Master Bedroom Revamp {Part Two}

So, as you saw in our {Part One} post yesterday, we scored a BEAUTIFUL quilt/pillow set from Target – It has already made the room seem brighter, more cheery and a touch more elegant (especially in comparison to the scratchy old black comforter that used to dress the bed).

Here’s the bedroom before:

And then after the addition of our new bedding:

But we weren’t finished there…

I mentioned last week that we started working on a certain thrifted side table that used to live in my old apartment (seen pointed to in the photo below). In that space, the original stained wood finish fit in with my bachelorette decor.

But in the new house, it seemed a little too antique-y…Time for a facelift!! I really love the curvy lines and the old drawer pull, but I decided it could look a lot fresher with a coat of paint. I bought the piece a couple of years ago at Goodwill for $25.00. A bit of a splurge in Goodwill terms…But it’s solid wood and well-made.

Here are some better pictures of it (sorry, it was a bit in shadow in the photo above):

John and I decided to spring for a new tool for this project – A hand sander. We knew the best way to get a good, professional-looking finish was to sand down the old stain before painting it. So we picked up a Black & Decker Mouse at Lowe’s (on sale for $24.99, down from $30-something).

I didn’t have much (i.e. anything) to do with the sanding – this was all John – So I can’t tell you much about its performance. But the “After” shots seem to tell me that it worked pretty well! I remember John saying when he came back into the house after at least half an hour of sanding that we’d need something more powerful for a piece of furniture any bigger – But I didn’t hear any other complaints! If you are working on a relatively small piece of furniture, the Mouse seems to get the project done! One big plus: The pointed front end of the sander was REALLY good for getting into the detailed corners/edges (which our particular table had a LOT of ) – a square-shaped sander would have fallen short.

Here are some progress shots of the process:

Here it is all done! (or at least as done as it was going to get for our purposes)

Time for a spray down 🙂 After contemplating the use of a bright color, like teal, orange or green, we decided to give it a crisp look with glossy white. I took some time to mull it over and realized that the white would REALLY bring out the details of the unique edging and beveling.

So John took over again and got it done!

By the way, just wanted to share the handy tool John used on top of the spray paint can. It’s a $5 nozzle attachment that has a trigger for initiating the spray action – No achy finger from having to hold the spray can button down for so long!  John still finished up with a bit of a tired hand, but I think the nozzle saved him from a LOT of pain.

P.S. Isn’t my fiance just the BEST!?! He’s so good to me…I promise I didn’t make him help me with this – I think he enjoys all the hands-on projects I dream up. Thank you, babe, for your AMAZING help and effort 🙂

But back to the newly painted table…I was loving it already!!! As predicted, the white finish really added emphasis to the carved edges and gave the piece of furniture a modern feel.

After giving it the required 24 hours to dry about 4 or so hours to dry, it was time to put it in place and style it up (you are probably familiar now with my lack of patience…)! As I’m sure you guessed since this is {Part Two} of our master bedroom revamp, we decided to put it in the master bedroom beside my side of the bed. I am a bedtime reader so I like to have a stack of novels and a good lamp beside me – Initially, all I had to work with was a plastic table that fell apart if you blew on it…This newly styled, hardwood side table was my dream come true.

Here are a few wide shots of the room as a whole, now with the new quilt, pillows (the white and gray ones actually came off of the new couch) and restyled night stand:

Remember my excitement at finding out that the quilt was reversible? Well you’ll never guess what happened next 🙂

I found out that the pillow is ALSO interchangeable! I love versatility…

Only one problem emerged…Those of you who are super observant may have already noticed it.

The old plastic side tables were teeny tiny and square – Thus, the bed was pretty close to the wall. I had to move the bed out quite a bit to fit the new rectangular night stand in place…So now my color photo installation above the bed is off-center ::grumble grumble:: You can see it best in the photo below.

Nothing a little remeasuring and re-3M-taping can’t fix. You know I can’t live with it like that for long, so it’ll probably be all perfectly hung again by Monday 🙂

Hope you enjoyed our bedroom transformation! It only cost a little over $100 for the new quilt, pillow and spray paint nozzle (we already had the white spray paint and the table). Not too bad for so much change! I am personally loving our newly transformed oasis…

Master Bedroom Revamp {Part One}

Isn’t it amazing how changing one thing in a room can make it feel entirely new and exciting?? I’m the kind of person that rearranges a room at least once every couple of months just to feel the sense of excitement that newness and change brings on. Moving a bed is especially exciting because you LITERALLY wake up with a new perspective on life 🙂

Speaking of beds…That’s exactly what recently got a new face lift at our house! If you’ve been through our house tour, you might remember our original bed spread. It was just a cheap $20 cotton black comforter from Target – It may have even come from the dorm section.

Now, I’m not harping on dorm items – I LOVED putting my various dorm rooms together over my college experience (as you can probably imagine from this blog, they were decorated to a “T”). But let’s face it, the quality of brightly colored dorm comforters and sheets aren’t pristine…I guess manufacturers figure that college-age kids aren’t concerned with the thread-count of their linens. I suppose there’s truth to that though because I don’t think I even cared back then as long as it looked good!

But back to our black bed spread – It wasn’t very comfy or cuddly…Plus it showed dog hair really easily (yes, we let Rocky sleep with us). We actually weren’t planning on getting a new comforter any time soon because we were making do just fine, but then we received a generous and thoughtful engagement gift from John’s parents which enabled us to pick one out!

So off we went to Target! We knew exactly which one to grab because of a past shopping trip when we stumbled upon it. At the time all I could do was sigh heavily after one last touch to its silky soft fabric and walk away. But THIS time, I got to bee-line right to the aisle, grab it off the shelf and hug it to my chest with a close-eyed smile!! You think I exaggerate…But I kid you not. I lucked out BIG time because John really liked it too!

We also hit the jack pot in the accessory pillow department. The pillow that goes with the comforter (oh btw, the new comforter is actually a quilt) wasn’t in stock the first time we perused the aisle, but it was there this time! I think I actually gasped with happiness when I saw it. I’ve seen this particular pillow featured in many-a home design blog, so it felt like I was really joining the club.

Here are some details of the set once we got it home:

I love the color palette of pale yellow with gray and white. So fresh and MUCH brighter than the old black comforter. Oh, and click here to see a post from one of the other blogs that features this particular pillow – I just adore the pop of texture and color it gives a bed! In tracking down the post for you guys, I see that we also inadvertently picked out the same quilt as this couple too – Great minds think alike 😉

But back to OUR room – So I was going to snap some “Before” shots for you to show the difference, but here’s what the bed looked like that evening:

I do not live there yet, so I take zero responsibility for John’s dislike for making his bed in the morning. The poor guy wakes up at 4am during the work week though, so I can’t blame him TOO much or give him too much grief…

We try to make this blog as “real” as possible though, so instead of hiding this disarray…I’ll make the bed and take more presentable photos of it before tossing it aside to put on the new linens show you “Before” shots taken months before hand!!!

“Before”…

…and now “After”!

The new quilt (and pillow too) make the room so much brighter!!! These pictures don’t really do it justice though…Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post which showcases the set in much better midday lighting as opposed to this yellow artificial light from the initial late-evening photo shoot.

Oh, and I just have to share this happy little discovery…The quilt is actually reversible!!!

I love the extra pop of pattern and more saturated yellow color…You can see in the “After” pictures above that we folded down the quilt at the head of the bed to give a peek-a-boo of the unexpected extra side.

Have you added anything to your home recently that made it feel fresh and exciting again? Any happy unexpected discoveries like a reversible quilt?

See you back here tomorrow for {Part Two} of our master bedroom revamp!

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