The Kids' Rooms Unveiled

Since we still have the entire house to redo, this is as good as the kids' rooms are going to get for now. Minus the absence of the closet doors and bedroom doors, of course! J still has those drying in the basement. I'm beginning to feel like waiting for paint to dry has become the story of my life! But, I was up at 4:30 am excited to hang the last things on the walls. There are some small art projects I will come back and add. I want to redo E's lamp shade and I haven't found the kids' books yet. But you get the point. oh, and for whatever reason, when they designed this house, they felt it was a good idea not to have any over head lighting upstairs. Hmmm.... whatever. I will be teaching myself how to do this soon so I can install the chandeliers I bought. Nevertheless, without further ado, here the rooms await H and E's return from Florida:

E'S ROOM:
REMEMBER, THIS WAS BEFORE:

THESE ARE ALL ANGLES AFTER:
(Notice the stuffed animal racks. Those are actually hanging planter baskets. I saw this on Better Homes and Garden several months ago. I love how it turned out!)




I WILL BE ADDING PICTURES TO THIS WALL:




ANOTHER SHOT OF HER BED:


H's ROOM:
HERE IS BEFORE: (Oh my God, YUCK!)



HERE IT IS AFTER: (never mind the mess in the hallway!)










Here are a few close ups of the hanging planter baskets I used in E's and H's room. And yes, I know the outlet cover is missing. I have to run out and buy new ones for every outlet in the house still! :)

IKEA Hacking (make something old into something new)

I've mentioned on my family blog how I love turning old clothes into new clothes so why not do that with furniture? While packing up the house, I was staring at H's bed and decided I didn't like it anymore. We bought the IKEA Malm bed off craigslist when we lived in GA because we were desperate to own a bed and the space we had was really tiny. Jeremy said No so reluctantly, I took the bed apart dreading to rebuild it in the new house.

That was until I got the newest edition of Pottery Barn Kids and came across the prettiest bed. In case you didn't know, I'm a sucker for nail head trim and crystal chandeliers. This bed was perfect for my vision and then I got to brainstorming...


I had J run to the hardware store for me after I spent the night with a glass of wine, a box top, pen and my conversion calculator. I had a queen sized bed so I needed some plywood 66.5" long and 18" high. I also need lots of screw, staples for my gun and some L-brackets. Meanwhile, I ran to the fabric store and bought 4.75 yards of fabric a 5 yards of 2" batting and some silver nail head trim.

Here's what I did:
1) I attached 4 L-brackets to the plywood


2) Then I screwed the plywood to the headboard


3)I carefully laid the headboard down being attentive to the brackets making sure not to bend them. I took some left over plywood and placed it on the front of the headboard to secure it a little better.



4)Once that was screwed in place, I cut the 2" batting to fit the headboard and secured it with a few staples so it didn't move while I measured the rest of the batting to fit


5)I attached a second row of batting, making sure to cut out a space for the side rails to attach later



6)Next, I took my fabric a stapled it to the bottom of the headboard where it would be covered by the mattress. I proceeded to staple the fabric as I pulled it tightly to get a nice even look



7)I carefully folded up the corners like a present and stapled them


8)Then I nailed the trim in place



9) I did the same thing with the foot board


10)I also covered the side rails but did not use batting. Instead, I had to be careful getting under the slight ledge on the side.

PRESTO!!! My $2000 pottery barn bed 4 hours and a blister later for $100!


Stay tuned to see the bed in the room with bedding once paint dries in the room here in a few days!