Room Makeover- Multi-purpose bedroom

The Room

August, 2010, my friend had planned to do her bedroom over and asked for my assistance. My friend, Alicia, lives off campus in student housing and this was going to be her second year in this house and her bedroom needed a revamping. Luckily, as a renter, she could paint her room any colour but pink, so last year, she opted for a dark grey. Alicia was on the right track. She paired the grey walls with soft pink accessories which work well as complimentary colours but after a while, the grey was just too dark and tired and the room needed some life.   

The Plan and Inspiration

The plan was to lighten up the space; give it a new look. We thought the best way to do that was to first look at what we had to work with which was; lighter pine coloured wood desk and matching bed, a white book shelf and some of her pink accessories such as large storage boxes. After she had said she wanted to keep those, I considered what colours would work with the staples in the room. Many colours, except green, were considered until she mentioned she saw a beautiful blue somewhere and right off the bat, I knew the exact blue she was talking about. It was a fresh blue that is really quite pretty and versatile. It is light enough to make any room visually larger which was a great change from the grey. I would describe the blue as a mix between robin’s egg blue and a Tiffany Blue.  Below is the same picture that I showed Alicia just to make sure we were talking about the right colour, and luckily, we were.



The Inspiration- inspired by Samantha Pynn. Article found in
Style at Home, May 2010 issue.

Below is the The paint colour we used and also the accent colour we decided to put with the wall colour.  The accent colour, as you can see is a dark purple. Very complimentary to the light blues and greys that were being planned for the accessories.

Ionic Blue by Behr.

We went shopping for accessories the day before and came across a rug, a duvet cover, and a new desk chair.  Here are contributing items.

The Rug.

The Desk Chair.

The Duvet cover.

 I also had to keep in mind this room was going to be used as a place of study and as a dressing room so decluttering to make room to dress and also to keep a clear head was necessary.  Minimal asseccorizing is another good way to open up a small room used for many purposes.

What was needed and used for the task:

• 2 gallons of Behr ‘Ionic Sky’
• 2 large rollers- one for each of us for max efficiency
• 1 brush
• 1 paint tray
• 1 roll of painters tape
• Drop sheets

The Task

We had set a whole day aside to paint the room but we thought that it was unncessary to have the whole day for the job. Once we started painting it proved to be more of a whole day task. Since we were covering a very dark grey (which was actually kitchen and bath paint) with a very light blue, it took two to three very thick coats and two cans of paint in order to cover the entire wall and closet effectively. Once the first coat was on, we realized that the trim needed a fresh coat of white, adding another task to our plate. We managed to do that while the walls dried.

The Finished Product

Everything came together quite nicely. The room looked exactly as I envisioned it would after collabertaing my ideas and Alicias.  Here it is!

Voila!



The Exposed closet with crisp white trim.



The punch of purple.

Book shelve that houses Hammie.

Lessons Learned:

• Plan to do more that what actually needs to be done. With this task, we ended up doing more than just the walls, we had to do the trim and we didn't plan for that.
• Don't use kitchen and bathroom paint in the bedroom.

Overall a great project to do! Though, next time, I'll charge her! :)