sections of wall between door frames, above the tile, and below the counter. To make easy work of these compact spaces, I used the Shur-Line edging tool that allows you to get a nice crisp paint line around all of the edges. You’ll notice that I did still use painter’s tape as well. I suspected that it would be hard touch up the white trim paint over the black, so I wanted to be extra cautious.

I used Sherwin Williams Infinity paint from Lowe’s, which is supposed to give good one coat coverage. I had to touch up just a few thin spots here and there, but there was no need for a full second coat, which was perfect for the one-weekend timeline that we allocated to this makeover!

Once the paint was dry, we removed the tape and started putting the bathroom back together. A few hours later, I was amazed at the transformation!

All of the white tile and trim in the bathroom creates a great balance to the pure black walls. I just love the crispness of the contrast.

The boys love superheroes, so I created this super simple framed art to hang above the toilet. It was a quick and easy DIY project, but I think that these streamlined gold and silver framed logos will stand the test of time. By making them a bit a more “sophisticated,” I’m hopeful that the boys won’t feel they’ve outgrown the look of this bathroom for a very long time.

On the tray on the back of the toilet, I added a framed photo of the boys in their Batman and Spiderman costumes from this past Halloween, because it really just doesn’t get any cuter than that!

The counter top in this bathroom is quite narrow, so a standard-sized framed mirror was too wide. Fortunately, we were able to find a smaller-scale white frame mirror in the decorative mirror section at Lowe’s and it fits the space perfectly. We also swapped out the aged-bronze and amber glass light fixture for a more modern pewter and clear glass version from the Lowe’s lighting department. The new light has three bulbs instead of two, which provides just the right amount of added light in the room to counteract the darker walls.

We also swapped out the old faucet for a newer, more modern style that I found at Lowe’s as well. I much prefer the straighter lines of this faucet over our old style, and I hope to eventually change out the faucets in all of the other bathrooms to match this one.

Did you notice the glasses on the counter? When my husband was the age that our boys are now, Superman was his favorite and he had would insist that he was Clark Kent {while donning the signature glasses}. Since our boys love playing dress up, we thought they now needed their own pair of Clark Kent glasses!

Beckett’s favorite superhero is Batman, and Cooper’s is Spiderman… so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found these metal letters with their favorites on their initials!

The boys LOVE their new superhero bathroom, and I love how it now coordinates with the second floor hallway. If you’re going to look right into a bathroom every time you come up the stairs, it might as well look coordinated, right?!

The new black and white color scheme in the bathroom ties together perfectly with the black and white artwork in the hall…

And I just love the way it looks next to the black and white striped hall cabinet that we use as extra storage for bathroom towels and other items that don’t fit in the small cabinet under the sink.

I’m so glad that I went for it with the black paint in this small bathroom! I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Lowe’s, but as always, all opinions are my own.

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Graphic Glam Master Bathroom Makeover

blueistyle — Thu, 12 May 2016 05:15:00 +0000

I recently read a quote from interior designer Ken Fulk that said, “Design should inspire and make you smile, and should never be a bore.” Just six short weeks ago our master bathroom was definitely a bore, but now it’s so graphic, and glam, and just plain pretty, that I can’t stop smiling from ear to ear.

During the course of the One Room Challenge, our bathroom has gone from the most ignored room in the house, to my very favorite room! I’m so excited to finally be able to share it with you, so get comfortable and maybe grab a cup of coffee {or a glass of wine} because I have a lot of photos!

This post contains sponsored and affiliate links. If you buy something that I recommend, you pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Just a few thank yous before I hit you with picture overload. First, I have to thank Linda, from Calling it Home, for hosting the One Room Challenge! Twice a year this awesome design event drives me to create a beautiful and bold new space in our home, and it’s so fun doing it along side an amazing group of fellow designers and bloggers who encourage and inspire each other to reach the finish line!

I also have to give a HUGE thank you to each of my One Room Challenge sponsors, without whom this room would not have been possible: Lamps Plus, Home Right, Minted, and Cement Tile Shop! It’s an honor to partner with such wonderful companies!

Let me remind you what this space looked like in week 1. It was fine, but a bit of a bore and very, very beige.

This was the mood board I created to get our plans on track…

And now, welcome to my graphic glam master bathroom…

There’s so much to see, it’s hard to know where to start. The obvious show stopper, of course, is the graphic black and white Circulos tile from Cement Tile Shop paired with those totally fabulous black and white striped Possini Euro Elfi LED Circle Pendants from Lamps Plus!

I seriously can’t get enough of that view!

Besides its general beige-ness, I had two major gripes about our old bathroom: (1) the one giant mirror above the counter added no style, and did nothing but reflect back the rest of the boring space.

And, (2) the lack of door on our closet meant that the mess inside was not only visible from the bathroom, but was also reflected back at me every time I looked in the giant mirror.

The one big mirror has been replaced with three 20 x 40 mirrors floating in white wood frames from West Elm. And instead of seeing the messy closet reflected back in the mirrors, I now see the reflection of our gorgeous new barn door!

For years we’ve struggled to figure out how to put a door over the closet opening. There’s no room for a door to open into the closet, but a door opening out into the bathroom would have always been in the way, either blocking the path into the bathroom from the bedroom, or covering the entrance to the water closet. We envisioned a three ring circus of door opening and closing as Scott and I both got ready in the morning.

At some point in time it occurred to us that a barn door could be the solution to the closet problem, except that we had a TV on the wall that got in the way. A TV that I’d grown very attached to and didn’t want to give up. I enjoy watching the news in the morning, and watching late night reruns from the tub after the kids go to bed.

My genius husband came up with an answer that allowed me to keep my precious bathroom television AND get the barn door I wanted to enclose the closet. We hired a contractor to inset a new, thinner TV into the bathroom wall {which required just a small two-inch bump-out into the wall of the closet that doesn’t impact storage space}.

Rather than matching the existing bathroom doors, I picked a five panel glass door that we painted ourselves using my Home Right paint sprayer, and we hung the door using antique style barn door hardware that I found for a great price online.

Closed, the barn door does its job of hiding our closet while looking quite stylish. Open, the barn door slides right in front of the TV, allowing access to the closet without getting in the way!

Another challenge in the bathroom is the positioning of the water closet. When you look from the bedroom into the bathroom, you have a direct view of the toilet. Not exactly ideal!

Since I obviously couldn’t change the position of the toilet without major construction, I instead came up with a plan to camouflage and distract. We added inexpensive 4×12 white ceramic tile to the lower portion of the room, which helps the white toilet to blend in, and then we painted the rest of the room charcoal gray {to match the one dark wall in our master bedroom}. Added shelves and art created a new focal point, and now its a view I actually enjoy for the bedroom.

The two blue New York and Brooklyn map prints are from Amazon, and the other three pieces of art were all provided by Minted {from top to bottom: Scribbles in Blue by Yao Cheng; Blackbird Chain by Misty Hughes; and Black & White Abstract Spin by Lauren Webster}.

The marble shelves above the toilet… they are actually just inexpensive shelves that I transformed using marble contact paper and spray paint {tutorial coming soon}. And can you believe that I found towels that match the cement tile wall?!

One final little update to the water closet – we swapped out the cheap, white plastic lever on the toilet with a much more stylish, silver lever. It’s just a little detail, but it really does give the space a more high end feel for very little cost.

There’s still one side of the room we haven’t looked at yet. Talk about a bathtub with a view…

Before moving to our current house 9 years ago, we lived on the 10th floor of a downtown condo with a pretty awesome view of the Denver skyline. When we sold that condo, the city view was definitely the hardest thing to give up, so a few years ago we decided to recreate it on the bathroom wall as a giant photo mural above the tub.

The mural was one of the only parts of the old bathroom design that I really wanted to keep, but since we had to take it down to paint the walls {Benjamin Moore Metropolitan Gray is the new wall color}, I decided to come up with a better way to rehang the mural {since the last time was a pain in the rear, and always a little crooked}. This time around the mural took less than 20 minutes to install and it’s darn near perfect! I even took a video to show you how I did it, which I’ll be posting soon.

The smaller wall at the back of the tub was just wasted space before, and I was always stacking bath items on the narrow corners of the tub.

I always envisioned some kind of shelves for bubble bath and candles, but it turned out even better than I imagined.

I’ve been itching to add some brass and acrylic to a room, and this little nook turned out to the perfect space for both! I installed two 18″ brass towel bars side by side, with two double acrylic shelves above them. The black and white patterned bath towels and the Mr. and Mrs. hand towels are all from H&M Home.

I framed a black and white photo that I took inside the D&F Clocktower in downtown Denver, and then styled the shelves with functional pieces, including numerous pretty jars of bath salts. Sources: Axis candle holder {originally from Crate & Barrel, similar on Amazon}; dark gray canister; blue glass jar.

I have quite a few bottles of bubble bath, but wanted to find a nicer way to display them than just sitting them on the shelf since the colors and labels don’t match well. I found a pretty, gold metal storage box that was just the right size to hold six bottles of bubble bath and bath gel. For my bath bombs, I bought an inexpensive acrylic apothecary jar. Bottom shelf sources: blue glass jar; glass jar with lid and tassel; spotted cup; SENSE candle; CALM candle.

And that brings us back around to my FAVORITE part of the room. That dreamy black and white graphic wall above the bathroom counter!

The counter is a full 8 feet long, so it really needed something in the center to break up all that flat space. I love the white tulips on my nightstand in the bedroom, so I decided that a couple of vases of tulips on the bathroom counter would help to tie the two spaces together. I picked up a large gold metallic vase and blue glass vase, which I paired with a silver bowl I already owned.

The bowl provides a perfect place for me to drop my jewelry at the end of the night.

Next to each sink hangs a white striped hand towel with our initials above {we’ve had the letters for years, but Michael’s currently has a huge assortment}.

I updated our old soap pumps and washi tape striped canisters with prettier, yet super affordable replacements. Sources: soap pump; glass canister.

I haven’t shown you any close ups the shower, because it’s not much to photograph, and we didn’t make any changes to that corner of the bathroom. The shower has the same tile as the floor, a long bench, two shower heads, and a great view of the whole room. Here’s what you see looking out through the glass door of the shower {when the closet door is closed, the shower has a direct line of sight to the TV as well}.

The one thing I haven’t talked about yet is the lettering on the closet barn door. I’ve pinned lots of similar glass pantry and laundry room doors over the years, so I wanted to come up with something fun for the closet door. Finally it came to me – “Dressing Room.”

In my mind, I was thinking of a dressing room at a fancy boutique. When I shared the idea with my husband, he responded that he loved the nod to his theater career. I had to laugh because I honestly hadn’t even thought of Dressing Room in that context, even though it was such an obvious connection. But I love that it’s a little something for both of us.

I really enjoy taking long baths, but I always hated that I had to look straight into the messy closet, which was not super relaxing. I suppose it really it should have motivated me to better organize the closet, and I will eventually, but adding a door seemed like the better option.

The view from my tub is so much nicer now! I can relax and enjoy my 90’s TV reruns without thinking of the laundry I should be doing. {Oh, hi there Ross!}

If you’ve been following along closely throughout the course of the One Room Challenge, you may notice that there are a few of things that didn’t make it in to this space. First, I had wanted to change out the faucets to a more modern style. New faucets didn’t make the cut in the budget, but I actually think the current faucets {that previously felt to traditional for our modern house} actually fit pretty well with the new glam elements in the design.

I had also talked about adding a candle chandelier above the bathtub, but I ended up deciding that corner of the room had enough going on, and worried that the hanging candle holders would make it feel too busy.

Finally, last week I asked for opinions on which large rug I should buy for the middle of the bathroom. I picked option D, but when it arrived, the colors were not as they appeared online! Instead of light gray, charcoal, white, and light beige, the rug was dark beige and brown. Totally not right for the space. I went back to reconsider the other three options, but I couldn’t get on board with a mostly white rug in a bathroom {I knew I’d regret it the first time I dropped a makeup compact}, and the reviews of the chevron-ish rug said it was black and dark beige, rather than white-ish. So none were quite right.

I actually picked up an alternative rug for only $20 at IKEA, but in the end I thought it was just too dark. In the end, I opted for no rug rather than the wrong rug, but may still add one in the future if I find something perfect.

SHOP THIS ROOM

Now that I can finally call this space DONE, if any one needs me, this is where I’ll be…

Just me, my bubbles, my magazines, my Friends reruns, my view of Denver, my glass of Asti. One happy girl right here!

Thank you guys so much for checking out our new master bathroom, and thanks for all of the encouraging comments over the past six weeks! Be sure to head over to Calling it Home, where you’ll find links to all of the other One Room Challenge room reveals!

Over the next few weeks {or maybe months} I’ll be sharing some tutorials and many more details about this space, including my super fast new painting trick, how I hung the photo mural in under 20 minutes, how to create DIY faux marble shelves, and everything you need to know if you’re thinking of installing a barn door.

MY PAST ORC SPACES

If you are interested, you can also check out each of my prior One Room Challenge spaces: my son’s menswear inspired bedroom {complete with hand painted argyle wall}; our master bedroom; a rock & roll playroom under the basement stairs; and our laundry/linen closet.

linked up at Remodelaholic

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A Music Themed Playroom Under the Stairs

blueistyle — Thu, 07 May 2015 05:09:00 +0000

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth…because I’m HAPPY! Beckett declared that our family song a few months back, and it seems the perfect anthem for today’s One Room Challenge reveal post because we are one HAPPY family!

Scott and I are happy that we made it to the finish line, the under stairs playroom is done, and we can sleep! The boys are happy because, well… wouldn’t you be if this were your space?!

This former storage space under the basement stairs hardly qualifies as a room – a 12.5 foot long, 3 foot wide former storage space under our stairs. In just five weeks time we’ve transformed the space into one pretty incredible under stairs playhouse for our two young boys (Beckett, 3 and Cooper, almost 2).

Here’s what the space looked like when we started… it was nothing more than a poorly utilized storage space.

Emptied out, you can get a better sense of just how long and thin it is.

We brainstormed so many different ways to turn this space into an under the stairs play space, and we ultimately resisted the urge to turn this narrow hideout into a preschool fantasy land with a typical little boy theme that the boys would quickly outgrow.

Instead we created a colorful, rock & roll inspired “studio” where the boys can make music, play, and be creative for many years to come!

You can read the whole back story in my planning post, but two things you should know: (1) the plans for an under stair playroom date all the way back to my childhood; and (2) our boys never knew this space existed until last night – it was a complete surprise!

I’ll tell you more as we go along, but first, Beckett and Cooper have a question for you…

This post also contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you will pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Without further ado… Welcome to Beckett and Cooper’s under stairs music studio!

We wanted the boys to have a sense of privacy in this space {they love to close doors}, but we still want to be able to keep an eye on them, so Scott and his dad cut the door down to turn it in to a Dutch door with only the lower half installed.

Once the door is open, you get a full view of the room in all of its glowing glory! We lined the edges of the room in LED rope lighting, and lighted red carpet rugs that would make any kid feel like a rock star!

I need to send a huge thanks to the two incredible companies that sponsored portions of this room, Ikea Centennial and Command Brand! Ikea provided us with most of the products you see on the gallery wall, and Command provide us with hundreds of Picture Hanging Strips to allow us to hang all the records on the ceiling completely damage free.

We also used the Command Brand Picture Hanging Strips to keep the frames on the gallery wall securely in place – no need to worry if the boys bump into them running in and out of the space… they aren’t going anywhere!

If you are curious where any of the products in this space came from, I’ve link most within the text of this post, or you can hop over to the playroom source list for a complete list. At the bottom of this post, you’ll also find links to detailed tutorials for the DIY projects in this space.

But for now, just enjoy the pictures…

Because the space is so narrow {35 inches to be exact} we made the decision early on that this wouldn’t be a place to store many toys. Instead, we wanted use the wall space to engage their creativity while keeping the floor space open so they can take toys in and out as they wish, perform on their microphones, play their little instruments, or simply curl up to read {one of their favorite things to do}.

MUSIC & ART GALLERY WALL

There’s a lot going on on this wall, so let me break it down for you. The poster with the chimpanzee wearing headphones was the very first item we purchased for the wall, and he might just be my favorite part! But the musical instrument alphabet poster is also pretty cool! All the frames on this wall are part of the Ikea Ribba series.

Let’s talk about that hand guitar hanger, shall we? Beckett wanted a guitar for his second birthday, and we decided it should have a prominent place in this music-themed play space. And nothing says prominent more than a giant silver hand sticking out of the wall, right?!

We also wanted this gallery wall to be a place where the kids could display their own art work. Four frames are filled with colorful sheet music from different Beatles songs, each with a clip to hold our boys’ masterpieces.

Our boys love to make noise! What boy doesn’t right? So we installed rails with small buckets to hold lots of their little noise making devices within easy reach.

They even have a cute, red toy accordion that I hung from one of the rails.

The boys also have quite a few larger toy instruments that we store elsewhere, but now they have a perfect place to jam!

The ceiling slopes all the way down to the floor, making the back of the space a perfect reading nook for curling up with some comfy pillows and a good book! Our boys love to read, so adding some book storage was a must.

We bought the boys a small collection of new books all about music and displayed them in wall mounted magazine racks {similar to these}.

To help fill the wall space around the book racks, I added two black and white photos taken by their uncle – one of piano keys, the other guitar strings.

MAGNETIC WALL & PING PONG WALL COASTER

The sheet metal wall opposite the gallery wall serves many purposes – one of which is for use with magnetic alphabet letters and numbers, which we are storing in more plastic buckets. But the real reason we installed the sheet metal wall is this…

…pipes and plumbing pieces with magnets on the back that can be configured and reconfigured to create a ping pong ball wall coaster {also known as a ball run or a tinker track}!

Our goal was to design a play space that will grow with them for many years, and I can see 11 and 12 year old Cooper and Beckett having just as much fun with this magnetic ball run as they will now. Heck, I had a ton of fun setting it up just for these photos!

When they are done creating their mazes, all the parts and pieces can easily be stored right on the wall.

DIY SHEET MUSIC FEATURE WALL

So what does it look like when you’re at the back of the space looking toward the door? I’m glad you asked!

We installed black trim molding on both side walls, and I collaged the entire upper portion of these walls and above the door in the sheet music for Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” {which Beckett has dubbed our “family song”}.

I created a series of music lyric posters that I added on top of the sheet music using thin, colored washi tape.

The “STUDIO” marquee letters add yet another element of mood lighting in the space. The photo below also gives you a good view of the new light fixture that we installed on the wall.

I’m all about the details…so it makes me giddy that the trim molding has ridges that look so similar to the ridges in the records on the ceiling.

CEILING WALL COVERED IN VINYL RECOREDS

And speaking of the records on the sloped ceiling wall…I guess I should talk about those too! Not that you could have possibly missed them!

There are a total of 135 records on the ceiling. The ceiling was the right width for 5 records across with just about a quarter of an inch to spare. And 27 rows of records fit the ceiling from top to bottom exactly. It was like this ceiling was made for these records!

If you are interested in the details about the products used in this room, you’ll find the answers in the complete source list post, and in the following weeks for lots I’ll be posting numerous tutorials. I’ve also posted an adorable video of the boys seeing the playroom for the first time, together with some fun photos of them enjoying the space. So if you like cute kid pictures, be sure to check that out here!

Thanks for rocking out with us! If you want to catch up on the five weeks of work that led to this big reveal, you’ll find each of those posts here.

UNDER THE STAIRS PLAYROOM PROJECTS & TUTORIALS

Under the Stairs Playroom Reveal

Under Stair Playroom Source List

How to Cover a Wall in Vinyl Records - Damage Free!

DIY Sheet Music Feature Wall + Free Printable Song Lyrics Posters

Easy Kids' Art Display Boards

Playroom Featured in 5280 Home Magazine

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Modern Master Bedroom Makeover

blueistyle — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 08:50:00 +0000

Whew! The One Room Challenge is serious! Serious pressure, and serious motivation! It’s been an exhausting six weeks! I was working down to the wire, but now that our master bedroom redesign is finally complete, I am ecstatic to be sharing the reveal photos today!

Let me pause for just a moment to catch you up. The One Room Challenge is a twice annual blogging event hosted by the fabulous Linda, of Calling it Home. During the ORC, bloggers redesign an entire room in just six weeks time, sharing their progress each week along the way, leading up to the big reveal {that’s today}. If you’d like to catch up on each of my weekly updates, you’ll find the links at the bottom of this post.

In the spring, I participated in the ORC for the first time, designing a room for my toddler son that I dubbed his “Vintage Preppy Little Gentleman’s Lounge.” It was such a great experience that I couldn’t pass up another One Room Challenge this fall.

This time around I took on one of the most neglected spaces in our home – the master bedroom! Isn’t it always the case that we put our own space last? Our house is three stories, and our master bedroom and bathroom, together with a deck, make up the entire third floor. It’s great having such a private space, but it wasn’t living up to it’s potential. Our room wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. It had the beginnings of a style that represented us, but it was incomplete and felt blah! Back in Week 1, I shared my plans for the redesign, which would bring a hefty dose of our Modern Metro style to the master bedroom.

You’ll notice that quite a few things in the room stayed the same – the major furniture pieces, the layout, and the comforter. But there are also a whole lot that’s new – the light grey paint color {that replaced blah tan}, the drapes, coverlet, rug, chair, ottoman, and a whole lot of new art! The room now feels finished, and it’s a much more grown up version of our style!

Ok, so enough with the explanation. Let’s get on with the photos! A complete source list will follow next week.

Because the room has a fireplace {I know, so lucky!}, a large window, and two sliders – there’s really only one good configuration for our furniture. When you enter the room – the dresser is immediately in front of you. We have a television on our dresser, and we really do use it daily, so it had to stay – but I’ve always hated that the tv is the first thing you see when you walk through the door. One of my major goals for the redesign was to make the television feel like less of a focal point – and the solution was to hang a gallery wall around the tv.

I spent a large portion of the last six weeks planning this gallery wall, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

Read my Gallery Wall Planning Tutorial with lots of tips {especially great for those of you with Type A personalities, like me!}

The painting that hangs immediately above the tv used to be above our bed. The scale wasn’t right in its prior location, so I relocated it and incorporated it into the gallery wall. To tie in the beige and golden tones of the painting, I added the large brass R as well as a few touches of gold.

I wanted the gallery wall to be a mix of art and photographs, but I didn’t have the budget to purchase any more art, so I made my own. I found three pieces of art that I loved at West Elm, and then set about creating my own versions to get the look for less {much, much less}. The book page spiral art was one of these three projects {you can read about the others here}.

The gallery wall also gave me an excuse to finally frame the extra photo stamps for our wedding stationery {a project I’ve wanted to do for a long time}.

The television sits on top of a wood stand that we built a few years ago to hold our DVD player and Tivo. As a result, the tv sits quite high, so I wanted to add some height to each end of the dresser to help balance things out. On right side are three vases that I collected for the room over the years.

And on the right side is a new lamp that I feel head over heels in love with! It reminds me of an old streetlamp, which fits perfectly with the modern metropolitan style of the room.

Next to the lamp sits our wedding invitation in a double sided frame {the text of the invitation is visible on the other side}.

And here’s how the gallery wall looks when the tv is on. I love that it now looks like just another piece of art in the mix. In the coming weeks, I’ll share my tips for planning a gallery wall in a limited, fixed space.

On the bed side of the room, the art needed an upgrade upsize, and the nightstands were desperately in need of some styling!

I love the new paintings above the bed, and to make them really pop, we created “frames” around them from trim moulding that we nailed directly to the wall {tutorial to follow}.

We painted the moulding around the art white to match all of the other trim in the room, which makes the dark paintings really stand out on the dark grey wall.

The pillow on the bed is really special to us because it is made from our wedding aisle runner. And the new coverlet was handmade by my mom from Nate Berkus fabric that I’d been lusting after for nearly a year.

I like our wall mounted sconces, but I feel like they makes nightstand styling more of a challenge. I did a lot of experimenting and tweaking, but I finally came up with his and hers styled nightstands that I am really happy with.

My husband’s nightstand is made more masculine by the addition of a bowl of black baseballs {he painted that striped bowl himself when I dragged him to a paint your own pottery place when we were first dating}.

On my side of the bed, the nightstand is made more feminine by the addition of a vase of tulips, and a wicker basket on the bottom shelf now gives me a place to store my design magazines for late night reading.

We swapped out the builder grade sconces for these silver string sconces when we first moved in, and I love them just as much today as I did on day one. They fit perfectly with the new style of the room!

For nearly three years, corner of our room was occupied by a cradle. Each of our boys slept here for the majority of his first year. But now that we are out of the infant stage, it was time to reclaim this corner.

I relocated a bench from our second floor hall, and added a floor length mirror {something I’ve been wanting for a long time}.

Above the bench hang two metallic finish photos of New York City. I shared the tutorial on these DIY metallic photos when I first started blogging {three more smaller metallic photos hang on the other side of the room}. During redesign process I decided I wanted these NYC photos to stay {although I did up date a couple of the pictures with ones we took on our babymoon to New York last spring}.

Looking toward the other side of the room, you see the two large sliders that used to feel like big black holes. I love our roller, solar shades that let in light and maintain our view during the day, while still giving us plenty of privacy, but without drapes on the sides, they just didn’t look good.

After searching for drapes and not finding what I wanted, I enlisted my mom to help make custom, flat panel curtains from that fabulous alphabet fabric. These flat panel curtains have a sleek, modern look that perfectly suits our style, and it also shows off the large graphic pattern of the fabric better than regular, wavy drapery panels.

A while back I found a chair on sale in hopes of creating a cozy reading nook in the corner of our bedroom. The chair was comfortable, but it just wasn’t working in the space – especially not with the black and beige rug {the pack and play also didn’t add to the cozy reading nook vibe.

I wanted to find a chair with a higher back and more comfortable arms. Something I could really curl up in. When Home Decorators Collection learned that I was shopping for a new chair, they offered to sponsor my One Room Challenge by giving me a chair! With such a large selection to choose from, it was a difficult decision, but I ended up selecting the Meloni Armchair in black herringbone, and I am so thrilled with how it looks in the room. And it’s every bit as cozy as I hoped it would be!

Since the Meloni armchair does not have a matching ottoman, and since the budget was tight, I purchased an inexpensive ottoman {which arrived needing some touch ups}. The Meloni has brass colored nailheads, and I already owned the silver side table. To tie everything together, I decided to add two rows of nailheads to the ottoman – one row brass, the other row silver.

Adding the nailheads was a bit labor intensive, but the adding this detail to the ottoman cost next to nothing and really makes it look so much higher end.

I am so excited to finally have a comfortable place to put my feet up and read {in all my spare time}. Reading for book club just got a whole lot more relaxing!

In the other corner of our bedroom is our large armoire. When we had babies in our room, I converted the armoire to baby central – with a changing station and all of the baby necessities {clothes, blankets, diapers, and swaddlers} hidden inside. Now that it is not longer needed as baby central, I have other plans for the armoire. The top of the armoire holds a small collection of metal skyline sculptures, but they were never much of a focal point.

To tie the armoire in with the rest of the room, and to highlight the sculptures, I picked up a shadow box canvas and created a quick and easy skyline painting {tutorial}.

I used metallic paints to help bounce the light around and add some interest to the top of the large black armoire, and to serve as a backdrop for the metal buildings.

Next to the armoire hang three more metallic NYC photos.

That concludes the tour of my One Room Challenge Modern Metro Master Bedroom. I feel like we now finally have a retreat – somewhere to escape to at the end a long day after the kids have fallen asleep. It took a lot of effort for me to not fill the room with photos of our kids – but I really wanted this space to be about the two of us as a couple. The rest of the house is for the family – this space is for us. I love everything about it and look forward to sleeping here for the first time tomorrow night {we temporarily relocated to our guest room while the work was ongoing}.

Below is a collection of all the posts and projects in this Modern Metro Master Bedroom {more links will be added as I post additional tutorials}:

Want to see all of my other One Room Challenge projects? You’ll find theme here.

Linked up at www.remodelaholic.com, Thrifty Decor Chic

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