Playroom and Guest Room

We're wrapping up the home tour with our biggest basement room (so far).  This bedroom is quite large, about 15 feet square.  Since it's so big, it does double duty as the playroom and the guest room.  We've got a full size bed in there, and entertainment center, and a bunch of toys.  I hope to someday have a television in there, but we don't have one now.  I also want to do some decor, optimize the storage, and maybe do some sort of headboard for the bed.

This room is sort of the catch-all for our cast-off furniture as well.  I made the nightstand and cedar chest in high school woodshop, and the brown upholstered chair was a summer project of mine around the same time.  My carpenter brother made the entertainment center, which is super heavy and very well done.

The chalkboard is one of the favorite toys in the playroom.  It's accompanied by my first (and one of very few) oil paintings.

That's it!  In the top photo, you can see a sneak peek of the play kitchen I just redid for my daughters for Christmas, but that will have its own post next week.  I hope you've enjoyed this home tour! 

Next year, I hope to be able to show the laundry room and our basement family room that is still unfinished, since they didn't make it into this tour.  The laundry will require some built-in shelving, and the basement family room is a huge project, as it is very large and we want to include a fireplace and a small kitchen area.  We've got some big ideas for the future!

Slate Bathroom

Our penultimate stop on the tour takes us to the basement bathroom.  Even though we bought our house new, it was a spec. home and everything had already been picked out by the time we found it.  We mostly love it, but there are a few things we would have changed, one of those being the bathroom counters, hardware, and tile.  This is the only bathroom in the house where we got to choose everything.

We also did everything ourselves, from the plumbing to tiling.  We got pretty much everything from Lowe's, including the cabinets from the allen + roth line.  The cabinet I loved wasn't big enough for our space (which we didn't realize until later), so we came up with a solution to fit it in where we built these shelves in next to the cabinet and tiled them with slate.

I loved the look of the green glass mosaic tile, but we couldn't afford to buy much of it.  To make the most of what we did get, we cut the 12" tiles into thirds and ran a stripe through the slate tile in the shower and as the backsplash above the counter.  I love the continuity it gives the room.

Everything came together so well for this room.  Now it just need some finishing touches and some towels!  Next and final stop on the home tour- playroom/guest room.

Kids' Bathroom

 

I have been realizing recently that I have a few more rooms to post if I want to finish this home tour while it's still 2011.  There are really only three more rooms worth seeing, one of which is the upstairs kids' bathroom.  With this and the last two rooms, the quality of interior design is a bit lacking, I know.  Unfortunately, my resources are a bit limited, so I just do what I can when I can.  Besides, if my house were all decorated how I want, what would I do with myself in my "spare time"?

That being said, this bathroom is still pretty cute for not getting much attention.  I got the jungle decor from my mom when she redid her bathroom, I made the hair clip tree, and the rest has been randomly acquired.

I will admit that I don't really have a clear vision for this bathroom.  I haven't given it too much thought, but I would like to personalize it a bit more this next year.  I do know that I want to customize the builder-grade mirror, with a frame of wood or tile.  I might want to try a stencil or design on the walls, or horizontal stripes.  We are also going to need even more hair clip storage.  With two girls, we've got bows everywhere!

Look for the playroom and downstairs bathroom stops on the tour before this week is over!

 

Master Bathroom

I know you have all been on pins and needles since I posted the tour pictures from the master bedroom and didn't move right into the bathroom, too.  Right?  Since we still had some random finish work to do at the time, I decided to split the master suite into two posts.  After I finished the birch trees art and we finished caulking and painting some trim, things are finally looking great in there!

This is the view from the bedroom, which you can see in the mirror.  I got that shell-trimmed curtain for under $10 at DownEast Home a couple of years ago.  We also have a privacy shade over that window, for entirely obvious reasons. 

When we painted our bedroom and bathroom grey, we discovered that the builders had used non-paintable silicone caulk all around the shower and tub.  Instead of scraping it all out and redoing it, we put cove trim over it.  It actually adds another level of customization that we really ended up liking in the end, but in the end I'm not sure that it was really the timesaver we were hoping for.  Regardless, I am glad we chose adding trim over scraping out caulk!

This is probably my favorite shot of the bathroom.  We also framed over our boring builder mirror, which I love.  The tile on the counter is for me to set my flat iron on while it is hot.  My husband didn't want it to ruin the counter, so I just grabbed a six inch tile and put felt corners on the back.  Done!

From this view, you can see the door to the toilet room on the left and the closet on the right.  Neither of those tiny rooms got photos based on their sheer boredom factor.  We haven't changed them at all since we moved in.  You can see my boxwood topiary there on the counter, though.

I am still thinking of hanging something on the wall there above the towel bar, I just haven't figured out what yet.

Well, that's pretty much it for today.  Still yet to come on the tour: main bathroom, laundry room, and playroom.

Master Bedroom

Time for another stop on my home tour!  Today we'll be visiting the master bedroom, which, in my eyes, is a room that still needs some work.  I'd like to get different nightstands, a bench for the bay window, a low dresser instead of a tall one, and make a headboard out of some old pallet wood we have.  In spite of these things I still want to do, I do love the direction this room is headed.  I absolutely love the wall color, the bedding, and the drapes (ever since I lengthened them to reach the floor).

This is the view from the bathroom.  On the left, you can see my fancified IKEA mirror.  I got my lamps and rug at IKEA, also.  The bedding is from Kohl's.

That's the door out into the hallway, my reclaimed barnwood jewelry holder, and the tall dresser that I wish were a low dresser.

And this is the view looking into the bathroom.  I used to not love the archway, but I think I must be getting used to it, because it doesn't bother me like it did when we moved in.  It's also nice to be able to get some extra light in the bedroom from the window in the bathroom. 

For now, the bay window is empty, but I would like to have a long bench under the window someday.  I really do love our bedroom, and I can't wait until all the final touches are complete.

Kitchen and Dining Nook

 

Picking up where we left off in the family room, let's head into the kitchen and dining nook.  If you remember from last time, the family room, kitchen, and dining are all in one big room in our house. 

I love the wall color in the kitchen, and the overall decor.  The door opens to a pretty decently-sized pantry.  I made the shade above the sink with some help from my mom.  The dining area could use a little bit of love.

I would love to find a great old buffet to refinish for that wall, and I'd like to continue the green paint into the bay window.  I did the art myself, and the curtains in the bay.  I also refinished all the dining chairs about a year ago.  The high chair is a necessary evil.  I would love a better-looking one, but this one works great and was free, so I wasn't able to justify the cost on that one.  Here's a close-up of the art.  The background and branches are painted, and the flowers, birds, berries, etc. are all paper. 

Since that's all there really is to see in the dining nook, let's head back into the kitchen.  This is the view from the dining nook.

I don't have a ton of counter space, but the pantry and island help a lot with storage issues.

Here's a view of the kitchen that I see a lot when I am cooking and/or cleaning.  You can see my do-it-yourself knife magnet on the side of the fridge. 

Well, that's about it for the kitchen.  The only other rooms on the upstairs level that we haven't visited yet are the laundry room and the master bedroom and bathroom; and since we already visited the craft room in the basement, there is only the play room and giant unfinished family room to see.  Until our next visit, feel free to look back on all the other rooms we've seen so far.

Coming soon: bird nest necklaces, white chocolate cheesecake, and menu plan clipboard.

Family Room

Our family room is one of our favorite places in the house to hang out.  It's also the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, and the next stop on my home tour!  If you want to see the rest of the tour so far, click on the button in my left sidebar or click here.  I have also been playing around with my DSLR camera, a Nikon D40, a little bit more, so I hope my interior photos are improving a tad.

I love my piano, but it is a bit crowded upstairs.  Once we finish the large family room in the basement (some day, but not anytime soon), I'd like to move the piano or the television stand downstairs.  When we were looking for houses, I decided that I didn't necessarily need a formal sitting room, and for the most part it's been great.  We love having the family room, dining area, and kitchen all in one big room, but every once in a while it would be nice to have a formal room for the piano, some sitting chairs, and a little privacy from the rest of the house. 

Yep, that's the birdcage that I repainted with crackle glaze.  I still love it. 

And that's my tea-stained IKEA lamp, crackle-glazed clock, and chalkboard sign.  As you can see, I do a lot of projects for my home's decor.  Part of the reason for that is to save money, and the other part is so I get exactly what I have envisioned.  It's a win-win.

We love having this sectional.  It is great for entertaining, but it does take up a lot of space in the family room.  Eventually, I'd like to move it to the basement as well.  One thing that I would like to do much sooner is to paint that wall with all the windows.  I'd like to paint it (sometime this fall) the same brown we have on the wall behind the piano and television, except bring the green from the kitchen into the bay window. 

Another project I have started to think about for this room is a slipcover for the piano bench.  Overall, I am pretty pleased with this room.  Next time, I'll be showing you around the rest of our giant common room, the kitchen and dining area.

Pennant Nursery

What a fun project this room was!  I blogged about it a bit on the way, but I never really summed it all up in a single post.  There are still a couple of things that would be nice to have in there.  Bed skirt and cute mobile, anyone?  If they never happen, it will probably be okay, but if I ever get bored with nothing to do (ha!) maybe I will whip something up.  Well, let's get started on that tour, shall we?

The lovely, awesome quilt was a baby gift from my amazingly talented seamstress, aka my mom.

The circle rug, yellow vase, and sheers are from IKEA, and I made the pennant banner and giant stuffed fish (years ago).

Now for the other side of the room:

I had a lot of fun making those pennant canvases.  They were really pretty easy, too: striped paint background, scrapbook paper pennants, and ribbon for the strings.

My fabric box tutorial can be found here, and here's a quick run-down of the changing pad covers.

This is the art I have on a little forty-five degree wall by the door.  The clipboard is from our wedding reception, and the mini print is from my sister, who got it from The Dreamy Giraffe.  So, there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed seeing another one of our spaces.

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