Going through photos of our master bedroom to find examples of this… uh, evolution… has been hilarious. Not like laugh-until-I-cry hilarious but more like a why-did-I-wear-seven-scrunchies-in-my-hair-on-picture-day kinda hilarious. Hilariously embarrassing. Which is always funny. Spoiler alert – this is the “after” photo. I have to show this first so I can make excuses about all the embarrassing pics to come. So bad. Here we go, the evolution of a master bedroom.
Let’s start with all this wtf-ness right here.
I literally feel like I’m standing naked in an intersection. This is awful.
So, yes, that’s a piece of wood that I hand-painted to look like a vintage sign. I mean… decent idea but very poor execution. Those nightstands are now in our living room with “new” thrifted pulls. Y’all, there’s a burlap owl on the bed – that I made. WhatTheFunk. So, two things: 1) This was three years ago and 2) we moved into the house in October and were hosting Thanksgiving so I had to get everything “put together”…. and this is the result of that. From here, I’m sure you would expect that it can only get better. You, my friend, are sadly mistaken.
When I decided that I didn’t like this headboard (which was almost immediately after I hung it – also, when I say “hung it”, I mean I screwed it directly into the wall), I thought I wanted something more colorful.
Oh, hello.
What the fuuuuuunnnnnnnnkkkkk? Why? Why, why, why?! Those are spray painted cedar shims. Since the “sign” was screwed into the wall, I just sat on the bed with a glue gun and glued these things on. I can’t even explain this. It hurts my eyes.
I thought I liked the texture of the headboard and just didn’t like the color – so I pulled it off the wall – yes, pulled it, because it was screwed into nothing, and took it to the garage to paint it white.
There’s so much cringing happening over here right now that I can only laugh. There are a few ancient DIY projects in that pic – the pillow shams and the lampshade. Ew. That’s good “before” shot of the mid-century rast hack, though. This is terrible. Thank God for growth.
So then, my friend Bob helped me build a “real” headboard – which means it’s attached to the bed frame and not screwed into the wall/nothing. Still not the headboard of my dreams, but there’s some definite improvement here. The nightstands were finished, I spray painted some lamps…
Still hated the headboard, though. That’s what it looked like when Makeovers Magazine came to shoot.
Almost as soon as they left, I somehow wrangled that huge 6 ft tall, king sized headboard down to the garage by myself, cut down the legs, painted it white and then just distressed it slightly. Still don’t like it, but it’s a huge improvement. Our white linen duvet cover is on its last leg, so when that thing needs to be replaced, I’m thinkin’ I’ll use the fabric to tuft/upholster the headboard.
We use to have a mid-century couch under the map, but we moved that down to the sitting room and put the $26 dollar campaign dresser in it’s place.
The day after I posted about the living room on the blog, a rug I had been waiting for showed up – we put the new one in the living room and the living room rug came up here – white shag + high traffic is a bad idea. The drawing of the woman is from one of my college art classes and the one of the man was a five dollar find at a garage sale in my neighborhood.
DIY Train Depot Sign || Denhome Chair
Improvement? Whaddya think?
Now would be the appropriate time for a before and after, but, I just can’t put another one of those photos up.
I love seeing all of the changes! What a beautiful transformation! The white is clean and fresh and the art and pillows are perfection as styling accessories – love!! – Rachael
Thank you, Rachael!
You’re the best. And real too. It takes a long time for perfection, it doesn’t just happen. Thanks for showing us a real makeover.
Heyyy. Thanks, Ann! How sweet!
It looks so good! That campaign dresser is gorgeous and I love seeing the development. I’m working on our bedroom right now, which is just a whole lot of nothing right now. Send help.
Thank you so much, Alexis!!
I cannot believe you put shims over that mercantile sign!! It was gorgeous!!! You are very talented and versatile.
I love your blog!
I have headboard issues. If you Google image search for “Mercantile Sign”, that exact sign will come up as a result – that’s what I used to create sign. Thank you, Sally!