COZY FARMHOUSE BEDROOM MAKEOVER

This was a surprise makeover I did for my daughter Kaitlin’s room while she was away for her first year of college.  Although she lives and attends school in Seattle, we do not get to see her as often as we would like because she is on the Crew team and practices 6 days a week.  I wanted to do something special for her and change her tween room into a more sophisticated look.

We live in a 3 bedroom home.  My daughter had her own room and the boys shared a room which made for some tight quarters.  When she was 14 we converted this never used formal dining room into a bedroom and the shiplap wall behind the headboard used to be open to the formal living room.  Since we have lived here this room has been orange, yellow,  turquoise, and lime green.  The first thing I did was paint Alabaster by Sherwin Williams using their Cashmere line in a low luster finish.  This color is almost identical to Benjamin Moore White Dove. This is my favorite white/cream color (true color is shown in pic with chandelier) and I have used it throughout my home on all the trim. Because this room does not receive a lot of natural light taking pictures is a bit challenging to show the true color.

This Anthropologie Rivulets Quilt is my absolute favorite.  So much so that I have the same one in light gray for my bedroom.  Anyone who knows anything about Anthropologie knows it comes with a hefty price tag, but it is so worth it.  Sign up for their newsletters and about every 6 weeks you can combine a coupon with a bedding sale. It is extremely well made and very heavy.  The quilt is lighter in color in person than it appears in the photo.  I purchased the quilt and standard size shams from Anthropologie and was able to find matching cream euro pillows at Home Goods.  When searching for decor pillows I have the best luck at Home Goods and TJ Maxx.  They generally come out with new inventory in Jan/Feb and their shelves are stocked.

I love natural fiber rugs.  I have 4 large and 3 small jute rugs in my home.  My favorite is the Contemporary Flatweave Jute Ribbed Solid Natural Area Rugs  For her room, I have the 6×9. Originally I had this rug in her room, but have since moved I have since moved it into the family room. Safavieh Natural Fiber Collection Hand Woven Natural Jute Area Rug . Both rugs are .75 pile meaning they are thicker than your standard Jute rug. I needed this for her room since it is carpeted and did not want the rug to have ripples in it from her bed.

Before

I scored this antique Pennsylvania Furniture Company dresser on Offer-Up for $50 and I could not get to the seller’s house quick enough to pick it up.  It was a little beat up but nothing a little paint couldn’t fix.  I absolutely love the Hepplewhite drawer pulls.

After

Over the years I have used several different brands of chalk, milk and clay paint.  I find that for me Milk Paint is the easiest to use.  For this dresser, I used General Finishes Water Based Milk Paint Snow White Quart .  I then sealed it with General Finishes QTHF High Performance Water Based Topcoat, 1 Quart, Flat

When using lighter color paints I recommend water based sealers because it will not “yellow” the paint. It’s important to know that if you are working with darker woods like Cherry or Mahogany that you should prime it with a Stain Blocking primer first so the wood does not bleed through.

I just love everything about this chandelier.  It’s feminine yet not too over the top.  I purchased the Chandelier from Overstock and it has a fair amount of good reviews.  If you subscribe to their mailing list they frequently send out coupons anywhere from 10-15%. Lowes carries a similar one that I was initially planning on purchasing.  It’s silver and I would have spray painted it Oil Rubbed Bronze.

I found this little nightstand at a local antique shop and it was a perfect fit for the room.   The small plants are from TJ Maxx and range from $6-$9.  Round basket from Target. The Gray Wood Pillar, White Wood Pillar and Natural Wood Pillar at World Market.

I have several old chippy windows, but this is one of my favorites!  (I know I need to do something about the wire, there used to be a wreath hanging on this so it hid the wire).  I found some free printables on Pinterest, downloaded them to my computer, and then uploaded them to Walgreens photo and picked them up in an hour.

Isn’t this armoire beautiful??  My parents worked in Germany as civilian contractors for the military for four years brought this back along with many other gorgeous antiques.  and surprisingly it comes apart very easily into 7 pieces.  I wanted to put this in the master bedroom, however, our ceilings are not tall enough. When my daughter was younger she would joke with her friends to get inside and it would take them to Narnia.

I have always been a fan of  Tufted beds and I found this Tufted bed here. One thing you want to make sure of is that the “wings” on the side of the headboard go all the down to the floor (this bed does) as many times you cannot see in the manufacturer pictures and a lot of them do not add that to their descriptions.  It is important that you READ the reviews. This is a platform bed and sits low, although it is not required to use a box spring, I chose to.

These black chippy Beetle and Dragonfly pictures I found at World Market.  They have been out of stock online for awhile and I was able to purchase them at a local store where they sell them individually.  The mirror was a garage sale find which ironically is also from World Market.

Let’s talk about this shiplap wall for a minute.  Before I re-decorated this room there was no shiplap, but it was framed with the trim as that used to be open to the formal living room.  I knew I could do it myself and I have a habit of waiting for my husband to be gone for the day to start on projects.  This way I don’t have to listen to him chipping in my ear if I do it wrong, lol. (Not to give you the wrong idea, he is almost 100% on board with the things I want to do)  He was headed snowmobiling for the day and not more than 5 minutes after he pulled out the driveway I booked out the door to Lowes. I grabbed a 4’x8″ piece of 1/4″ plywood and had Lowes rip it into 6″ strips.  I cut it to the appropriate lengths when I got home and installed it with a nail gun into the studs and used nickels as spacers then primed and painted also in Sherwin Williams Alabaster.

Would you believe these shutters used to be painted in forest green and yellow?  I had seen them several times while shopping in town and wasn’t in the mindset to think “outside of the box”.  One day the lightbulb clicked on and rushed down to pick them up.  I used the same paint as I did on the dresser and then dry brushed leftover Mixwax  Special Walnut wood stain on them.

This is my all-time favorite sign and one of the best purchases I have ever made. It was originally placed on the dresser, but I have since moved it into the family room and replaced it with the window below.

This window is my “unicorn”, I consider it one of my best finds.  I searched for months for one of these Cathedral style farmhouse windows then one day it popped up on Offer Up.  I was so excited I could barely speak.  The seller lived in an old farmhouse that they were remodeling not too far from me.  My original thoughts were to take it out of the frame and hang it from chains and mount it in front of our formal living room window, but until that time it works perfectly in this room.

Room before:

Let’s take a look down memory lane.  This was her room before, it wasn’t always this messy, but when she moved out for school it became the “overflow” room where everything just got stored and the door closed so I didn’t have to look at it.  Prior to that it was the formal living room. This was the first of many colors it was painted, but I can’t seem to find any other pictures.

Looking back at this I have no idea what I was thinking painting it orange. WTH??  At the time it seemed like a good idea.  This was about 12 years ago, boy have styles changed!

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