Blog Archives
Our House: Master Bedroom Eclectic Furniture Finishes
I love a room with a mixture of furniture finishes, painted, distressed, wood grains, all of them. I find that if a room has all the same wood finishes, I get bored to death, and it’s impossible at that point to bring in something different, because it’s the only thing that is different, so it’ll stick out like a sore thumb!
So instead, I constantly mix it up. The key is to figure out how to balance those different finishes within the room. And to balance it with what the room itself has going on.
So for example in our master bedroom, the walls, ceiling, doors and trim are all painted wood. So if all my furniture finishes were painted wood it’d be just as boring to me as those rooms where people have all wood grain finished trim, doors, floors and all their furnishings are wood… (I have friends that have that, and I have a confession to make, when I go to visit them sometimes I get lost imagining painting their trim and some of their furniture!) click here to read the rest of the story…
Someone Else’s House: Bungalow Master Bedroom
The other day I introduced you to a very sweet, young couple that has bought their first home in a vintage neighborhood full of charming bungalows. I showed you the pair of unmatched dressers and how she cleverly painted and papered them into a coordinated set. (If you missed that dresser re-do post, click here to see it)
So let’s take a look at the whole bedroom today, with before, during and after pics…
Well to start with, when they bought this house just a couple months ago, the bedroom looked like this: (minus the previous owner’s furniture)
It doesn’t look too bad, that is if you like lots of green stripes… they were a bit overwhelming, so off came the paper… be prepared it gets worse: click here to read the rest of the story…
Someone Else’s House… Making 2 Vintage Dressers a Set!
A young couple that I know, recently bought a crafstman style bungalow in a lovely neighborhood full of similar styled homes all from the 1910’s and 20’s. This is the first of hopefully many posts I’ll be sharing with you of the amazing transformation this house has experienced since this hard-working, talented, creative and all around wonderful couple has purchased it just a few months ago!
Today I’m starting with a pair of dressers. This pair of dressers, like the young couple that own them, are each from their individual families. The taller dresser, is the husband’s from when he was a boy and before that belonged to his dad from when he was young. Likewise for the other dresser, it was the wife’s from when she was a little girl, but now they’re together.
In the picture you can see the grainy ‘before’ pic… yep, one of the dressers came into this family orange, the other was a white-ish color.
But now that they’re together, it was time to coordinate them. So… click here to read the rest of the story…
Master Bedroom, Pottery Barn Linens, Just Not a Messy Bed
I’ve been sort of delaying getting the master bedroom revealed on this blog. Mostly because I’ve really been struggling with making the pictures look as good as the room looks in real life. For some reason, I can’t get a good angle with the bed, either it looks huge, or it looks messy. And then this week I got the Pottery Barn catalogue in the mail and the bedroom pic, that by the way, looked great… of course, had bed linens that were slightly messy.
Source: Pottery Barn
Doesn’t that bed above from Pottery Barn look great? Yeah, I tried to embrace the ‘messy’ bed look. I wasn’t happy with that picture either. And the toile printed linens I have, even came from Pottery Barn. (maybe I just lack the guts to pull that messy look off, Ha! after all, what if you thought that since I posted pics of my bed messy, you thought that was how I normally kept it? Gasp!)
So instead I tried to get the same angle and closeness of the bed as Pottery Barn did… Read More of the Story…
Window Treatments in the Master Bedroom, How I Accomplished Form and Function
All of the windows in ‘Our House’ are treated according to what the privacy and light control needs (function) are for each space, as well as treated for the aesthetic quality (form). In most cases it’s difficult to accomplish all those needs with only one treatment per window. Usually, I have a treatment for the privacy and light control, and a separate treatment for the ‘look’.
In the master bedroom, the Hunter Douglas plantation shutters on the windows are on read more…
One of Our Rentals… Vintage, Cottage Style Duplex… 3 uh… no, 2 Bedrooms
Besides the ‘Little Brick Cottage’ that we have renovated and have a family leasing in, we also have another vintage property, a duplex, that we have renovated and lease it out. This duplex isn’t as old as the ‘Little Brick Cottage’, I would guess it was built around 1940’s.
It was re-sided and had the windows replaced before we bought it 8 years ago. Since this picture was taken, I’m glad to say I’ve planted some shrubs so it looks cuter, but you get the idea.
One of the sides of the duplex has recently been vacated and due to numerous reasons, I needed to re-examine the floor plan among other things and refresh it for whoever will be the lucky one to lease it. (If you’re interested, let me know.UPDATE!! It’s rented! 
) READ ON…
Our House… A Little Change in the Master Bedroom
So far, the closest to revealing the master bedroom at ‘Our House’ is when I showed you the master bathroom.
The master bedroom has the same painted finish on the wood wall, ceiling, and trim as the master bathroom, so to bring in some wood tones in the furniture is a nice contrast to all the painted pieces.
Here is the shelf that was in the bedroom before this weekend’s yard sale ‘buy’…
It is a vintage bamboo shelf that my mother-in-law gave me when I was first married. It works here ok, but not great. I love the piece, but would like to find a new spot for it, maybe in the piano room…
anyway, here is the new, well, old-antique piece… READ ON…
Antique Windows Re-purposed into Headboards
The other day I went out into the shed and was visually reminded of the old windows we took out of the ‘Little Brick Cottage’, mostly because when I was in the shed, I practically tripped over the 4 top halves we were able to save for ‘repurposing’, (I know, I have a lot of ‘stuff’ out there right now, I need to have a sale).
Anyway… This is what they looked like when they were in the cottage:
Well sort of… unfortunately in this picture you are actually looking at the aluminum storm windows. I guess I don’t really have a good picture of the old windows showing the arch detail when they were still attached to the cottage.
But seeing the 4 upper halves in the shed, made me think of a way to use 2 of them, being inspired by my daughter-in-law’s re-purposed window project. I just showed you the other day how a few years ago she re-purposed some windows and they turned out so lovely, I filed it in my brain to pull out someday, and today was that lucky day. Read on…
Lightening up the Living Room: How about the Popular Table?
Can you believe it? I haven’t shown you very much of “Our House”, and now I’m already changing it…the “popular” table has once again found a new location. If you recall I had this table in the West bedroom…and that seemed perfect, for the time, but not for this time. Here’s where it used to be:
It really was charming in one of the guest bedrooms in ‘Our House’ but alas, I must be willing to at least try new things… Read on…
Feedback Needed
Dec 26
Posted by DecorateWithaLittleBit.com
We started this blog just about a month ago and I would love to get some direct feedback.
I’m excited about a new project I’ll be starting in January, if all goes as planned. So there will optimistically be a lot of blogging about the progress with that. (I hope to reveal the exciting project in a couple of days.)
I have a lot to share with you in the categories ‘Our House’, ‘Crafts’, and ‘DIY’, along with ‘Someone Else’s House’, which will actually be several different people’s houses that are either my friends, family or houses I’ve decorated.
Here is one of my big questions:
Do you prefer if I post continually about 1 project until it’s completed? (basically how I did the posts for The West Bedroom)
Or do you prefer for me to skip around, to keep it fresh? (Jumping from one project to another)
Check out my posts from the past 4 weeks and please give me any tips on my writing style, posts, or subjects you would love to hear about. Let me know what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you would like to see different. This is a really exciting adventure for me and I want it to be both fabulously entertaining and informative for you.
I think anyone, even if you don’t have a WordPress account can comment, but if you run into trouble, please email me directly at: decoratewithalittlebit@gmail.com
One thing I know I have to work on is taking better pictures. It’s definitely a work in progress. Unfortunately, I can’t blame the camera, it’s a nice one. It’s for sure me needing to learn more.
The only way I’m going to know what you want is if you tell me, so let’s hear it! Thank you!
We’re looking forward to the new year and all the possibilities that come with it,
Little Bit
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Posted in Bedroom, Dining Room, DIY - Crafts - Floral, Living Room, Our House, Re-purposing, Seasons & Holiday Decorating, Setting the Table, Someone Else's House, Uncategorized, Wall Treatments, Window Treatments
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