Master Bedroom Reveal (in which a room is finally finished after more than two decades of planning)

Well, the time we have all been waiting for has finally arrived.

The master bedroom at my parents house is indeed finished. Well, mostly. We’re calling it done.

It’s come a long way. The wallpaper and trim used to look like this. Please brace yourself–I don’t want anyone falling off their chair in shock. Safety first.

Yes, that is butterfly/moth wallpaper. We spent HOURS scraping the gunk off the walls.

But now, Mom and Dad can rest easy (literally) because their room now looks like this:

Let’s recap a little, shall we? And we’ll go waaaay back this time…let’s say 22 years.

Mom and Dad moved into this house in 1992. I was just a lil’ tyke.

The first thing Mom said she would be changing was the master bedroom wallpaper.

That obviously didn’t happen for more than two decades. Time has a funny way of getting away from us, huh? Almost the entire rest of the house was remodeled first. It could be that Mom is selfless, but I think the real reason is that we were all terrified of the ordeal of taking off the wallpaper.

So, on the day I had surgery to remove a kidney stone and was completely bored, we ripped all the wallpaper off. That was last April, and nothing happened after that. Until Christmas. The sibs and I plotted and schemed and settled on gifting my parents with the labor for a master bedroom makeover. Since then, we’ve painted the ceiling a cozy dark gray/brown, painted the walls and crown molding and installed board and batten (and new baseboards), installed craftsman-style wood trim around the windows and doors, removed the carpet, laid variegated engineered hardwood flooring, made cheap $10 curtain rods, hung no-sew dropcloth curtains, and even made some nifty doorknob hooks. Whew. Say all of that three times fast.

Let’s dive into some finished room pictures, shall we? This is what Mom and Dad see first when they walk in the doorway.

The dark ceiling makes everything feel cozy and warm, in my opinion. And even the dated textured swoops look kind of nice with dark paint.

One of the main reasons for the board and batten install was Mom and Dad’s antique bedroom furniture–we wanted it to really pop off the walls. And it does.

The cedar chest along the far wall serves as sort of a window seat. Dad made it for Mom as a wedding gift back in the day.

We upgraded the ceiling fan with some newer-looking glass light covers. It’s still a ceiling fan, but it looks pretty good, if you ask me. They fit the style of the room better than the frilly flowery shades that used to adorn those lights did.

Mom wove those two rugs you see on the floor (yes, like on a loom…she has three)…they normally live in the kitchen but we stole them for a bit until they find (or make) some rugs designated for this area. (I told you I lived in a crazy talented family.)

We used the ledge of the board and batten to create a couple of nice vignettes filled with memories. For example, do you see those flat round baskets on the ledge to the right? Those are from Mom’s time in Africa as a missionary, before she and Dad were married.

Oh, and my very talented Grandma made the quilt…you can’t see it fully here, but it’s very intricately handquilted by her. It takes her hundreds of hours per quilt, yet she still manages to finish 2 or 3 quilts each year.

In the corner, Mom created a little reading nook with an antique Stickley chair from the early 1900’s and a bajillion pound antique brass lamp. We’re still looking for a shade for it, as the old one was a wee bit waterstained and gross and one that is on it currently is way too small and a totally wrong style for the lamp. Ignore the cord. We do. 🙂

So, there you have it! Let’s close the book on this one.

Now, let’s play a game. What’s your favorite part? The quilt is definitely stealing the show, but I have to say the board and batten still has my heart. And I love the little reading nook. Love.

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Antique Doorknob Hooks (in which I continue to let Dad produce content for the blog and pass it off as my own)

My Dad is the type of guy who can do just about anything handy…or if he doesn’t know how to do something, he gives it a shot anyway and it usually turns out just fine. This particular skill is very helpful around the farm when he has to birth a sheep or fix a tractor or make Mom happy as was the case recently. Consider this a bonus Master Bedroom Makeover post.

On the farm, there is usually a surplus of old stuff in every nook and cranny, which made for a very entertaining childhood. I still frequently go back and roam around looking for cool stuff that I can permanently borrow and repurpose…like I did with this old barnwood sign I made with a board I found destined for the burnpile.

Anyway, Mom had a whole bag of antique glass doorknobs that she thought function great as hooks in the made-over master bedroom. She was right. But first Dad had to do a little reconfiguring to make these doorknobs into hooks.

The process involved cutting little pieces of metal to fit underneath the round doorknob piece and then welding on a small bit of square threaded screw (see the piece to the left in the picture above). I’m not exactly certain of how exactly Dad did this, but it probably involved sparks and very hot items. But don’t worry; farmer Dad is also a firefighter so he’s qualified to do this.

Once he created the metal bit, it was only a matter of screwing that into the board and batten (yes, I flinched a teeny bit to see the pristine b&b marred in such a way).

Here’s what it looked like before we screwed on the doorknob itself. Mom elected to keep the aged patina of the metal the way it was.

Then we just screwed on the doorknob. Dad let me help with this part.

Here’s a better look at where we put some of the doorknob hooks. Now they’re all ready to hold barncoats and crocheting bags.

The artwork may be changing, but we’re definitely nearing the end of the master bedroom makeover. It’s a good thing, too, since they’re deep in the midst of lambing season on the farm and Dad’s attention is frequently needed elsewhere…those lambs require a lot of supervised playtime and photoshoots. 🙂

Hey. If you haven’t liked the Planting Sequoias Facebook page, you should consider it. Would it help if I bribed you with promises of more cute lamb photos?

Master Bedroom Makeover: Carpet Removal 101 (in which we unearth bushels of antique dirt)

The master bedroom saga continues! We finished painting this weekend and the 40(ish)-year-old carpet was finally vanquished.

(Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 to catch up on this makeover. Parts 6-83 will be forthcoming in the weeks and years ahead until I run out of ideas for how to stretch this out or get my own house to mess around in, whichever comes first).

Here we are in the throes of carpet removal. Our strategy was to cut/rip the carpet into manageable sections to carry. My brother John and Kenny had a bit too much fun doing this…the dust was a-flying! I stood by and supervised and tried to minimize the amount of cancerous dust I was inhaling.

It was pretty grimy underneath the carpet, which is to be expected with carpet of this age. We at least knew that it was pet-free dust, so that was some consolation…but not much. Unfortunately, since I was the supervisor for the tearing/ripping of the carpet phase, I was the designated grime sweeper afterwards.

But then we were left with glorious, carpet-free floor. And night. Thus the bad pictures (oh, that I would have such a ready and plausible excuse for all of my mediocre photos).

I finally remembered to take a whole-room picture, so you can sort of get a feel for the layout. It’s nicely sized, coming in at 13′ by 15′, not counting the his and hers closets. In the photo above, I’m standing in the doorway.

In the picture below, the door to come in the room is on the left (UPDATE: False. It is on the right. I still have directional challenges…), and there is one window on the wall to the left of this picture and one on the wall behind me as I took this picture. Nevermind the plotting gentlemen and the stray hammer.

Next on the list: flooring. And curtains! Mom has great taste and I have cheap DIY ideas, so together we make a formidable force.

Master Bedroom Makeover: Craftsman-style Wood Trim (in which we cleverly use waxed paper in a carpentry project)

Work on Mom and Dad’s master bedroom is coming along swimmingly (read about the butterfly wallpaper removal, the dark painted ceiling, and the board and batten installation to catch up if you’re new here).

Mom is a big advocate for unpainted wood trim and she loves craftsman style. We aim to make her dreams come true (within reason, of course), so we trimmed out the windows and closet doors in their bedroom just that way.

(I should not that I use the term “we” generously…I was there, but it was mainly my brother John and Dad doing the trimming. I was too busy using the nail gun on the board and batten.) We were also in the process of painting the crown molding…so in essence, everybody was up in everybody else’s business. With power tools. It was a fun day.

Behind the trim, as you can see, Dad and John put long strips of waxed paper as they nailed in the trim. The reason? The trim was raw wood and still needed to be stained and varnished, and this is about 100 times easier than outlining the trim with painter’s tape to keep the stain and varnish off the finished wall. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but Dad suggested it.

Unfortunately, they only remembered to put up the waxed paper about 70% of the time and we did have to do some taping, like in the picture below of the trim around one of the closets.

Next was the staining. Did you know that you can get paint stores to match existing stain? The only tricky part is that stain can look different on different types of wood. The color still turned out pretty great, though. Dad also stained the previously unfinished wood on the windows themself (like the sash) to match.

Here’s another picture of the waxed paper strips between the window trim and the board and batten (can you tell I was excited about this solution? I took a few too many pictures). When we painted the white of the wall and the board and batten, all we had to do was fold back the waxed paper and paint.

Once we finish the last coat of white on the board and batten (and figure out if we need a third coat of varnish), we’ll gently score the waxed paper with a utility knife and take it out…and hopefully have perfect paint lines.

If you squint at this photo, you can sort of see how things are going to turn out…and actually, I definitely think you should squint so as to mask the uh…artistic (read: bad)…quality of this picture.

Check back for more on the thrilling master bedroom saga…I figure I can draw this out for another dozen posts at least.

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Related articles

• Master Bedroom Makeover Part 1 (in which we gleefully say bye-bye to butterfly wallpaper)
• Master Bedroom Makeover: Dark Painted Ceiling (in which I embrace a new trend whilst having a terrible haircut)

Master Bedroom Board and Batten (in which I learn how to wield a nail gun)

The world of power tools is not safe from me anymore. Or perhaps I am no longer safe from the world of power tools?

Either way, I now feel basically invincible.

I used a nail gun.

BOOM.

Let me tell you the full story.

If you have been following along, you’ll know that we’re renovating Mom and Dad’s bedroom at the old homestead. Here‘s where we started from (the brownish butterfly wallpaper had to go), and here‘s where what it looked like after we painted the ceiling a dark gray-brown color. We also painted the walls above the planned board and batten treatment a lighter shade of the ceiling color, which you’ll soon see.

Next on our list was board and batten. This wasn’t on our original list, but Mom and I conjectured that their antique dark wood bedroom furniture would be the star of the show against some crisp white board and batten, so we went for it.

Dad used pre-primed MDF strips for the boards, and as he cut them to size, Kenny and I worked together (shocker, I know!) to spread caulk on the back of the boards and nail them in place. With, of course, the nail gun.

The caulking was actually a nifty tip Dad suggested: since the walls are plaster (as opposed to drywall) and since the vertical boards were not necessarily nailed into studs, the caulk helps to keep the boards stuck to the wall. We also put enough caulk on so that it would squish out the sides when we nailed it to the wall so we would have less caulking to do before painting to hide inevitable cracks/spacing issues.

Here’s what it looked like once Dad painted each board the first time. Pretty sweet, huh?

Since the headboard of the bed going in here is about 4′ 6″ tall, we wanted the board and batten to go a bit higher up the wall, so it’s about eye-level with me, 2/3rds of the way up.  This will also help the dark ceiling and wall color from making the room feel cave-like since so much of the room will actually be a crisp white.

Mom also wanted to be able to put pictures and artwork up on the ledge at the top of the board and batten, so Dad made it a little wider (2ish inches total) than is typical to accommodate her. What a guy. It looks like it sticks out pretty far in this picture, but it isn’t at all evident in person. It’ll be great for layering pictures on in a way that can be easily switched out if Mom changes her mind, and it will be really nice not to have to pound too many holes in the plaster walls.

And, through the magical timelines of the internet, here’s a peek at what it will look like all finished. We put two coats of white paint on the previously tan crown molding but still have  a few touch-ups to do. And we need to give the board and batten another coat of white before it’s actually finished (you can see uneven spots in the gloss of the paint in the picture). But it looks pretty good now, no?

I’m pretty excited about how it looks, but I’m even more excited that I didn’t shoot my eye out while nail-gunning. And Mom is pleased, so that’s always a good thing.

Next on the list: tackling the flooring. That carpet has got to go.

Related articles

• Master Bedroom Makeover Part 1 (in which we gleefully say bye-bye to butterfly wallpaper)
• Master Bedroom Makeover: Dark Painted Ceiling (in which I embrace a new trend whilst having a terrible haircut)