Basement

June 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I am named after my grandmother, whom we refer to as Nannan (my oldest cousin’s rendition of Nanny).  Born in 1920 she grew up in western Kansas in the heart of the depression and dust bowl, which means she throws away ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.   Not only does she not throw things away, but thanks to a good ole Kansas basement, she has plenty of space to store everything. Probably you would refer to her as a hoarder… but in my world this just means a world of treasures that was available when I went to set up my own house.

When I moved into my house I had absolutely zero cash to invest in good furniture pieces, so I went to the only place I knew that I could get quality furniture for free… Nannan’s basement.  As I go through the house tour you’ll notice that several pieces of furniture originated from her basement and got facelifts before taking up permanent residence in my house.  (I’d show you a picture of the basement, but everyone deserves a dirty little secret or two… so I’ll leave Nannan’s a mystery)

office-bed

One of my favorite pieces of furniture to come from her basement is a single oak bed.  It had been passed over by aunts and cousins because no one needed a fairly ornate single bed.  HOWEVER, this fit my goal for the office perfectly.  It is a great second guest room option (especially for when my now widowed grandmother comes down to visit with my parents) and I didn’t mind the single size.

office-bed-detail-2

 

The only drawback was that after being in storage for so long it was in pretty sad shape.  A piece of the side had chipped off and it had a white film over most of the bed.  Sadly I don’t have any before pictures for you since I spruced it up before blogging.  But I will tell you this stuff: Howard’s Feed-N-Wax is a miracle worker.  Twenty minutes later and my sad looking wood bed was shining like it was brand new.  And this stuff smells citrus-y so it was nice to use.
 office-bed-detail-1

I love all the intricate details that add so much character to the bed.  I also love that it belonged to my great grandparents, so it feels like it has a lot of history.

As for the chipped off corner, I used a little wood glue and a clamp put on overnight to fit the piece back on to the corner, and now you can barely tell it was ever missing!

office-bed-repair

Don’t you just love re-purposing an old piece of furniture and giving it some new life?!

Filed Under: Basement Treasures, DIY, Office, Wood

Eradicating the neon green…

June 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Working for my family company I occasionally have the opportunity to work from home, so I knew one of the first things I wanted to get set up and going at my house was a peaceful, clean workspace.  When I started graduate school (I got an MBA a few years ago) my parents gave me a nice Pottery Barn desk as incentive for me to study hard.  It has been a few years, but they still sell the desk here. I love this desk! I had wanted it for a long time and was pleased to have such a great place to organize my addiction to school supplies.  I’ve now had it for almost 5 years and it is still going strong! (PB recommends an acrylic cover to protect the top… but I decided to spend the money on it and besides a few tiny nicks, the top still looks pretty darn good!)

office-desk

When I moved in to this house the previous owners had used this room as a nursery for their young daughter.  And they had chosen a lovely shade of highlighter green. Since that’s not really high on my list of favorite colors, it HAD to go.  I went with a nice soothing gray color that would nicely complement the white desk.  It is so amazing how much a new coat of paint can change a space!

office-before-and-after

(sorry for the terrible iphone pics)

The other piece of furniture I wanted to include in this space was an antique oak bed that came from my grandmother’s basement.  This isn’t my official guest room but I have a lot of family that come in and out of Dallas, so it has been nice to have a single bed in addition to the double bed in the guest room.

office-bed-wall

Over the bed seemed like the perfect place to display my camera collection. I bought these brackets and shelves (in white) from The Container Store and hung them along with a few pictures that I rescued from my grandmother’s basement.  They were taken by a relative in the early days of photography.  The woman on the bench is my great great grandmother. I love the way that the black cameras and white shelves look against the gray wall.

office-camera-collection

The last piece of this room were the curtains.  I have two of these windows and I’m never sure how you properly hang curtains? Do you need them on all three windows? None of them? Well, I finally settled on hanging short rods over the two outer windows and leaving the center window uncovered.

office-from-doorway

Mostly this is because I originally bought the curtains for the kitchen downstairs but the gray clashed with the blue-ish walls and didn’t achieve the look I was going for.  But since I had kept them past the return date… I brought them upstairs and they look FANTASTIC against those gray walls.  Happy mistake!

I love the way this room turned out!

 

Filed Under: Decorating, DIY, House Tour, Office, Paint
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