This past January, our son acquired a position with a financial company in Madison, WI requiring him to move out of our home and with our daughter getting married last June, Steve and I are
officially "Empty Nesters". Anyone that says you are empty nesters when the kids go off to college has it wrong. Those are the baby step years to get you ready for the time when the little darlings leave for good.
With our home being a split level with four bedrooms we decided as empty nesters it's time to purge and get the house ready to put on the market (not to mention I hate cleaning it) and eventually down size, so after Ryan moved out,
I got to work! I starting with the bedrooms and worked down, painting all the bedrooms, redecorating and PURGING!
My favorite project is the nursery. This is our fourth bedroom, the smallest one, and over the years it was a guest room, craft room, office, storage and trust me sometimes a mess. Initially my plan was to make this room into an office and one of the other bedrooms into a nursery, however, my brilliant niece Jenny (mother of three) took one look at the room and said to make this particular room the nursery, that way anyone looking at the house will see it as it is...a four bedroom home...what a smart girl! So twist my arm and let me have some fun.
I wish I would have taken a picture of the room before I redid it (didn't plan on doing a blog at the time), it was a soft yellow and white trim. It is a paneled room that I had painted years ago. I primed the paneling with oil based
Kilz and painted over it and never had a problem with the stain bleeding through or chipping.
When selecting paint for the majority of the house I wanted a neutral color so I went with mostly tan colors. I love the way different tan colors will go with anything, especially white! Home Depot became my favorite store...forget the mall, I am a painting fiend!
Painting stripes on paneling is a piece of cake, the work/measuring is done for you. To get this look, I painted the base coat first, Behr paint, Basketry was the color. Then I taped the panels for the stripes. I bought the same color paint for the stripes only in
High Gloss. I loved the end result!
This is a dresser I picked up at an auction years ago. At one point it was our entertainment center. It has been sitting in our shed for numerous years and Steve has been threatening to give it away or toss it on the curb. I knew at some point I was going to put it to good use and Steve knew that if he touched it there would be hell to pay.
Waaa Laaaa.... A changing table for Grandma Beth's nursery! Little bit of primer, paint, new wood knobs that I painted and you have a fine little changing table...never mind the imperfections, it gives it character. How fun is this?!
For the curtain tie back, I just happen to have on hand an antique door knob and metal tie back I had bought from
Target a while back. I pulled the decorative piece off the end of the thingie, snapped a pencil to fit the length, whittled some of the pencil to fit and placed the door knob on the top of the pencil that was stinking out and it was a perfect fit. I will say this, at some point I want to find some kind of an elbow to put in this so that the door knob is facing out, but for impatient Beth, this will be fine until then.
I couldn't resist showing one last picture. The little green chair is an old student chair that was in the garbage at the school where I work. It needed a home and after getting permission, I scooped it up and brought it home. Needless to say, it has been many different colors over the years. My niece Jenny's little 3 year old has already tried it out and thinks it is mighty fine.
There you have it, my first project that I shared, I hope you liked it. Let me know if you have questions.
Talk soon.....
Beth
