I’m continuing my home tour today with our sunroom! I finished my big project in this room – the painting – back in the summer. We spent a couple of months after that getting furniture and some final wall art, and then we didn’t get the fireplace working until right before Christmas. As always, we’re still making a couple of minor tweaks, but we’ve reached a finished state that I feel comfortable sharing here.
I don’t have a lot of before/after pictures of my work in this house. But I did get a few shots in the sunroom, so you can see the before color. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. The room gets some pretty heavy shadowing through much of the day. A darker color just makes the room that much darker. We had a tough time settling on a color. I don’t gravitate naturally toward yellow and was really nervous about using so much yellow in one room. I wanted to make sure we settled on the right yellow. We actually experimented with light browns and green, too. Yellow was definitely the right choice.
Today I’m continuing my tour of my home with a peek at the master bedroom. Past peeks have included detailed overviews of the guest bedroom and entryway and mini tours of the kitchen wall art and powder room. As I’ve mentioned before, home decor doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s taken me years to feel comfortable sharing more than an occasional peak. We’ve come a long way with our “forever” home, and I’m having fun sharing it now.
The first step in the master bedroom was to paint the wall behind the bed. It was one of the few projects that I was able to do before we moved into the house. The previous owners had a light purple and gray striped wall and light purple curtains, which made the whole room look purple. It wasn’t our style at all so the paint color had to get changed and the curtains had to go.
As always, getting the new paint color on the walls (French Coast by True Value) and switching out the curtains made a huge difference. The rest of the walls are gray, which we like and have left as is for now. The previous owners left behind the blue and green rug in a different room, which brought together the blue, green, gray, and white color scheme in the room. I would never have picked out this rug myself, but the size is perfect for the space, and again, it worked beautifully for the color theme.
The bedding I picked out originally (an update for our nearly 10-year-old wedding present bedding) is now in the guest room. When we upgraded to a king bed, we also got king bedding. Aside from a few pillows and pillow cases, all of the queen bedding went with the queen bed, which is now the guest bed. I spend weeks picking out that bedding and was a little sad we only used it as our own for a few months. But the king bedding is actually a better fit for the new bed and the room as a whole. And we still get to enjoy the queen bedding in the guest room. So it worked out all right.
Needless to say, the king bed was a big upgrade. Neither of us had ever owned a bed like this before. Honestly, it’s been a bit of an adjustment for me because it’s so big. For several weeks, I felt like I had to climb into the bed. It just took some time to get used to it.
When we bought the bed, the model in the store was styled with really cute curtains. I assumed they came with the bed. They didn’t. So I assumed it would be really easy to order something similar online. It wasn’t. Most four-poster canopy bedding is weird, at best. You can either purchase mosquito netting (some listings are even labeled as mosquito netting, really?) or something fit for Buckingham Palace. Also, a lot of people leave their four-poster beds without a canopy, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Of course, now the item I ordered is nowhere to be found, so I can’t even link it. I will if I ever find it again. I am very happy with what I did end up ordering, and it’s worked perfectly.
We bought the bench when we bought the king bed. We bought everything else while we were in our previous residence or even earlier. We have made a few small adjustments to the arrangement in this house, but the TV, TV cabinet, my dresser (the matching dresser which Jake used to use is now in the guest room), the nightstands, the massage table, and the wall art are all items we already owned. I did pick up the hampers because plastic laundry baskets on the floor weren’t cutting it anymore. Sometimes the little upgrades make the biggest difference.
The majority of the wall art and other decor items (i.e. the items on my dresser) are wedding photos, photos from my brother’s wedding, wedding gifts or other gifts, or pieces I’ve had since I was little. I also decided to display the black and white photos of the cats in here. They were in the finished basement in our previous residence.
Even with the huge four-poster bed, the massage table is still the single biggest talking point in our bedroom. We bought it as a Christmas present to ourselves, I think in 2012, because we give massages for each other all the time, you can pick up a portable massage table for a great price on Amazon, and we had plenty of space in our bedroom for said table. It’s been awesome. Every married couple should have their own massage table. Pick up a table for yourself ASAP.
Statement wall paint color: French Coast by True Value
Window curtains: Target (green)
King four-poster bed: Steinhafels (similar)
Bench: Steinhafels (honestly, I’m not sure if we have this exact bench, but if not, it’s very similar)
Four-poster curtains: Currently unavailable. I’ll provide a link if I can find something similar again.
Nightstands: Steinhafels (similar)
Rug: Came with the house. No similar link available.
Bedding: Crate and Barrel – duvet cover and pillow shams. We have these sheets but in blue, which isn’t available anymore. We have a duvet insert from Amazon.
TV cabinet: Target (We bought it before 2010. I don’t have a similar link for you, sorry.)
Laundry hampers: Amazon
Massage table: Amazon
The black and white cat photo display features this frame. Most of the other frames in the master bedroom were gifts or pieces I purchased years ago. If you have any questions about any of the items in this room, don’t hesitate to ask.
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Today I’m sharing a tour of our entryway. We’re blessed with a generous entryway space in our home. It’s so nice when people come over or we’re getting ready to go somewhere not to be crowded into a tiny space, which happens so often because it seems like there’s never enough room in the entryway. There is definitely enough room in this entryway, which is awesome. In our previous residence, we had a lovely three-season room entryway, which I did decorate. I’ve expanded on those decorations and also added some furniture for this entryway.
The entryway started with the “Clearfield” frame, open white frame, and Monument Square print. We received the “Clearfield” frame as a wedding present and finally have a place to display it where everyone sees it when they enter the house. I made the open white frame right before we moved. We received the frame with a canvas print as a gift that we hadn’t asked for…and never displayed. I removed the canvas, painted the frame white, and strung up the twine. I switch out the items in the frame for different seasons and holidays. The leaves template is available right here.
While were living in Milwaukee, I designed a Milwaukee gallery wall. I still have all of those prints up around the house (and will be sharing them in future room tour posts). But I wanted some prints for the entryway more centered around the new location. The Monument Square print is a reprint of a vintage postcard, and it got me searching for more vintage postcards. (It also led to me finding the lighthouse print for the guest bedroom.) I’ve since hunted down several dozen Wisconsin postcards and again, will be sharing more of them in future posts.
Both of the frames on the console table were gifts. None of the openings are standard so it’s a pain formatting, printing, and cutting images for them. The last time I’d switched out the pictures was when we were showing our Iowa condo (2011). Needless to say, I was way overdue to switch them out again. The frame on the left is black and white prints of our boys and Angel. The frame on the right is pictures of us with our good friends Joe and Melitta.
I mentioned in my kitchen art tour that I split up my glass jars throughout the house. Since we’ve lived here, I’ve added a few new pieces, too. I bought the mini pumpkins for my pumpkin muffins post and am now enjoying them in the living room and kitchen.
The coat closet isn’t very exciting, but it’s very functional. It was in need of a coat of paint so I gave it a fresh coat of my default neutral for this house: Baby Chick by True Value. The previous owners picked the gray and white shades in the room, which we really like and aren’t going to change anytime soon.
Since I had to take out all the shelves and hanging bar, I used the opportunity to rearrange them and bring in my two shoe racks from our previous residence. I also keep some footwear in an upstairs closet and switch out items for different seasons. At some point, I may try to keep more footwear upstairs year round so this closet isn’t quite so full. But for now, this system has worked okay. Jake keeps most of his footwear and outerwear in the mudroom by the back door. When we have a lot of company, I move my coats into the laundry room.
Before we moved, I almost ditched the wooden basket because I had no idea what to do with it. (It was another random gift.) Somehow inspiration struck at the last minute, and I picked up some silk flowers for it. Perfect. I have a tiny “home sweet home” cross-stitch to hang up under the flowers. Of course, I forgot about it before this shoot. #fail There’s always something. You can see my office to the right of the entryway. I still have a couple bigger projects to tackle before I give a full reveal of the office, but I’m so excited to start showing off little bits of recent progress.
I made the canvas art. I switch it out for different seasons and holidays. Currently, I have about nine canvases. I may add a few more this year, but a dozen will be more than sufficient to keep the space fresh and fun. Not surprisingly, the bench cubby is a very popular cat hang out. I’m displaying my two current favorite footwear items, which you can find here and here.
Finally, you can see the living room to the left. I’m going to paint it, and then we’ll get some frames on the walls before I show off the room in full. We have settled on the light green color you can see sampled to the left of the fireplace. I’m so excited to lighten up the space and put up some art.
Sources:
Console table: Target
Bench: Target (shell)
Throw rug: IKEA Doormat: Menards
Monument Square print: AllPosters
“Clearfield” frame: Wedding gift
Seasonal / holiday canvas art: DIY
Seasonal / holiday open frame: DIY
Silk flowers: Michaels
Glassware: Crate and Barrel, Michaels, and World Market. The glass votives were a seasonal item. You can always find Ball jars at Michaels and World Market.
I’ve bought most of my vintage postcards through CardCow. I’ve also picked up a handful of cards from Etsy and eBay sellers. The postcard and large print frames are from Michaels. The other frames in this space were gifts.
I also have home tours of our guest bedroom, kitchen art, and powder room. Check them out if you haven’t already! I’ll continue to share one or two home tours monthly.
