We bought our home as a spec, so we didn’t have any choices when it came to the interior finishes. The person who did make the choices, clearly loved all shades of beige. Beige carpet, beige paint and beige fireplace tile. Yuck! After living with it for many years, it was time for a bedroom refresh.
The Bedroom Refresh Plan
- Replace the carpet with wood floors
- Repaint the walls
- Retile the fireplace
- Replace the headboard, bedding and blinds
Bedroom Flooring
It seems that wood flooring in bedrooms is all the rage right now. No one does carpet anymore. So I decided to hop on that band wagon. Would I do it again? No. But we’ll talk about that in a minute. I removed the baseboards and pulled up the carpet and tacking myself to save money, but did pay a professional to install the wood laminate floor.
I did install the wood laminate flooring at Stencil myself, but that was easy because it was a single rectangular room. Our bedroom has an attached sitting room and I was really nervous both about how to install with a step and how to get all the planks to line up properly from the bedroom to the sitting room, so that is why I decided to pay someone to do it.
While I am in love with the look, I found out I don’t love hard flooring in the bedroom. We have a dachshund who will get up 1-2 times each night to go to the bathroom. All I hear is the clickity-clack of nails on the wood floors and it drives me nuts. So the next time I remodel or move, it will only be carpet in the bedroom for me!
Painting the Bedroom Walls
Removing the baseboards and carpet made painting the walls really easy. I didn’t have to tape off the baseboards and I didn’t have to lay plastic to protect the flooring. Whenever I repaint rooms now, I create my own paint colors. Like most people, I used to choose paint colors based on paint sample cards. Hold a few against the wall and pick your fave, only to find that the color you chose looks nothing like what I really want. I either want it lighter or darker, with more green undertones than blue, etc. So now I mix my own paint colors at home.
I will generally purchase Oops paint from Lowes or Home Depot in a color that is close to what I want. Then I buy white and black paint so I can either lighten or darken it to my liking. If the Oops paint I bought has purple undertones that I don’t like, then I add yellow paint to neutralize it (complementary colors opposite of each other on the color chart will neutralize each other). After I get a paint mixture I think I will like, I paint a test sample on the wall, let it dry and then amend the color accordingly (light, darker, more of this color or that color).
Retiling the Fireplace
The builder tiled our bedroom fireplace in the most boring tile ever. They took the tile that was used for the floors in the rest of the house and used it to tile the fireplace. Blah. So I purchased some stacked stone tile and retiled the fireplace to make it more of an accent than an eyesore. I also extended the tile so it covered the entire wall instead of a small section like the builder did. Extending it makes the fireplace appear larger and more grand instead of chopping it up into tile and drywall sections.
New Headboard, Bedding & Blinds
Our bedroom set is the set my husband had before we met. While it’s a very beautiful, high quality set, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. So after using it for 14 years, I was ready for a change. We decided to build our own headboard and purchase new nightstands. I haven’t found new nightstands yet, but we did complete the headboard and I love the modern look of it.
I purchased some new bedding, blinds, curtains and faux fur rug to add some pops of color to our bedroom. Blue is my favorite color and I find it to be an especially great color for a bedroom because I think it has such a calming effect.
I love my new bedroom and now have the sweetest dreams…until I hear the clickity-clack of nails at 3am in the morning, that is.
Author: Nicole Bolin
If you’re a fan of room makeovers, check out some our other Room Refresh blog posts.