Rest for the Weary

For the past 10 weeks, our cottage bedroom has been a catch-all for tools, frog tape, paint, rags, brooms, and everything else we needed to transform the rest of the place.  (Once again, although we have "befores" of the bedroom, we probably should have taken a "during" to show it with all of our stuff...)

Although we painted the walls, ceiling, closets, and built-ins a few weeks ago, the floor was still filthy and water-stained.  But last Thursday, with the kitchen done, Doug was able to pack up most of his tools and clear the floor for me to paint it.  I will be forever grateful to a DIY-er who was featured in a magazine (maybe Country Living or Coastal Living) several months ago.  She tore out old orange carpet in a vacation cabin but had no money for new carpet or flooring.  Her solution was to paint the plywood subfloor with porch paint. I loved the idea (and the price--$25 for a can of paint that's enough to do one large room or two small ones).  Here's our bedroom with the floor painted using Valspar dark grey satin porch and deck paint:

This weekend, we went to Sleepy's and finally bought a bed, which means that we can actually stay there now.  Here's the room with the bed all made up.

 

I made the quilt from scraps and bought the pillows at a yard sale earlier this summer (we hadn't even bought the beach cottage at that point, but I couldn't pass up two PB pillow shams with pillows for $5). I got the Ralph Lauren dust ruffle (which you can't really see in these pix) from Goodwill for $3. Doug made the headboard out of an old tongue-and-groove door. He sanded off the old paint because it was very loose and bubbly and painted the hardware. I covered the door with several coats of satin urethane (still working on that container left over from the floor several years ago).

We salvaged the wall sconces when we tore the bedroom apart. Doug was going to throw them away, but I grabbed them and found a can of metallic spray paint on the porch.  My friend Jennie went to her wonderful basement storehouse and came up with two matching shades that fit perfectly.  I made the curtains from thrift store fabric.

Just so you can see how far this tiny room has come, here again, are the befores. I especially love the curtain hanging by one hook:

And note here that even the top of the dresser was adorned with the lovely green faux wood contact paper that was also used to line all of the drawers:

I'm so glad the previous owners left behind their dirty bedding for us:

And this shelf definitely had to go--how did they get out of bed without whacking their heads every day?

Our only concern about the bedroom is that it can accommodate only a double bed, and we're used to sleeping in a queen. It could get to be pretty cozy in there, especially if we're joined by our orange tabby, Pax, who is only 5 months and 6 pounds NOW, but will probably double in size over the next year.  Something tells me he's going to like our bed better than any cat bed we buy for him.