TOH Contest Entry

Check out Makenzie's Room on This Old House!

Reader Remodel Contest 2012: Paint Ideas: This Old House:

The project was entered into the 2012 Reader Remodel Contest under the "Paint Ideas" category!  You might remember my post a while back about her bedroom transformation; No More Princess...

...who knows you might see some familiar photos in the late summer issue of This Old House!  Keep your fingers crossed!

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Bright Stripes Perfect for Niece 

Sent by: Kara K., Prairie Village, KS

Image 1 of 6: After: Striped wall

Remodel timeline: Less than a year

The hardest part: The hardest part was waiting for certain colored stripes to dry on the wall before being able to paint more stripes next to those — had to go in phases. We used frog tape and taped almost every other stripe along pencil lines we drew with a level for the first round. Plus, they needed a few coats.

How we saved money: We built a floating desk in the back corner with a light above for her to do her growing amount of homework. We made a chandelier ourselves, did our own painting, and bought a few pieces of furniture from garage sales and repurposed them with paint, tile, fabric, and hardware!

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Happy Closets

Matt & I just finished a small project I've been wanting to do for a long time.  We built chunky floating shelves for my studio closet out of mdf board from Home Depot, caulked the edges & seams, and primed and painted them white to pop against the orange background!

Before                                       After

 After we bought the house, we painted this room white with one orange accent wall and across from that, the inside of the open closet.  Previously, the closet had a curtain on a tension rod and everything was beige.  The clothes rod (above left) was already there.  We took advantage of that and built the shelves around the existing pieces.

We left the bottom of the lower shelf open so you can still use the rod for hanging clothes, but it's hidden behind the front panel. (I should probably paint the underside white, although you don't see it unless you're on the floor)

Here are a few other small closets that I find happy and inspiring:

 crafting closets                            kids play area

 vanity area in small closet        closet with patterned wallpaper

 office closet

 reading nooks

 kids retreats

tiny desk area

Let me know if you plan to do something cool with a closet of yours or send me pictures of finished projects!

Peace & Happiness

Here are the photos from a 13 year old's bedroom that I helped decorate.  I assisted in picking out her bedding, wall colors, accessories, and her curtains.  Also shown is the painting I did as a gift for her hung above her bed.

Wall paint is "Green Vibes" from Sherwin Williams; chandelier, bed frame, and rug are from West Elm; curtains, beanbag, and bedding are from PB Teen.

 I painted the Peace canvas for my friend Shayna's Bat Mitzvah.  It's textured with blue and purple torn tissue paper, modge podged, splashed with many colors of acrylic paint, then lacquered with a high gloss. Small glitter tiles and mirrors adorn the top.

 The room is a light-filled space full of happiness, youth, and peaceful rest!

Mural Mural on the Wall...

My mom and I painted this African-themed mural on the walls of my cousin Tucker's room.  The lower pattern that surrounds the room was inspired by a piece of pottery that my mom had. 

my favorite elephant

I thought the hippo my mom did was so cute!

There's Simba!  I looked at a picture from the Lion King to paint him.  That green frog is 3-d and is hanging on the wall!

CLUB 56

I was hired to give new life to the middle school room at our church named Club 56 [since it's mainly 5th & 6th graders].  It was more of a "catch-all" room for donated furniture and other items.  We simplified it and gave it some youthful soul!

The colorful carpet tiles were custom picked from Flor to tie all of our colors together

The beanbags are from Fatboy that I ordered through 2modern.com

before

 after

The orange, purple, white, and gray stripes were hand-painted by my mom & I (with some help from my brother Trevor) 

before

 after

The stripes were meant to "burst" from the wall decal of (a reference to Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam) God & Adam's hands I got from Dezign with a Z.  A modern take on a Christian message

before

 after

This strip of galvanized metal was attached to the wall for groups of kids to post projects or artwork on with magnets

No more Princess!

My mom, Vicky, and I recently re-decorated my cousin Makenzie's bedroom for her birthday while they were on a cruise!  She picked out her bedding from JcPenney and knew we were painting the room, but it was a huge surprise at how much changed when she got home!!!

Her white modern headboard was $89 from csn.com with free shipping!

Her room has been a purple princess theme for many years now.  Her mom told her when she turned 10 she could redo her room...well, this year she turned 10!  My uncle actually airbrushed the clouds along the top of the walls with glow-in-the dark stars- which was kinda sad to paint over, but we kept the purple ceiling.  The castle & clouds on the wall were a decal that peeled off.

before

quick sketch

after

The back corner was more of an unused space before.  It just had her butterfly chair and dry-erase board, but was usually dark and wasted space.  Now it houses her built-in desk with chair and magnetic boards for her to draw & do her homework (as it will increase in the coming years!)

before

after

My husband, Matt, helped us build her desk out of mdf plywood, attach it to the wall studs, added a front lip to give it a chunky look, drilled two 2" holes in the back corners for chords to feed through, caulked edges, and painted it glossy white

Makenzie wanted to keep her pink butterfly chair in the room, so we added pink stripes to the wall

to tie in the chair and light she already had

The Hancock Shelf in chartreuse from cb2.com [assembly required]

(pardon my mom's glass of wine in the photo after a long day of hard work!)

The photos on the wall are hanging on magnetic green cables from cb2.com for $6.95 a piece

The Details:

 $5 table found at a garage sale, painted blue, and mosaiced with glass tiles on top; $5 chair found at a garage sale, painted purple, seat re-covered with new foam and fabric; $35 nightstand found at an estate sale, painted white, sprayed with gloss polyurethane; chandelier found at Urban Outfitters, lightkit with switch hand-rigged with materials from Lowe's

The Bathroom:

We painted a stripe of multicolored circles up the wall using stencil paper from Michael's that we cut our own circles in using an exacto knife.  The rugs and towels are from Target.  The frame was found at an antique store for $25 and spray painted white with hooks hung within for cute jewelry display.  Hooks and fabric letter "m" found at Anthropologie.  A hook on each side for Makenzie and her sister Morgan to have their own spot for their towels or robe to hang since they share a bathroom.