Single Pane was a Pain

We finally got our new windows! The upstairs of our house was still rocking 1960's single pane wood and aluminum windows which were doing nothing nice to our heating/cooling bills, so we had all 8 replaced with double pane, low-e, argon insulated (no, I don't know what any of that means), vinyl ones. It's amazing - it feels like a whole different house up there. On hot days (uh, all days) we used to get smacked with a wave of heat about 3/4 of the way up the stairs, and oh my god that doesn't happen anymore! It has made the money spent SO worth it to be able to go to sleep comfortably for the past few weeks, and also superficially it makes the rooms look so UPDATED. Hi, new house!

Before the guys came to install the new windows (just 7 hours after we got home from being in California for 10 days), we had to take down all the window treatments.  Should have been fairly straightforward, but remember this?

Our lovely shutters had stumped all of the window sales & measurement folk who saw them. We obviously wanted them removed, but no-one seemed to understand how they were attached.  No obvious nail heads or seams.  At one point we even thought they might be glued. Since no one could find any point of attachment, the only option was to forcefully pry them away from the window frame (and yes, it split and splintered), until we saw this.

A screw (because nails would have been too easy), and then after digging into the wood with a chisel...

...the screw heads CUT OFF. Unreal.
Husband spent almost a whole day prying the frames away enough to fit in a hand saw and then cutting the screws off, and (somehow) pulling out the ends. It left some major carnage on the window frames, but luckily we're pretty handy with the Spackle around these parts.

The window installation itself took about 6 hours, and it was more traumatic than I expected. Turns out it's a little disconcerting to see pieces of your house flying past the window while you sit helplessly and hope the strangers upstairs aren't destroying your home.

Yikes.
Luckily, the end product was well worth the stress and after a little time spent on touch ups, we could officially cross this one off the list.

Now for the pretty (but not so pretty photos) before & afters.

CRAFT ROOM

 

 BEDROOM (yes we do only have one curtain on each window. classy joint.)

BATHROOM

OFFICE

GUEST ROOM

Also, that same day, this happened:

So yeah, we're finding out that committing to a large purchase (windows) pretty much guarantees that everything else you own is infinitely more likely to break down in an expensive fashion or, as Bridget Jones more eloquently stated, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.” 


Truth, indeed.

Hangin'

You're never going to believe it. We actually made that headboard.

And here's how...

MAKING AN UPHOLSTERED HEADBOARD

Step 1: Make all of your decisions. Determine size, shape, thickness, fabric. If you're anything like us, allow several months to accomplish this.

Step 2: Buy all of your materials. If you're playing the craft-store coupon game, allow several weeks for this. (If anything, don't pay full price for foam...it's absurdly expensive.)

Step 3: Have the helpful hardware store guys cut a piece of plywood to size for you (we used 1/4"). Bonus Tip: become familiar with the measurements of your vehicle before nailing down your exact chosen dimensions or, alternatively, scratch the heck out of the inside of your car and argue loudly with your spouse in the Home Depot parking lot. It's really your call.

Step 4: Cut the foam to size with an electric carving knife. We planned efficiently when buying it, and only ended up having to make this one cut.

Step 5: Adhere the foam to the plywood. I used year-old spray adhesive, and it really didn't work. We probably should have tried harder to find a solution that did, but instead we just sat on it for a while and ignored the problem. MOVING ON.

Step 6: Lay the batting on top of the foam...

...then the fabric (which you have previously ironed/steamed), and then hold everything in place while you carefully flip the whole deal upside down.

Step 7: Put one staple in the middle of each side and look at the front again to make sure everything is still straight and lined up properly. Add more staples and check again. Repeat.

Step 8: We used 2 of these picture hanging brackets (even though they supposedly hold 100lbs. each) to mount the headboard to the wall. One piece screws into the wall - and includes a handy snap-in level - the other piece attaches to the headboard, and then they hook together firmly. At least we hope so.

Step 9: Hang the headboard by hooking the brackets together, then wait with baited breath for the whole thing to come crashing down. 

If it doesn't...high fives all around!

We loooove it. It totally fills the wall like we'd hoped, and it's actually comfortable to sit up and read or watch TV now.

We just need to find some taller/better nightstands and maybe one day we'll even have lamps beside the bed. Then I would actually be able to take a wide shot of the room I'm not ashamed of. What what!

Inspiration: Headboards

I don't care. You can pretend to be a responsible adult all you like, but if your bed is headboard-less, your room is screaming "I'm a college student" and/or "I don't give a crap". I'm not judging you, it's just the truth. I've been sleeping on a headboard-less bed for 8 years.  That's 4 years of being a college student, and I suppose another 4 of pure laziness.

As is becoming the norm for us, we were at a standstill on this project for a very long time while settling on the particulars. 

Husband has always insisted that he wants a rectangular shape, so at first I was thinking something simple and button-tufted like this one:

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But eventually I started to worry that everything else in the room is "square" and "solid", like our bedding, and dressers...and doors...as if those could possibly be any other shape... So I tried to convince him that a curved shape (and maybe a pattern) would be a good idea.

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This room is totally fabulous, by the way.

But he wasn't having it.  So this next picture was supposed to be my magical breakthrough compromise.

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But I think the nail-head trim on the solid fabric is really vital to the magic, and by this point I had decided that we needed to go with a pattern to bring some interest and fun into the room.

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Meh... honestly a rectangle, patterned fabric, upholstered headboard was not as easy to find inspiration for as all the other options we had already eliminated which made me very concerned that it was going to be the wrong decision. So again, we were at a standstill.

Then (weeks, months? later), while on Pinterest looking at other things, I saw this.

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It might not look very impressive, but it was the push I needed to move forward. The proportions are pretty much exactly what we're aiming for. We want our headboard to be pretty tall (someone I share the bedroom with may or may not have a fear of anything hanging on the wall above him), and this photo showed me that what we had in mind could actually work.

So, all that left was to choose a fabric.  Easy!  Ha. ha. ugh.

MALM knows best

I've heard it said many times that the master bedroom is usually the last area to be addressed when decorating a home. In fact, daytime TV seems to suggest that people leave their bedrooms in awful disrepair for decades at a time, until the only possible rescue is some sort of ambush makeover show on HGTV...

Anyway, while it makes sense in theory to focus your efforts on the rooms that you and your guests will spend the most time looking at, I'm trying hard to give all of our rooms equal play-time instead.

Ever since Husband and I have lived together, we have put absolutely zero effort into the appearance of our bedroom, and that has been true since we moved in here as well.  Clothes spill out of dresser drawers with reckless abandon.  Laundry piles litter the floor. Miscellaneous junk and dust cover every workable surface. The walls are bare. The bed gets made 50% of the time (which is actually a dramatic improvement.) I'm not proud.  We bought two cheap curtain panels to cover the windows last September, and called it "decorating." Also, because of the cable outlet, the television has been at the most awkward possible angle to the bed, and sits atop a dresser roughly as old as me.

*crappy photo only included to show the awesome vintage IKEA dresser over there. #classy.

So what I'm getting at is our need for a dresser or two, right here.

I really wanted to find a used dresser on Craigslist to refinish or paint ourselves, but logistically that ended up being impractical.  We needed as much (probably more) storage space than we had with the old dressers and I had my heart set on a long, low piece that would fill the wall opposite our bed. Anything that large wouldn't have been able to fit in my car to come home, and husband was having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea of us both using the same dresser, anyway. Also, despite the freaky-warm winter we've been treated to, I knew that a major furniture rehab would have had to wait until Spring, and then probably would take weeks to complete.  I'm really not a fan of "stop-gap" purchases, so hopefully that's not what this turns out to be, but we were so sick of our bedroom looking like a college apartment....we had to take action.

To IKEA we went.
...because if anything says "I'm a grown-up", it's definitely flat-packed scandinavian particle board....

I feel like everyone in the world has at least one MALM dresser at some point in their lives, so I figure this is just our time. For an IKEA piece, they are pretty sturdy, while still being inexpensive enough that I don't feel forced to love 'em for 20 years (which is my biggest furniture-buying handicap).  They will easily be able to transition to other areas of the house in the future if we want to change things up, and I have lots of options for personalizing them...

 O'verlays! - genius.

So anyway, after a lengthy discussion in the dresser section of the store (does anyone else feel like they spend days in IKEA having very public debates with their spouse??) we bought 2 dressers.  We also picked up the glass pieces they sell pre-cut for the tops, which was 100% worthwhile.  They look so much more substantial, and should prevent dents and general wear and tear to the tops of the future.

I'm still don't know if I love the tall dresser, and wonder if maybe we should have put a shorter 3-drawer next to the long one, to make it look like one very long piece.  Oh well, they are not visible from the door to the bedroom, so it's not super overwhelming.  We wanted something taller to put the TV on, too, so it works out okay.

Here's the setup right now:

We also ran the TV cable along the baseboards and door trim using stick-on sleeve thingys (also from IKEA), and though I was nervous about it being super obvious and tacky, it turned out to be barely noticeable.  Yay.

So we still need a rug (saw the perfect one here but couldn't possibly afford the expense), a headboard (thoughts coming soon), nightstands (no winning ideas at the moment), a vanity/dressing table for the corner where the old little dresser used to be, and I just had the super exciting urge to paint something on the pocket door to the bathroom!!  Husband is skeptical about that last one, but he would only see it when the door is closed because someone (me) is in the bathroom, and it's just paint, and whatever-I-don't-care-I'm-doing-it-anyway.