The Mess That Was The Guest Room...

The former owners of the house had no qualms about painting over nails, drywall screws, regular screws, or any wall hardware really. They even painted over the wall outlets. This made it super fun trying to get everything out of the wall so I could patch the holes. I am not exaggerating when I say there were probably 50 total holes in the wall. It was ridiculous.

I patched them, though, and sanded them. Wearing a respirator for the first time was pretty terrifying. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was suffocating slowly.

Next up is cleaning the walls off from the sanding dust and general dirt that is on them and taping off everything with painters tape. I'm hoping to get that done by tomorrow morning, after I get some decent sleep. I'd like to be done painting by the end of this weekend, but I'm not sure if that's optimistic or not.

I would share a picture or two of the walls with the drywall patching on them, but it doesn't really show up on pastel green walls with my current not so awesome point and shoot camera. I miss my DSLR. One of my cats knocked it on the floor and broke it at the end of 2013. RIP DSLR.

Peacock-ulous

It's been a few months since I've really done much with the decor and making the house into what I want it to be. There come some difficulties in living with someone with a pervasive developmental disability, and we've all been trying to adjust to the best of our abilities after an exhaustive effort to find a group home. I didn't realize how expensive they were without a Medicaid waiver, which has a 10 year wait list. So we're dealing with the situation as best we can in the meantime. It's put making the house into something that feels more like a home a lower priority.

However, as a solution to some...problems we've been experiencing, we are moving my brother-in-law into the sun room on the other end of the house as a bedroom. I'd already decided months ago that the theme for the guest bedroom would be peacocks after it was vacant again, and I'm excited to get started on it after we get everything set up in the sun room, which we're well underway in doing.

Here's a preview!

Several months ago, I ordered a duvet cover and pillowcase set when Overstock.com had a sale. I got them for about 50% off, which pleased me.

We've picked out a room color -- Valspar's Peacock. They did a Pantone color called Peacock Blue, but it didn't really feel true to the peacock theme, since it was a little too bright.

I convinced my husband to make me a set of shelves to put things on as wall decor, based on this set from Etsy I fell in love with. (But definitely not in love with the $50 plus shipping price tag.)

I'm torn about what color to paint the shelves because I'd like to paint them a peacock green and found an acceptable shade that would be available in the color sample jars they sell in Lowe's for $3, but the curtains I picked out are a white/cream shade so I might just match those with a white paint for the shelf. I'll see how I feel about it after I take a look at the room when it's painted and the curtains hung.

Anyway, I fell in love with these two pieces of peacock art that I saw online a long time ago, and I eventually found them again. AllPosters.com had a 35% off sale, and I was super pleased with that deal. Art prints sadly are more expensive than posters.

 

I also found a peacock decorative box that matched the kind of peacocks I had in mind on Etsy, which I plan on placing on the shelves after my husband builds them. It was about $16 with shipping, which is more than I'd tend to spend on decor, but it was so perfect that I couldn't pass it up.

I've been struggling to find other relatively inexpensive decor, though. I keep trying to think of things I can use and searching specifically with those search terms. I'm not sure it'd be even worth it to check out the thrift stores with peacocks in mind because I've been numerous times to a ton of different ones and have never seen anything with peacocks in them. I would have noticed because I love peacocks. It's one of those less common things to see. I'd have to really luck out to find some decent quality peacock decor, even in actual retail stores, so I'm pretty much stuck with looking online and trying to find some decent deals for things I actually like.

Some of the stuff I've found that's inexpensive looks really cheap and low quality, which I don't like. Cheap might have been more okay when I was in college, but I've entered my 30s now and want my house to look more classy than that.

I'll definitely post some progress photos as I work on the guest room, though! I plan on buying the paint at Lowe's this weekend to start that project.

Bedskirt

I found a bedskirt in the storage trunk that I believe my grandmother gave me to me when I got married. I'd just never used it. I probably would have never found it if I hadn't reupholstered the storage trunk. I hadn't opened it in years. Anyway, the bedskirt matches the navy and white nautical theme, and also hides the unsightly concrete blocks holding up our DIY bed frame. I am greatly pleased.

Reupholstered Ottoman & Trunk

I had a small purple ottoman from my college days in my closet. I'd spilled some juice on it and stained it, but I didn't want to let it go because I have difficulty throwing things away that I deem could possibly be useful in the future. It found its use 10 years later.

I was really fond of our new curtain pattern so I picked up a couple of extra panels and reupholstered the small ottoman and our larger storage trunk to match the curtains in the master bedroom. I did the small ottoman first since it really wouldn't be a loss if I messed it up, and when that turned out okay, I moved on to the larger storage trunk.

Rearranging the Master Bedroom

We moved the furniture around and switched out some furniture from the guest bedroom and master bedroom. I like the new arrangement. This is before we put up wall decor, which I still need some more of.

Master Bedroom Small Update

We found a new sturdier curtain rod that better supported the heavier curtains. Sadly, it wasn't on clearance, but I'd rather not have curtains falling on my head while I'm asleep.

I found these small canvas prints at Walmart for under $4 each. I plan on putting them above the nightstands.

Unexpected Hiatus + New Curtains

My brother-in-law who lived in Ohio ended up homeless at the beginning of August, and he really needs to be in a group home for a developmental disability that makes him unable to live on his own. We've taken him in temporarily while we try to get everything for him sorted out here in Texas. So life has been kind of crazy over the past 2 months with having a new person living under our roof and all the paperwork and whatnot.

Anyway, things have calmed down some, and I've been keeping an eye out for decor deals. We haven't gone thrift shopping lately sadly, but I did find some clearance curtains for the master bedroom! Previously, you could see through the curtains easily in daylight.

With the new curtains, it's less noticeable, and they're a much nicer material.

However, we need to find a sturdier curtain rod to stop the bowing in the middle and move the bed forward a bit to settled the curtains behind it. Overall, though, I'm pretty pleased with how they look. I might like to get a valance at some point, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for in one yet. Nothing I've seen so far really stands out to me.

Lamp Transformation

I wanted nautical lamps. There was a specific lamp I liked, but I figured out quickly that it would be more complicated to accomplish than I had previously thought. In the interest of not ruining a lamp when I have a set of two identical lamps that I wanted to use for our nightstands, I went with a different approach. I decided I wanted to spray paint the lamps and add an anchor stencil to the body.

I got the lamps from Target for $9 each on clearance, and they came with a bonus CFL bulb. No lampshades, though, but I'm still looking for a set of those at a reasonable price. I actually fell in love with some from Target, but they were $20 each, and that's just ridiculous. I don't plan on spending more than $5 each on the lampshades. I saw a matching set at Goodwill for $3, but they weren't quite what I was looking for.

My husband helped with the anchor stencil because my hands aren't super steady due to some medication I take. I can accomplish most tasks with no problem, but detail work with a utility knife is more than I can do. We used paper plates because we had them, and we had no use for buying a package of card stock when we would likely never use it again.

I got the lamps ready with newspaper and painter's tape, and then I started with the bottom stripe, which I wanted to do in navy blue. We already had the can of spray paint from a previous project.

I had to move them into the house while they dried after the second coat because stupid bugs were landing on the spray painted part and ruining the paint job.

I let the paint job dry for 12 hours or so before I took off the tape and newspaper so I could see how it looked.

Wall Art Transformation

We found a piece of wall art we liked at a thrift store that would work for our master bedroom's nautical/beach theme. Original price $11.99, but it was 25% off, so even with tax, it was under $10. The tag on the back from the store said it was supposed to be $25.

We also picked up the terracotta warrior and obviously Asian inspired container for less than $5 together, to go with the book we picked up for $1 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We went to the exhibit while it was still there, came back a few months later after the exhibit ended, and then we found the exhibit book on clearance.

Even if we'd wanted to keep the frame gold, we still would have had to spray paint it because of the slight damage to the paint that you can see here. I prepared it with newspaper and painter's tape we had leftover from painting the master bedroom and office.

I was a bit nervous doing the spray paint by myself, since I'm inexperienced with it. It did drip a tiny bit, but a little sanding took care of that, and a second coat was all we needed afterward.

And here it is done! It looks so much different. I really like how it turned out. We'll just have to figure out where it's going to go exactly.

Rugs!

We found some affordable rugs for our living room sitting areas!

I've been intending to get rugs for months now, but we didn't really find anything that wasn't crazy expensive that we could agree on before now. (I still lament the lack of the themed rug that matched our poster, but my husband doesn't like themed rugs.)

Bookshelves

Our second bookshelf arrived, and my husband put it together in my absence. The toolbox is not staying there, obviously. We're still pretty sure we're going to put a console table there between the bookshelves.

We were going to build a second set of bookshelves like our ladder bookshelves, but after talking to my dad about it, he said the plywood we'd need for the shelves not to sag is about $80 a sheet because the cheaper plywood is low quality pine. Combined with needing a table saw, it was more cost effective to buy bookshelves. We chose this set.

We just need to find a stool for the little desk area.

Slowly Coming Along

Although we did get the living room rearranged before I left and added a couple of framed posters to the wall that I didn't photograph yet hanging up, I've been visiting my family up north since May. I won't be back in Texas until July 10. Here are the posters, one in frame and the other one wasn't yet so here's an image from the seller I got it from:

While I've been away from home, Target ran a sale on a king size comforter that fits our nautical theme, and also offered a $15 gift card for a $75 purchase of select items, which included the comforter. The king size comforter we have now has pretty much lived in the guest room and matches the bedding I have on that bed.

We never did get a set of cotton sheets for our new king size mattress (just a clearance set of jersey that now have a hole in them thanks to our newest feline addition Simon and a holiday set of plaid flannel). So I also got a set of cotton sheets. Combined with the RedCard free shipping and 5% off, we ended up saving about $17, plus got a free $15 gift card out of it that we'll probably use in the store when we look at new curtains that are better at light blocking. The ones we have now are definitely not very "room darkening," unlike what the packaging claimed.

I plan on hitting up thrift stores and Goodwill when I get back to Texas, but in the meantime, I did find something for the bedroom on Etsy that I fell in love with. After doing some price comparison searching on eBay and Amazon, it seemed like a really good deal. Some of the other maritime style oil lamps that actually look decent were over $100. This one was $30. I may take to it with some metallic spray paint, though, to give it a different finish, depending on how it actually looks in person.

We plan on hanging it on the wall after I potentially rearrange the room, barring husband approval. I think I want our bed against a different wall because our heads are directly below the window the cats love to jump up in, and then back down on the bed. Our resident fatty Teddy Roosevelt has actually landed partially on my head before.

Since the oil lamp is supposed to be functional (according to the Etsy listing: "this item is functional and/or decorative"), we could use it when the power goes out.

I also picked up some inexpensive navy blue broadcloth that had good reviews with gift card money on Amazon to test out for making a handmade bedskirt on the frame my dad helped my husband build for the king size mattress. Right now, it's looking rather unfinished. If the fabric works well, I'll get the rest of the amount I need.

Our wedding anniversary is in a couple months, and my mom gave us the gift of a matching bookshelf to the one we have in the living room. The bookshelf we have set up right now holds my husband's military photos and awards. (This is an old picture. The stuff on the top and in boxes is already put away.)

The matching bookshelf will showcase my accomplishments (even though they're mostly from high school -- I didn't even attend my college graduation due to unforeseen circumstances). I just need to find a shadow box for a couple things that the resident feline fiends would try to destroy, like my tassels from graduation.

Rearranging The Layout -- The Living Room

Before:

After: