DIY Custom Dressing Room - Progress Update #2

After some much needed R&R over the last month, the Mr. got straight back to some heavy duty catch-up on our DIY custom closet/ dressing room.  

Since my previous closet update, he had completed the pull-out racks:

... and the fronts of the bottom drawers last month (please excuse the mess in the closet...  that's why we need doors!!):

It didn't look very pretty then, but read on...

It's a lengthy DIY project, so understandably the Mr. took a brief hiatus from the closet.  He went back to work on it last week and installed the baseboards and quarter-rounds on the closet:

He also painted and installed the fronts of the bottom drawers.  It's getting better now...

This past weekend, he swore up and down that he would get the fronts of the vanity drawers and pull-out racks done.  He showed me the raw product:

The fronts for the pull-out racks:

He painted the fronts...

... and installed them:  

Words simply cannot express how much I appreciate his dedication and hard work.

Having done all that, the Mr. couldn't just leave that vanity counter unfinished.  He painstakingly applied the self-adhesive marble paper* onto the wooden counter.  Here's our "marble" vanity countertop:

With the vanity top completed, we now have a spot where our trinkets can reside.  

We each get a drawer of the vanity for our stuff.  I left off of my last dressing room update with another wify request.  Can you guess what I added to my wish list when the Mr. was about to install the counter?

It was this...  a folding station:

Since we're folding much of our clothing in the drawers, the folding station would really come in handy.

I really love how the knobs and pulls add sparkles to the closet fronts.  Here's a close-up of the glass handle with hexagon tips.  It looks and glistens like a diamond!

I'm so in love with the glass knobs; they add the perfect touch of elegance to the vanity.  

That mirror was stolen from our bathroom as temporary vignette background, as I'm still shopping for an art piece for the vanity.  

Here is how we left off with our previous closet update:

And this is where we are now, with the drawer fronts in place (again, please excuse our mess inside the closet ;-) 

It's getting closer to our source of inspiration - Carrie's closet in Sex & the City 2:

CARRIE'S CLOSET IN SEX AND THE CITY 2, IMAGE VIA MARKS & FRANTZ

This is the view from the entrance of the master suite.  When the closet doors are in place, this view would look much neater.

Stay tuned for our blog updates!  You never know, the Mr. may be on a mission to complete the closet doors.  My next update could be the big reveal!  (I hope so!)

*Affiliated link

The Many Wall Treatment Options for the Powder Room

While taking photos of our powder room for the Spring decor post, I found this little space awkwardly plain and incomplete.  So I took a photo with a weird angle:

Ya, weird, isn't it?  You can barely tell it's our powder room.  Like I mentioned in the post, it's not fully decorated.  Even though we've changed out the builder's boob light and plain white pedestal sink to a beautiful vanity the first week we moved in...

Something's still missing...  some art work maybe?  But more notably, some kind of wall treatment.

We already have plans for the walls of our powder room, but just need the time, much like any other projects around the house.  In case you're looking for wall treatment options for your powder room, here are the different combinations to choose from:

Change of paint colour:

Powell & Bonnell

Paint + wainscoting:

Jennifer Flanders Inc.

Paint + bottom tiling:

Emily Johnston Larkin

Wallpaper + wainscoting:

Jax Does Design blog

 Mirrors in panels:

Home Bunch

Whole wall panelling:

Design Chic

Whole wall tiling:

Houzz

Whole wall of wallpaper:

The Perfect Bath

The possibilities and combinations are endless, and can be as unique as one wants.  Do you see a commonality in the examples above?  They're all in soft tones, much like the rest of our house.  My vision for this small powder room is to incorporate a soft and classic look; one that matches the ambiance set by the mirrored vanity.

Well, if you know the Mr., you'd know that he loves his trims and mouldings (see our Completed Projects from the old house and you'll see what I mean).  In fact, the first thing he had arranged before we moved in was to have the whole house outfitted in crown mouldings.  If he can have his way, the whole powder room would be trimmed and panelled, like the whole wall panelling sample photo above, which HE pinned!

Not that I don't love the architectural detailing, but I think we can do something a little unexpected in this small break-away space, especially when we plan to add wainscoting to the ground floor...  eventually.  

Recently, DIY Mommy posted a beautiful wallpaper for her powder room on her Instagram account.

A photo posted by Christina Dennis (@thediymommy) on Feb 28, 2016 at 4:10pm PST

Please pin from original source.

It prompted me to look at wallpaper choices again!  Seeing how beautiful her powder room turned out, it also gave us confidence in our choice of wall treatment for the powder room - wallpaper with wainscoting.

Choosing a wallpaper pattern can be even more daunting than choosing a paint colour.  Have you seen a wallpaper album?  No biggie, I've narrowed down the options to a manageable size.

Given the decor around our house, a classic pattern like damask or lattice would be a safe go-to design.  However, I want to push the envelope a bit and go with something that's outside of our "comfort zone", yet still classic and timeless.

For a small space like a powder room, a large repeating pattern works better than smaller geometric pattern, which could be dizzying.  I'm loving these large-scaled patterns, inspired by nature:

Animal print:

Thibaut Design

Structured fern:

Mey Fern wallpaper by Nina Campbell

Branches and swallows:

Lori Henle Interiors

Nautical knots:

Liz Caan Interiors

Shimmery chinoiserie:

Gluckstein Design

While I love the tone-on-tone patterns, I also love florals that give the otherwise monochromatic powder room some colours.

Florals and birds:

Shawn Henderson

Sarah Richardson

Floral mural wallpaper:

Habitually Chic

I'm totally in love with the colours of this large floral mural, but sizing may be a problem unless we have it customized to our walls with wainscoting ($$$$).

A New Wall

Once again, the choices are limitless even when we narrow down the wallpaper style and options.  With a small space such as the powder room, we don't need as much wallpaper and that gives us some flexibility with the budget.   

Now the question is, do we want to tackle this ourselves, or hire professional help?  What was your experience with wallpaper?

5 Home Decor Ideas for Spring

Our recent weather in town was like a roller coaster ride.  A week of warm double digit temperature plunged to deep freeze temperature, and this week we're getting another taste of the sweet warm weather!  I'm not complaining of an early start of Spring, but welcoming the warmth full force by refreshing our home's Spring decor.

It's always fun to reinvent new ways of decorating with what you have, and I've committed to using most of our existing Spring decor accessories from years past.  

At our house, I've added some easy touches to give our decor for a fresh Spring look.  Here are 5 simple things that help bring Spring to your home.

1. Chirpy Birds, Nests, and Colourful Eggs

What's Spring without chirpy birds singing at your window (and wake you up so you can't sleep in on weekends)?  I've invited these ceramic birds into our entryway for a happy, welcoming sight.   I kept our entryway decor simple, and layered on some easter eggs and nest decor for some colours.

Here's a previous version at our old house, using the same accessories.  

2. Other Natural elements - Greenery / Floral arrangements

If your house isn't already an indoor garden, adding plants or fresh (or faux) flowers would immediately breathe new life into your home.  

For me though, I don't particularly have a green thumb.  Spending around 6 hours of awake time at home after work, minus dinner and family time, doesn't leave me much time or energy to care for plants.  I rely on my trusted faux floral friends to bring us some colours until it's time to switch to fall and winter decor. 

So, wherever I can find a spot, I would add some greenery or faux floral arrangement to liven up our neutral space.

Here in the dining room:

We haven't decorated our powder room, so a simple arrangement of hydrangeas adds some much needed colour in it.

I've moved this pot of faux orchid around our house, but I think it's finally found a home in our master ensuite.

Here in our family room, a pot of faux grass gives all the navy decor a pop of colour.

Back at our old house, we had 2 versions of Spring tablesetting.  This is the dramatic, which we used while we staged our house for sale:

This second version was what the Mr. thought didn't have enough oomph.  Very well...

Aside from the greeneries and floral arrangements, displaying fruits in the kitchen is another simple way to add some natural elements to enhance your Spring decor.

I confess, this chrome birds and twigs tray is a new addition to my Spring decor collection.  It's so unique that I just had to grab it from Homesense, even though I had no idea what to use it for...  until I ran out of room on our usual fruit tray with all those clementines the Mr. brought home from grocery shopping, and into this tray they went.

3. Colourful Art

All the greeneries and colour don't end with plants and flowers.  If you had furry pillow covers through the winter months, it's time to replace them with some Spring covers.  For me, these water colour floral cushion covers are a natural extention from the florals and plants around the house.  

Bluebellegray cushion from Chapters Indigo

Pillow cover from Craftberry Bush

Another quick and inexpensive way to add some colours around the house would be with some free printables of Spring.  I love Craftberry Bush's water colour printables and she has this cute Bless Our Nest printable for free on her website!  

If you don't have a colour printer available, it's very inexpensive to print this at a local print shop.  I usually print my quicky artwork on a light weight cardstock at Staples.  You can't beat a decent quality print for under $1!

via Craftberrybush

4. Light weight linens

From window treatments, to throws, to your bedding, it's just natural to change out the heavy weights to light weights as warm weather descends upon us.  

Replacing heavily woven drapery fabrics with lighter fabrics, such as belagian linen, doesn't only lighten the wintery feel, but also lets in more light.  You may consider a sheer-on-sheer window treatment, like this in our dining room, to get the most light through your windows.  

Are you still using flannel sheets, with Christmas themes?  Updating your bedding with some light and colourful fabrics is a great way to indulge in the spirit of Spring.  Our fabulous Canadian designers have come out with some gorgeous bedding that make us long for Spring.  

From Sarah Richardson's own textile line:

via Sarah Richardson Design

To Samantha Pynn's collection for Simons:

via Samantha Pynn pour Simons

5. Fresh Scent

Who doesn't love walking into a fresh smelling house?  I used to love plug-ins with floral scents, but recently I've grown to love clean scents.  One of my favourites is White Tea by Westin.  Yes, that's Westin as in the Westin hotel chain.  White Tea is their signature scent that welcomes you as you walk into their hotel lobby.  

I'm so glad that they actually sell this scent, but it doesn't come cheap.  My trick to prolong its usage is to use it with an oil diffuser, which most people use to disperse essential oil for aroma therapy.  

White tea oil diffuser;  Wood grain oil diffuser (affiliated links)

I put 5 drops with a medicine dropper into the diffuser's reservoir, and off it goes for about 8 hours.  The scent that comes out of it is never too strong, but just enough to travel through our ground floor.

It brings back vacation joy each time I take in a whiff of its scent.  The oil diffuser is tucked into a corner at our dining room, behind the wall of picture frames on the table.  It's not something meant to be seen; just a subtle reminder of its delicate scent will do. 

It's so tempting to shop all the beautiful new decor that the stores are carrying for Spring.  It can also be overwhelming when there're so much goodies to choose from.  If I can, I would bring the whole store home...  But with a limited budget or limited patience for shopping (like these miserable men), having a list of general decor ideas would hopefully deter you from overloading your shopping cart.   Guilty of that?