Decorating Fun

BEDS

My Boys Room Project started clear back in May when I decided to refinish the boy's beds.  They are the beds Rob and Randy used as children so they're pretty old and looked pretty haggard.  We don't have any money to buy new beds and my neighbor refinishes furniture all the time and made it sound like no big deal.  So I thought, what the heck.  Not only was it a big deal...it was a nightmare.  I was trying to do it as cheaply as possible so I decided to just sand them down rather than buy some stripper.  My same neighbor said she always sands rather than strips.  Little did I know at the time that she always paints so she's only sanding to create a smooth surface she can paint on.  I was going to re-stain them so I had to get all the color out and it took FOREVER.  I decided to try the stripper on the second bed and while it definitely helped with the sanding time, I still had to sand a TON and the stripping process was a pain in the butt in and of itself.  2 months later after hours and hours and hours and hours of sanding and stripping and my entire basement covered in sawdust, I was able to refinish them.  I think they look great.  As with any homemade project (especially first-time projects) I can see all my screw-ups.  But they don't bug me, I still think the beds are awesome.

PAINT

While the beds were torn apart downstairs in the middle of this process, we sold the baby crib and changing table.  So their room was pretty much empty.  No better time to paint right?  Randy isn't a fan of paint, he wants the entire house to be one color.  Plus, it seems like such a waste to paint over new paint doesn't it?  So rather than painting the whole room I decided to paint some stripes to give their room a little flavor.  I picked the colors based on the bedding we already had. 

CURTAINS

I was planning on making some curtains to match and was already planning on brown with the blue and orange stripes when I found some awesome brown black-out curtains at Kohls.  With all my Kohls deals I got them cheaper than the fabric would have cost me, plus they look great, they're black-out, and I didn't have to do all that work.  I just sewed the stripes right on the top.

PICTURES

In the last General Conference we were encouraged to have a picture of the temple in our kid's rooms.  I got this idea to take a picture of the boys in front of the temple and blow it up (I just LOVE Costco's $6 16X20s.)  I also thought I might blow up a picture of the boys being sweet together so they can always be reminded that they are best friends.  Then, when looking for extra sand paper in the basement, I found 2 matching 16X20 frames I got a while back for super cheap on Walmart's clearance.  So there we have it.

I don't think I'm very good at decorating.  I don't feel like I have any natural talent.  I recognize great decorating skills when I see them and I'm pretty sure my house looks like a four-year-old decorated it in comparison.  And yet, I love my house.  I love my own decorating because it fits me and makes me feel at home and happy.  And who doesn't feel good after a job well done?

Oh yeah, one more thing...the boys love their room!