Bedroom/bathroom makeover: The big reveal

We’ve reached the chevron-printed finish line in our Master Makeover in May. If you haven’t been following it closely (no offence taken), I’ve spent the month making over our master bedroom and top-floor bathroom (which is shared with our two small children).

We started off with two dull, dark spaces …

and I’m pleased to say they’re much brighter, lighter, and more homey …

We kept the same furniture and repurposed bedding we already owned, about just about everything else in the two rooms is brand new. 

Leading up to this week, we’d re-painted the walls (Benjamin Moore’s “Revere Pewter”), made no-sew curtains, hung new curtain rods, built and upholstered pelmet boxes, frosted the bathroom window, and created engineering print artwork. 

For the final week, I finished the two rooms by adding five inexpensive finishing touches …

1. Recovered throw pillows: I’d only bought our patterned teal pillows about six months ago, but they certainly weren’t going to waste just because they clashed with the new decor. I snagged leftover curtain fabric and sewed easy slipcovers for them. I also recovered two smaller pillows from another room, using a small piece of red geometric fabric from my stash.

   
   

2. Painted frames and mirrors: I’m a big fan of the $1 or $1.50 wooden frames at the craft store, so I painted four yellow and printed black and white tub photos of our kids — perfect bathroom art!
   
   
   While I was scrounging a home decor department recently, I found packages of three mirrors for $14.99 each. I grabbed a textured, round set for the bedroom, and a set of fancy baroque mirrors for the bathroom.

   
   Everything was unscrewed, sprayed with a few light coats of paint (red for the bedroom, yellow for the bathroom), and screwed back together. We had a casualty with one of the red mirrors, though, so I planned something different for it.

   
   

3. A “C” accent: Since one of our mirrors was now glass-less, I decided to hang it on a different wall as a frame. I bought a $1 metal “C” at the craft store, spray-painted it red, and stuck it inside the old mirror frame. It looks like it was meant to be there!

   

4. A wedding date tribute: The craft store had a clearance bin of wooden letter and number tags, each hanging on strings. I snatched up nine, six, and eight, since we were married June 9, 2008. Once I cut off the strings, they were the perfect addition below a few existing frames — including our “marriage motto” of the lyrics to Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer.

   

5. Framed greeting cards: I’m a huge fan of Emily McDowell’s unique cards, and I had two marriage-related ones that were begging to be framed: “There is nobody else I’d rather lie in bed and look at my phone next to,” and “Home is wherever I’m arguing about what to do for dinner with you.” I popped them into a $1 frame, and they were ready to hang.

   
   

We were able to get two completely new rooms for less than $300 — about $30 cheaper than buying one queen-sized quilt from Anthropologie.

(I think if I spent that much on a single piece of bedding, I’d be terrified to drool on it in my sleep.)

But that’s the beauty of DIY, isn’t it? Putting in a little elbow grease to create something for much, much less money than it would cost in a store?

Of course, DIY life means that when one project is finished, there’s another ready to begin. Check back next week to see what we’ve started in the kitchen!

xo