While You Were Out

Long, long ago.... before I blogged.... before I moved.... before my baby went to college... we lived in a little house in the big woods. We had lived there forever!
My bedroom was boring. It had off-white walls. It had off-white carpet. It had off-white vertical blinds. It was bland. It was blah.

It was B-O-R-I-N-G!

My hubby and my son were planning to go off on a class trip for a week. I began planning and scheming, too. I was going to transform the bedroom into a country cottage. The minute they stepped out the door, I went to work! First stop, big box home improvement store to buy paint, hardi-plank exterior siding, plantation shutters, wood trim, nails and screws, and scrapers, and brushes, and all of those other things that are needed for renovation.

Next step, move the furniture and cover what couldn't be moved. (I discovered that our wonderfully comfortable double coil mattress was impossible to move. You might ask why I hadn't noticed that when vacuuming under it... eh?!) For days I painted. I sawed. I hammered. I sanded. I sewed. (Later, I wondered whether sitting around, reading books, watching movies and eating chocolate chip cookies might have been just as more rewarding!)

I was exhausted. I burned the midnight oil.
I performed physical 'man' labor.
But...
it all came together in the end.

The room had a new paint job. The interior walls and the top of the exterior walls were painted "Jekyll Island Clubhouse Terra Cotta". (It looks a tad bit more pink in the pictures than it really is.) The exterior walls had hardi-plank siding placed horizontally. The siding has subtle wood grain so when you see it in person, you notice the texture. There is a piece of molding on top of the planking which allowed me to prop pictures on it and display small bric-a-brac. 

I installed plantation shutters on the windows, sewed valences for the windows and the sliding door, and created a bed skirt with the same fabric. The fabric looks like old blue and white mattress ticking and the pleats are tied with ribbon the same color as the walls.  I built a shelf for the TV (how laughable, now, with our flat screen TV's - but remember... this transformation took place a while back!)

I loved the transformation.

Mr. Dreamy wasn't quite so sure he loved it. At least not at midnight when he got in after a long day of travel, turned on the light, and thought he had walked into the wrong house! Later he admitted that it was a nice surprise. But, I've noticed that he hasn't left me home alone since then. I guess he's afraid of what I might do while he is away!