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Fawn Rumfield

Tutorials

How to Restore Old Doors that Have been Painted

Today’s post has been a long time coming. Because this project is not for the faint of heart. If you live in an old house, chances are, you have old doors. And, if you’re like me, many of those doors have been painted over time and time again. Now, maybe you’re luckier than me and a paintbrush has never touched your wood doors. But about half the doors in our house have been painted. With multiple layers of paint.

We plan on restoring all of them eventually, but hadn’t gotten around to any of it. But, since we’ve been working on the nursery, I figured the best doors to start with would be the two painted doors in there. Now, I’ve stripped a lot of furniture in the last several years, and restored a lot of tables and dressers, but I’d actually never done a door before. So consider this my totally non-professional guide on how to restore doors that have been painted.

Step One

Remove your door from the room that it’s in, and take it somewhere you’ll have room to work. Remove all the hinges and hardware.

Because I’m such a professional blogger I forgot to take a photo of the door while it was still in the room, but here it is outside of my garage before I got started. You can see in the corner of this photo the other door that I was already working one. I did this same process to both doors.

Step Two

If your house was built before 1978, you may have some lead paint. I use these tests to check for lead. Luckily for me, neither of the doors I was working on had lead paint, so that meant I could continue. If your paint tests positive for lead, you may want to consider your options. I would not recommend the following method. If there are multiple layers of paint, the most likely culprit will be the oldest paint, or the bottom layer, so be sure to check that.

Step Three

I found (after some trial and error with paint stripper) that the quickest way to go about removing paint quickly is to scrape it while it’s dry. I tried stripper, which worked, but it seemed to only take off a layer at a time. I found that this set worked well getting off lots of paint at once. The different shaped blades allow you to get into different cracks and crevices along the different surfaces of the door. I didn’t worry about getting 100% of the paint scraped off, but in general I got as much as I could.

Step Four

Sand. Sand like the world is ending. I used my orbital sander, and sanded first with a course 60 grit sandpaper to get the last of the paint off. On the edges of the panels where the orbit sander couldn’t reach, I sanded by hand. Once all the paint was off, I repeated the sanding with a 120 grit sandpaper and a 220 grit sandpaper.

Step Five

I used steel wool and mineral spirits to scrub the door one last time after all the scraping and sanding. Now, keep in mind, these steps took me like two weeks. I work in limited time shifts during naps and after toddler bedtime, so a normal schedule might allow this to get done in a matter of days, but I was averaging two weeks per door.

Step Six

This would be optional based on your wood and your preferences. I had one door in the room that was untouched, and I wanted the three doors I was working on to be all about the same color. So I used the stain we used on our floors throughout the house (Minwax Early American) and it ended up being a pretty close match to the door that was already in the room. I prefer to use a rag to apply (with rubber gloves on!), rather than brushing and wiping the excess. I just apply with the rag and rub it in immediately. If you like the color of your wood after you strip it all down though, you could totally skip this step.

Step Seven

The last thing I did was put a coat of Polyurethane on them. I like to buy the cheap paint brushes to apply the poly, and then just throw them out when I’m done. I ended up doing just one coat of poly (again, trying to match an existing finish!). I let the first side dry for 24 hours, then flipped the door around and did the other side. I let it sit for another 24 hours before moving them back into the room.

Step Eight

Bring your doors back into place, and re-install the hinges and doorknobs. And for goodness sake enjoy the fruit of your labor!

The door on the right is the entrance to the room, and the door on the left is one of the ones that were painted. There are a couple of white spots that you can see which are actually wood filler. They aren’t perfect…they’re 125 year old doors that had six coats of paint on them! But for goodness sake I think they turned out pretty good.

This door on the other side leads to the bathroom, and is the one from the first picture. Let me show you again:

Can you even believe that wood grain was hiding under all those layers of paint?!

This project was a doozy, I’m not gonna lie. It was weeks worth of work, sweating it out in my hot garage in a mask and protective gear. It wasn’t a fun DIY. But, they are back to the way they were intended to be in this house, and I think that’s what matters. And I’m stinking proud of the work that went into these. So, do you have any doors that need refinishing? Are you brave enough to take it on? (I totally think you can!) That’s all for today, friends! Have a fabulous day!

June 8, 2020 by
Organization

My Weekly Cleaning Schedule (and a Free Printable!)

I shared a couple of weeks ago over on my Instagram how I have silly names for all the chores I do each day of the week, and several people were interested in it, so I decided to share!

I have always been a pretty “clean and organized person,” but I never really stuck to any sort of routine, I would just do things as needed. But then I had a child and when I went back to work after maternity leave, I was feeling very overwhelmed about keeping up with my house and so I knew it was time to start a real routine. So even though it’s summer, and I’m technically home right now, don’t think that this isn’t for you if you are working outside of the home full time. This is about getting a little bit done each day so that you never have to do a lot at once.

First, there are a couple things I do every single day (or weekday). A load of clothes is one of them. I know that may seem counter-productive to some, but trust me on this. I never spend more than 5-10 minutes folding and putting away laundry. I start a load as soon as I’m dressed in the morning, flip it over, and fold it while I’m waiting for my son to fall asleep after I put him down for his nap. During the school year, I start it on my way to work, Ethan flips it on his way to work, and when I get home, I quickly fold and put away. Because it’s only one day’s worth of clothes, it’s never overwhelming. (Also, our washer has an auto sensing fill, so it’s not using excessive water. We haven’t noticed any difference in our water billing since I used to only do clothes once a week or so.)

I also vacuum every day. I realize most people don’t need this, I just have a hairy dog and a crumb monster child, so it works for me. If you don’t need a daily vacuum, just consider that a quick kitchen floor sweep. I usually do this in the evenings after my son goes to bed.

The last thing I do every day is dishes. We actually don’t have a dishwasher (pre-renovated kitchen problems), so I wash by hand at the end of the day, let them dry on the counter overnight, and put them away first thing in the morning. I know this sounds like a lot. I promise it’s not.

Then each day of the week, I do one chore or task that needs to be done on a regular basis but not every day. I came up with names because I’m nerdy like that, but it helps me remember! On Mondays I mop, hence Mop Monday. I mop all the hard surface floors in my house. on Toilet Tuesday I clean my bathrooms (we have two). On Wash Wednesday in addition to my load of clothes, I also run a separate load of sheets, and one of towels. On Third Thursday, I rotate through different things that don’t need to get done every week, but should still be getting done somewhat regularly. One week I’ll dust my flat surfaces and shelves, the next week I’ll do windows (again, dog and toddler), and the week after that I’ll do my kitchen. I’ll throw away anything in the pantry or fridge that needs to go, as well as clean the outside of my appliances. On Free Friday I just catch up on anything that I may have missed through the week. Inevitably there will be something that didn’t get done, so I give myself a buffer. And on the weekends, I don’t do anything but the dishes and vacumming. I keep the weekend open for bigger projects around the house.

And that’s it! I spend about 30 minutes each day keeping up with my house, and it keeps me on track so I don’t wake up one day to a bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in a month. I never have to worry about doing a huge cleaning day, or spending all my weekend working on housework. Although our house is in a perpetual state of disarray because of projects going on at any given time, the general cleanliness is usually up to par.

If you’re reading this in the days that it was first written, join me on Instagram, as I’ll be walking through each day on my stories. You can do it with me! You can either screenshot the photo above if you are wanting to save it on your phone, or if you’re a paper kind of person, you can click the link below to download and print your own copy. Check it off each day as you go! I can’t wait to get cleaning together!

Click here to download the printable cleaning schedule!

Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

May 31, 2020 by
House Progress

Nursery Status: What’s Done, and What’s Next?

My big project as of late has been the nursery. of course. The big accent wall was a huge undertaking, and will definitely be the focal point of the room. Since then, we’ve done a few things, but still have a lot to do.

We moved the crib and rocker (ours isn’t sold anymore!) from our son’s room into the new nursery. I used some fabric dye to dye the crib skirt that we already had on hand.

I also painted the dresser that was previously in our room and gave it some fresh knobs from Hobby Lobby. For the dresser, I used a satin finish paint from Home Depot in the color Gentle Sea. This was a quick, slap a coat of paint on kind of project, not the kind where I did a step by step tutorial. I didn’t use very much of the paint that I bought for the dresser, so I ended up painting the inside of the closet with the same paint. It’s a fun little pop of color, and it makes the tiny closet special.

So, I still have a lot to do in this space before it feels “ready.” I have a bunch of projects, things to buy, and a few things I want to make.

Things to Do:

  • Paint the window frames
  • Finish stripping the door to the closet and bathroom
  • Reinstall the closet and bathroom doors
  • Deep clean the windows and floors

Things to Buy:

This is the big one, as I feel like I need to collect a ton of little things to make the room put together. Some things are specifics I have in mind, others are things I’d like to find thrifting (hopefully I can do that soon!).

  • Curtains (I just placed an order for these, but the shipping is going to take a while. I’m not even sure they’ll work, so I may end up returning.)
  • Curtain rods
  • Footstool (I’m loving this one.)
  • Crib sheets I like basic white ones for easy washing.
  • Small art work (I don’t have anything in particular in mind just yet. I’d love to find something vintage.)
  • A frame for the over-the-crib painting. I bought the painting at a flea market sans-frame. I’m hoping to find the right gold frame in the right size for the right price. Not too much to ask for, right? (If you have a 36x24in frame without glass or matting, let me know. I’m scouring FB Marketplace daily.)
  • An accent pillow for the rocker. I put the one from my son’s room in here, I’m not sure if I love it.
  • A lamp (nothing specific in mind, not sure if I’ll go thrifted or new)
  • Tall plant?? (I need something with some height in one particular corner to disguise an awkward wall length. I like the look of olive trees, but we’ll see.)

Things to Make:

  • Shelves for book and art displays

There is still so much to do in here, and with stores being closed and shipping being delayed, it seems like I’ve been unable to get moving in here. Hopefully soon I can get things moving! I have been working feverishly on the door refinishing, and I will share a full tutorial of that process once it’s finished. That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

This post may contain affiliate links.

May 27, 2020 by
House Progress

Backyard Updates

Backyards are a tricky thing, aren’t they? I don’t have a green thumb, I have a giant dog who ruins grass, and I have never particularly enjoyed being “outdoors.” But, part of being a homeowner and making improvements to your home includes the outdoors as well. My toddler loves to be outside. Now that the weather is nice, he would rather be outside playing with the hose and some trucks than doing anything inside. So, I’ve been spending more time than ever in the backyard lately.

After painting the porches, I had a lot of paint left over. I accidentally overbought. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I had extra paint for projects on a whim. Since spending so much time in the backyard, I’ve been able to dream up more things I wanted to do with the space, and it’s been nice to have supplies on hand. We have this swing and arbor in the backyard that came with the house. It was pretty sad looking, and we thought about taking the swing down and making some kind of grilling station, but the more we sat in it, the more we thought it should stay. I was swinging one day when I realized I had extra white paint from the porch railings, I might as well just paint the thing.

So I did. I used my paint sprayer and sprayed the whole thing.

As for the pea gravel firepit to the right, you may remember my early stages of this from last summer. Well, we bought pea gravel last summer, but it wasn’t enough, so we just sat around with a half pea graveled firepit for a year. I told Ethan I wanted to finish off the firepit for Mother’s Day, so my Mother’s Day present was literally a truckload of pea gravel and a wheelbarrow. Some people get perfume, I got literal rocks.

But we sat out here on Mother’s Day and made s’mores for dinner and it was wonderful. It’s already a much used space. My son is also loving the fresh pea gravel for his shovels and dump trucks.

We (and by we, I totally mean I, with Ethan just along for the ride) also decided to build our son a playhouse. We used all scrapwood we had in the garage and leftover paint from the porches. We don’t have plans for this, but basically it went something like this: I looked at the piles of wood in the garage, drew a picture of what I thought could work, and Ethan built it two days later.

It is definitely a more family friendly backyard now, and we enjoy spending time out here so much now that things are fresher and nicer to look at. 🙂 Now we just have to do something about the dead grass…

My favorite thing about this yard is what it looked like just a year ago. Everything we’ve done in the last two months has been one project leading into another as far as supplies go, and I love the way one thing inspired another.

I wish I had photos of when we first bought the house two summers ago…there was no fence, there were awful metal garden bed edgers that were just full of weeds, there was a broken chimnea in the middle of the yard. It was in rough shape. I’ve heard it said that with outdoor spaces, you just do a little more each year, and soon enough you have a space you can really be proud of. I have so many more plans for next year already. I’m already focusing on learning more about gardening and have big, green plans. Maybe next year! Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

May 13, 2020 by
DIY Projects

DIY Wall Mural

If you saw my plans for the nursery a few weeks back, you know how much I wanted wallpaper! I did a lot of online searching for removable wallpaper (after all the wallpaper scraping I’ve done, I am not about to put traditional wallpaper paste back up in this house), only to find that I did not want to spend an arm and a leg on wallpaper. Having never been in the market for wallpaper, I did not know how expensive wallpaper could be!

I had a budget in mind, but I did not want to put over half of it toward wallpaper. In my planning post, I talked about attempting to paint something on the wall using a projector. I tried it out, it worked, and this is that post!

So the first thing I did was to find an image that was similar to my inspiration photo for wallpaper. A quick google search found a pattern that I liked, so I then went to make a projectable image. I made sure that the image I chose would be able to repeat itself continuously.

I used a PowerPoint document to work from, and placed my image in a very corner of my screen.

Then I just copied the image and lined them up so that the entire page was covered.

As you can see, it’s just the same image lined up directly next to each other.

Once the image was on the full screen, I put it in present mode on my laptop, connected it to the projector, and projected it onto the wall. I was then able to use a small artist paintbrush to trace from the projector onto the wall.

Pardon the iPhone photos, I am not the greatest with remembering to take progress photos.

Now, I know a lot of people don’t have a projector lying around. I get that. Ethan works in production for live events, so he has access to a lot of equipment that the average person does not have sitting in their house. He was able to borrow this projector from work that I was able to use.

For me, this project was free because I had paint left over, and access to a projector. However, you all know I like to do thinks cheap and easy. But, while I was looking online, I found some projectors that are only around $100. While that seems expensive, it could still end up being muuuuch cheaper than purchasing wallpaper. The wallpaper I had been pricing out was going to be around $400, so even if I bought a projector for this project, it would have still saved me money.

Overall, this took about ten hours of painting, which is definitely not for the faint of heart, but it was a project I spent no money on, and I got the wallpaper look I was going for.

The color is French Colony by Behr, which was leftover from our upstairs bathroom project. It’s hard to capture the whole wall at once because of the size of the room, but the wall is about ten feet wide. Overall, I am super pleased with the way this turned out. And you know my favorite type of project is a free one!

What do you think? Would you try something like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

April 17, 2020 by
DIY Projects

How to Paint Porch Floors

You guys. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited about this project I am. Or how excited I am to be done with it. I decided to make it a priority over my spring break to get our porch floors repainted. I had the week off from work (little did I know at the time that I would not be returning to work in person for who knows how long, but that’s another story…), and so I had some time to devote to getting some paint on our multiple porches.

So we actually have three porches on this house (or technically two decks and one porch but whatever), but two different types. Our front porch is a traditional tongue in groove type wooden porch floor with no gaps and was already painted. It was badly chipping as it had probably been 40+ years since its last coat of paint. The back and side porches are more what you would consider a deck, They are 2x6inch (I think) boards with a small gap in between them. Ours had never been painted since it was installed in 1989. Are you ready for this before picture. Please don’t judge me. This house is a choose your battles kind of project y’all, because not everything can get done at once.

This picture was taken one month ago. Like, I’m embarrassed. Here’s one more for good measure.

The process for both the front and back porches was pretty much the same, with a few minor variations. Because the back porch had never been painted, we just had to clean it, using a power washer. In the front, the paint was chipping, so I scraped by hand what I could, and then power washed the rest. The power washing definitely got more of the paint chippiness off.

You can see here just how bad it was. There was multiple colors showing through from different layers over time. So once we got everything scraped, washed, and ready to go, it was time to paint.

I used porch and patio floor paint mixed in the color Teton Blue by Behr. I bought a five gallon bucket, but only used about two gallons. Which is fine, because I have plenty for touch ups in the future. The first thing I did was roll using a regular paint roller with an extension brush. If you’ve never painted floors this way, honestly, it’s the easiest thing. Just standing, no strain on the back or arms. Honestly, it’s great.

In the front, since there were no grooves between boards, this was super easy. I was careful not to get too close to the house with the roller, but it was a very quick process. Once I completed the rolling, I had to cut in with a paint brush. On the front porch, this was just along the edges next to the house. On the back porch, I had to get my brush individually between each board. This was the most time consuming part.

I eventually coated everything twice, with some interruptions from the rain. When I was done painting, I let it cure for a few days before sealing it. I wanted to use something to seal the porches because it’s such a high traffic area that’s prone to dirt. For that, I used Thompson’s Waterseal and brushed it on completely. I did not use a roller for that. Because of the consistency of the mixture, I found it annoying to use the roller. It took forever to dry. Forever. That is likely in part due to the amount of rain we were battling along the way with this month long affair.

Lastly, for the back porch railings, I painted those white, using exterior flat paint. I got the color Cameo White. Those I just brushed on, it took forever, was honestly the most time consuming part of the whole thing.

Alright, are y’all ready for the after photos? I’m assuming that’s what you’re actually here for. Let’s look at the front porch first.

This isn’t all that dramatic, it’s just fresher and cleaner looking.

But the back. Y’all. Let me just show you one more time the before.

And now…

I cannot get over how much of a change this makes.

This project cost about $200 for all of the supplies, but I could have gotten away with much less paint. I used a total of about two gallons for an estimated 500 square feet of space. Just as I do with all my projects, I kind of just dive right in without really knowing what I’m doing, but this one wasn’t as intimidating as I made it out to be.

So, what do you think? Can you even believe this is the same porch? I hope this gets you feeling motivated to tackle your own project, whether it’s a porch floor or something else. It probably won’t be as bad as you think! Well, that’s all for today, friends! Have a fabulous day!

April 9, 2020 by
House Progress

Plans for a Baby Girl Nursery

Hello! I am so glad you stopped by! Today I am sharing something that I’ve been planning for a while, and I absolutely can’t wait to get started. We’ve known we were having a baby girl for a couple of weeks now, but with Social Distancing, we haven’t been able to get out and do much yet as far as planning and buying things for the nursery goes. Lucky for me, I have a garage full of supplies, so I have some things I can be doing while I’m unable to go to the hardware store.

First, I want to show you the mood board I put together for the space, then talk you through the plans.

As you know, my favorite color is blue and I can’t stand the thought of not having blue in a room in my house, so I wanted the focal points of the room to be blue. I’m planning on painting the dresser that’s currently in our bedroom a light blue (we’ll be buying a new dresser for us), and the artwork I’ve picked up from flea markets is also in the blue family.

Thankfully, since this is our second child, we already have most of the big stuff. We will be reusing the rocker (no longer sold) and crib from our son’s room. Having a second child is SO much easier. 🙂

I’ve already ordered the rug pictured, and if you follow @rumfieldhomestead on Instagram, you’ve likely already seen it rolled out in the space. I’m not completely decided on curtains yet, I have these IKEA ones as a possibility. I don’t like to buy things from IKEA without seeing them in person first, and since I can’t go there right now with all the Shelter in Place ordinances right now, I’ll have to wait and see. I do want something of a dusty pink color though. Not too in your face baby pink, but something to tie in some of the colors from the large painting I have.

And then lastly, the walls. I knew right away that I wanted some blue floral wallpaper in this room, and I fell in love with this one from a small Etsy shop. I quickly realized I did not want to blow the majority of my nursery budget on wallpaper, so I came up with a plan that miiiiiight be a massive fail. Here’s what I’m thinking:

I am going to try to use a projector to project a floral design on the wall, and then trace and paint myself. I’m not super great at free hand drawing (and by not super great I mean actually terrible), so I don’t trust myself to draw my own pattern. I’m not entirely sure the projecting and tracing thing is going to work, so you’ll have to stay tuned. But, if it does work, I will save myself a lot of money on wallpaper! I’ll also be able to get started right away, because I have the perfect shade of paint already in my garage.

Things are a little weird with everything that’s going on, but I’m excited to be working on this project! That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

April 8, 2020 by
Furniture Makeover, House Progress

Plans for the Playroom/Office + A Furniture Makeover

About five months ago, we moved our bedroom upstairs with the intention of turning the downstairs room into a playroom/office. It’s been pretty slow going. Drywall removal, wallpaper removal, and nail-in-shiplap removal has taken some time, and it’s not really fun work that keeps you motivated to do more.

But with our impending nursery project coming up, and the general house re-shuffling that comes with preparing for a new baby, I feel inclined to get moving on this playroom. I bought a set of chairs for five dollars a while back from a thrift store, and I knew they would be perfect in our playroom when we eventually got around to finishing it. The chairs didn’t come with a table though, so I searched Facebook Marketplace until I found one for ten dollars. So for my total price, I was at fifteen dollars. I knew however, that it was going to need a lot of work so I just stuck them in my garage and ignored them for a while.

Because of our current social distancing situation, I wanted to paint the table and chairs without going to the store to purchase anything. Luckily for me, I have a hoard of supplies in my garage, so I found a leftover sample we had used to test colors and got to work. The table was in the roughest shape. It needed to be sanded, stripped a bit, wood filled, glued back together, and clamped overnight. The painting was actually the easy part!

It’s not 100% done yet, but someone is already enjoying it!

So now that the table is almost done, I figured it would be time to work on a mood board for the space. I always find it helpful to visualize everything together in a space when I’m planning a room. I used everything I already had that I knew would go in the space, and then worked from there. So here’s what I came up with:

Obviously my table and chairs are a second hand DIY version, but I wanted to visualize what it might look like, so I included something similar. Here are a few similar options that I love: option 1, option 2, or option 3.

Our couch is the Sven Sofa from Article in the Grass Green color. It’s currently in our living room while we work on the playroom, and it’s the perfect sofa for littles. The long bench cushion comes off, and our son loves taking it down and climbing all over it.

As far as wall colors, I’m not 100% certain on what I want in the space, but I think I want to go in a beige direction. Gasp! The color on the background is Benjamin Moore Athena, but it’s just an example for now. Once we can safely leave our house again, I’ll get around to testing some actual colors.

I think the beige wall color will look really good with this rug, which I totally have my eye on. I think it’ll be just the right amount of fun for a playroom, but also the right amount of sophistication for an office.

The desk is a picture of our current desk, as we plan on putting our desktop computer in the playroom as well. It’s painted in Behr’s America’s Cup Navy. I need some new hardware, as you can see. 🙂

Other ideas for the room include built in shelves around the french doors for toy storage, and large framed fabric panels to tie the blue and green furniture together. Although I have some ideas in my mind, I just included some inspiration photos, not necessarily the exact thing I will end up going with. If you’re wondering, the fabric is here, and the built in photo I used for inspiration comes from this blog.

And just for good measure, I included some photos of actual toys that we have. You know, to make it more realistic. Most of our son’s toys come from IKEA, because they have the cutest toys.

So that’s the plan! I’m not exactly sure when we will get to finish this because of social isolation and all, but we definitely are going to get started on getting the last of the wallpaper residue off the walls. Baby steps. What projects are you planning during this time?

That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

*This post may contain affiliate links.

March 24, 2020 by
House Progress

The Power of Paint (A Phase One Bathroom Makeover)

Hi there! Thanks so much for stopping by today! Boy oh boy, do I have a before and after for you today! First, let’s get the backstory. We bought our home from a realtor who had purchased the house at auction following a foreclosure. That realtor listed it for sale, but went back and forth about whether he wanted to flip it himself. When we bought it, there were a few random half hearted attempts at restoration work. One random door frame stripped of paint, carpeting partially pulled up, wallpaper torn off in just a small section of a room. That was the case in the room I’m going to show you guys today.

So the upstairs of our house has three bedrooms and a full bathroom. When we did our first big amount of work in the months before we moved in, the only room we touched upstairs was the first bedroom for our son, leaving the bathroom and two bedrooms untouched. The house was built in 1895 with no indoor plumbing, and therefore no bathrooms. I’m not sure at what point it was added, but at sometime, a bathroom was poorly shoved into what would have once been a spacious hallway between the three upstairs bedrooms. This leaves us a bit perplexed as to what to even do with the bathroom, because the floorplan of the second story is a bit wonky. I’d love to someday see that turned back into a hallway, but alas, we need more than the outhouse that was originally here. Knowing that this bathroom was going to involve some structural changes, and that our needs in the house/bedrooms may change as we have more kids etc., the upstairs bathroom was literally at the bottom of the priority list. Out of sight, out of mind.

Until, that is, we moved the master bedroom upstairs. Then all of a sudden this upstairs bathroom was a little more on the forefront of my mind. I lovingly nicknamed this room “the dungeon bathroom,” because I was so scared to use it. Everything was fully functional, but the carpet (yep, this thing had carpet) that had been in there had been waterlogged and soaked through the subfloor. My brother actually pulled up the carpet and old subfloor and laid down new plywood. And that’s the extent of work we had done in the dungeon bathroom. But now our bedroom was right next to it, and it was a pain to go all the way down the creaky stairs right outside of our son’s room in the event that I needed to go to the restroom in the middle of the night. So I knew I needed to do something. But again, of all the “big projects” we have planned for the next couple years, this one is quite literally the last one on the list. So I decided to give it a little cosmetic facelift, a Phase One makeover to tide us over until we would eventually remodel this bathroom. So, without further ado, here is the dungeon bathroom.

For days, I worked during naptime and after my son went to bed to scrape wallpaper. Most of the wall had two layers of paper, but in some areas, I found four different papers laid on top of each other. It was grueling. I used a handheld steamer and a wallpaper scraper and would work in tiny six inch square sections. It took a long time, and my arms arched.

As I scraped the wallpaper, I found that some of the drywall had been damaged, and had simply been disguised by the paper. That meant we had to do some patch work on the walls. I had to sand it all down to get the gunky wallpaper paste completely gone. All of this was before I ever started painting!

I originally planned on only using products that I had on hand to do this bathroom, but I ended up purchasing the wall color because I didn’t have as much paint in the garage as I thought I did. The color is Behr French Colony, and I think it’s a lovely blue-grey.

A shower curtain over the shower stall helps disguise that whole lotta ugly.

I also painted the plywood subfloor using some paint I had on hand. The floor is painted with Behr Tanglewood.

As you can see, I didn’t change any of the fixtures, the only thing I changed was paint. Isn’t that crazy?! Paint is so powerful!

Because this room is directly next to our bedroom that’s painted such a bold color, I was really concerned about how these two colors would look when coming up the stairs and they were both visible. I think they go complement each other nicely. (Bedroom is Behr Thermal.)

The 1920’s light fixtures stayed, and I think they look so much more elegant now without the dated wallpaper.

All of this to say this: just don’t wait. I would have loathed this bathroom another two to three years until it finally was time to gut it. Instead, I can enjoy the space, and it doesn’t give me the heebee-jeebees every time I go in there! I think there is power in a can of paint, and so much power in doing a “Phase One” project, something that is just enough to tide you over while you’re waiting for the big project.

Before we go, here’s one more before and after from the same angle. I can’t even believe the only difference is paint.

Alright guys, that’s all for today. Have a fabulous day!

January 5, 2020 by
DIY Projects, Home Decor

DIY Bed Canopy

Hi guys! Glad you’re here! I wanted to share with you a project that was a big undertaking in our master bedroom. If you remember a couple of months ago, we were working on getting one of the upstairs rooms livable to move our master upstairs. You can read all about that here . Over the last weeks, I kept some of the progress live on Instagram, when we revealed the paint color, and the new rug.

If you remember, this room has six doors in it, leading to various places, meaning that there was no good spot to put a bed. We ended up putting the bed in front of a door, and I started coming up with some ideas on how to cover that door or make it less obvious. I thought about painting the door and door trim the same color as the wall, or putting a privacy screen behind the bed, or even making some kind of false wall contraption that would rest behind the headboard. Then I stumbled upon this on Pinterest from Design Sponge, and I knew this was what I was going to do.

She had a great tutorial that I used, but because I was trying to cover a door behind the wall, I needed it to be wider than the bed itself. It ended up being a 10 foot width that I needed to cover, by 15 foot length. Trying to find fabric of that size was a nightmare. I first tried a large dropcloth and dying it the color I wanted, but that ended up being a massive fail because the fabric was so large and it didn’t fit in my bathtub where I was trying to dye it.

So I ended up buying a bolt of 60″ wide fabric (ten whole yards), cutting it in half, and sewing the two pieces together so that I had one 10x15ft piece of material. The only problem was that now there was a seam down the middle of where it would be hanging on the wall, so I decided to add an accent material up the center of the canopy to cover the seam.

The accent fabric was a nightmare. I ordered from one place, only for it to be out of stock. I ordered the same fabric from another location, only for that one to be out of stock. I finally just walked in to Hobby Lobby and found this fabric. It’s no longer listed on their website, so I think it might be discontinued, but I liked that it had blues and greens in it, and would probably work well in the room.

I used my accent fabric just in the middle of the canopy, and then hung it up. One rod is mounted on the wall, and the other from the ceiling. Hanging was also a nightmare, because this canopy was super heavy, and these are tall ceilings. I used a dab of hot glue once we had it in place to prevent it from shifting.

I also used hot glue (because hot glue can do all things) to add the greek key ribbon trim. Before the ribbon was added, I wasn’t too sure about it overall, but I do think the trim polished the whole thing off and made it look more finished.

The goal here was to cover that unsightly and unused door, and I think that this definitely fits the bill. And the best part is that the door is still totally accessible so the next time we need to move furniture upstairs, we can open the door! I’m really loving the way this project turned out, and it’s true what they say: necessity really is the mother of invention. What do you think?

And just for fun…take a look at the original mood board for the space! It’s so fun to see it coming together!

The rest of this room is evolving slowly, and I have some continued plans for the space, but all in due time. That’s all for today, friends, have a fabulous day!

December 18, 2019 by