Mission Accomplished- George Bush Style

So it's been 2 weeks...and I'm not quite done with the guest room. But I'm done with it for the time being- I need a break! The roman shades aren't done and the night stand still needs to be refinished. I discovered that the night stand has 3 coats of paint on it and probably will be a labor of love- I don't want to do a rush job on it. As for the shades, my serger's tension is off and I need my mom to show me how to fix it. Excuses, excuses.

This has been a fun adventure though. The first day was a bit of a trial. The person who decorated the dream room mentioned the paint color she used and so I decided against my better judgment to just go ahead and copy that. The paint looked like baby poop. So, strike one. I then proceeded to try and dye some fabric to make it more khaki colored and less light yellow. This was the result:

This is such a good idea!

Hmmm...maybe it'll lighten once I rinse it out.

Yeahhh...that's not going to work.


I should know better. My mom is notorious for dying things and I think I can count on one hand (maybe one finger) the number of successes she has had in doing so. She's dyed shoes, outfits, you name it. The only thing I've ever liked was a leather coat- it looked even better when the dye wore off a bit because it gave the leather a really nice distressed look. So you live and learn. Don't dye things.

Continuing on with my first day (we're on strike two now), I decided to go back to the paint and try to salvage it by lightening it with some extra white paint I had laying around. I got a lighter baby poop color. Nice. In my anger I ended up dropping the entire can on my bathroom floor. Needless to say I just about gave up then and there. Luckily, the following day fared better.

I followed my initial instincts and went with a different paint color. #1 helped me paint an accent wall and we had a lot of fun doing so. He helped me quite a bit with the painting and although it was a little nerve-wracking at times, he did a great job overall.
You can see the baby poop paint higher up here.

My cute little helper.

Baby N watched from afar.


The headboard needed some help. I got this for free off craigslist, but there was a nasty hole in the backing that someone presumably to put some cords through. It looked like a rat had chewed through it. I wanted to do a cheap new backing, so I picked up this seagrass rug at Ikea for $5 and spray painted it black. After painting the headboard, I stapled the rug on as a backing. I love how this turned out!
Before

The rug...


Total cost- $6


Since I had the spray paint out, I also painted this lamp I got at a garage sale for $2. I liked the shape, but it was dark brown with a strange shade. I ended up getting the shade new for around $7. Total cost for the perfect lamp- $9. A little more than I would have liked, but I didn't have much time to shop around.



A while back I had gotten these frames for free at a garage sale. I wasn't keen on the print inside, so I used some old photos I had laying around and got them resized at Walmart for $2. I didn't want to pay for custom mats to make them fit, so I just glued the photos onto a white backing and it turned out pretty good. Total cost- $2.



Proceeding to the pillows. I got some large down-filled pillows for free from a Zion's market at church and resized them to fit my needs. It was REALLY messy and I have a feeling I'll be finding stray feathers for a long time coming- I even found one in the fridge today.


Walmart was clearancing off their fabric and trims, so I made the middle two pillows and sewed some black trim on them to replicate those in the dream room. The rectangular pillow is a pillow sham I got on clearance from TJ Maxx that I cut in half. Total cost for all the pillows came to $15. The throw I made from fabric I found in the store and then I used some microfiber curtains I wasn't using anymore to line the back. Total cost was $7. The bedskirt I got for free off the internet during a promotion a while back. The most expensive purchase was for the down comforter that I got on clearance from Target. Overall, I'm pretty pleased though.


Lastly, I got this television stand for free from a friend. It was in great shape, but the top had some marks and the color was a little off. I used the leftover paint from the accent wall ($12) and called it good.


I wanted a little more lighting than just one lamp, so I picked up this wall sconce for $1 at a garage sale. We hacksawed a strange thing off of it that reminded me of a Cootie bug (think swirly and strange) and presto- a normal sconce.


So, all in all I spent around $60. Not bad considering that includes most of the furniture (end table from Garage sale- additional $10). I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together.


Maybe not as good as this...

but definitely better than this...