New Year, New Projects

A made bed in my house is a rare sight.

Happy 2017, friends!
It's a new year, which is hard to believe. Lots of folks like to make resolutions around this time. Did you decide to hit the gym more often, change your eating habits, or commit to making it to work on time everyday? Well I decided to make 2017 my year for getting projects done at the Pretty Old Rowhouse.

I spent the last few months in a bit of a design slump so I didn't really get much done except laundry (barely).

The newness of my old house had started to wear off. Instead of seeing what I used to call "charm" and "character," all I could see was peeling paint, chipped bathtub enamel, cracking plaster, and a severe lack of convenient outlets. Thanks for not predicting the electronics-heavy future, 1930's builders!

This lovely decoration came with the house.
Water and rust damage from some bygone era caused the wallpaper under the paint to peel back.

Wall in the shower is showing its age with lots of little hairline cracks in the plaster.

 Because I tend to lose interest in things quickly, I decided to play a game with myself modeled after one of my favorite shows, Project Runway. 

I decided to call it Project House-Way!

Project House-Way will be my way of keeping myself on track. I'm giving myself design challenges and then solving them!

This week's challenge focuses on my BEDROOM. It's actually the largest bedroom I've ever owned, but it's awkwardly rectilinear at about 20'x 10'.

The master bedroom is on the right. Two closets are great, but it makes the layout a bit of a challenge.

If you remember, this is what it looked like shortly after I moved in!

Last summer, I chose a color scheme and bought paint. I spent about a day painting accent walls and it turned out pretty well.

The view facing the door and  cedar closet

This little corner area eludes me. It's so awkward!

How my bed looks 95% of the time!

EDIT: I forgot to mention the teeny tiny artwork on the walls is not permanent!

In combination with the yellow and gray color scheme I recycled from my apartment days, the deep blue ended up working pretty well. The traditional looking rug is from IKEA and kind of grounds the whole thing, creating this mixed look.

The little dressers at the foot of my bed are from (you guessed it!) IKEA and they are called RAST. They are basically the barest of bare bones pine dressers but that makes them highly customizeable. I took on the project of painting and adding hardware a few years back.

Here is what they look like from the store.




And a close up.



It was actually a pretty fun project and I'd like to do a few more since these things are only like $35 bucks.

I also took some time to reorganize my room. It took a while to clean out the closets, empty boxes that had been packed since move in, and put things in the right place. This meant pulling out absolutely everything, and decided whether I needed it or if it could be donated, or if it needed to be tossed. I was exhausted!

Some of this crap hadn't seen the light of day since August 2015.

Ongoing challenges in this room are what to do with the other side. I'm thinking of doing a sitting area with a couple of chairs and a coffee table, but I'm not sure yet. I picked up a couple of awesome 1970's end tables at the ReStore and I'd like to incorporate one of them somehow, but that'll be an ongoing plan.




Next time, I'll post about how I've been tackling the challenge of my living and dining room.

Thanks for reading!