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.

Pantry Overhaul

Here's the thing about dirt: it's gross, and it's much much grosser if it's someone else's. 

Cleaning the house before we moved in was not a fun job, but the previous owners were clearly not dirty people, and relatively speaking, the whole place was already in really good shape.  

Even so, there was no way I was putting my food in here:

PANTRY UPDATES

Step 1: The original plan was to replace the contact paper and call it a day, but the shelves looked even worse underneath.  They were porous, and bowed, and honestly, a little smelly.

So we ripped 'em out.  It was pretty fun.

Step 2: Painted the floor, spontaneously, without priming - oops. It turned into a sticky mess.

Step 3: Spackled and sanded a bunch, and painted the inside of the pantry the same green as the dining room, and primed and repainted the floor.

(This was taken after only one coat on the walls; the second looked perfect, I promise)

Step 4: Replaced the door.

Did you catch how I said that as if it was a simple, quick, easy little task?  It wasn't.

Even though the door was the appropriate size, it didn't close.  After a lot of planing and sanding, it did close, but after repainting the sanded edge, it didn't again.  We were frustrated, so we abandoned the cause for a while.  Then autumn arrived early and the temperature dropped by 25 degrees, so the door now works.  I guess we'll deal with it next summer...

 

Step 5: Installed melamine shelves from Lowe's.  Lesson learned: they will not cut this particular kind of shelf to size for you.  Husband cut them with a circular saw, and yes, he still has all of his fingers.  I know, it's quite impressive.

Step 6: Sealed the floor with two coats of polyurethane to make it super hard and durable.  It was supposedly "clear gloss", but clearly tinted my floor yellow.  I considered getting a rug or something to cover it, but ultimately decided that I don't care that much.

Step 7: Collected some baskets and shelves, threw the food in there, and have since spent many hours trying to figure out the best way to organize it all.  It's still a work in progress, but here we stand at the moment.  Ignore the mess, please.

Project: Pantry reno.

Cost: Low-Moderate

Payoff: Well, we have a place to store food now, so there's nothing to complain about.  I think it's a big improvement!

BEFORE                                                AFTER

      

No Contact.

This was my least favorite kind of project.  Dirty, difficult, long, & unavoidable.

About two weeks before we moved into the house I tackled the interior of the kitchen cabinets.  This is what we were working with.

Old contact paper makes me sad.

You're probably thinking that after 30 years, the adhesive would be weakened and tearing up the paper would be easy.  I was too. 

Well friends, that was incorrect, and I had the bruises for a week to prove it.

Cute, right?

Once all the paper was out (and it took most of a day; not even kidding), I scrubbed all the surfaces inside and got to work recovering the shelves.  I chose this non-adhesive liner for the bottom of the cabinets, and used it as an excuse to buy a staple gun.  It's nice and grippy so my glasses don't slide all over the place, and wipeable which is handy for spots like under the sink.  I used this adhesive paper to line the drawers and wrap the upper shelves.  The glossy finish makes it all look a lot more updated.

Isn't that better?  I think so.

I should also call your attention to the fact that the cabinets were painted gray in order to sell the house, and on the inside of the doors we can see the color they used to be.  Is anyone surprised?

While hanging out with my staple gun inside one of the upper cabinets, I found a little piece of history.

Nov-7, 1966.  I never really doubted that the cabinets are original to the house, but it was still neat to find the date stamp.  We're making history here people, one evil piece of contact paper at a time!