Category Archives: Brady’s Room

Brady’s Furniture is Done!

Brady's Room, DIY, Uncategorized

Hi Everyone! I am SO happy to report that Brady’s furniture is finally done! I’m not going to lie…this was a tough one and if this project had a theme song it would be “Patience” by Guns N Roses. So, go ahead and hum that song to yourself while I share the details.

First, here’s a look back at what his furniture looked like before…

I won’t bore you with a step by step tutorial.  You can Google how to paint furniture and come up with a hundred different sites explaining the various ways to paint furniture.  I will tell you that I chose to sand, prime and apply 2 coats of paint to all the furniture.  And, it was a pain in the neck…literally!  After one 8 hour painting marathon I woke up the next day unable to move my neck!  It took me a week to recover!  Who get’s injured while painting?

Here’s a look at the furniture before I sanded it…

Do you see all those slats on the bed?  Twenty four to be exact!  I had to individually sand and paint each one!  I also removed the old hardware on the dresser and nightstand drawers, filled in the holes with wood putty and drilled new holes for the new hardware.   I removed all the drawer fronts to make them easier to paint.  One cautionary note for you if you ever decide to paint furniture…make sure you label all the drawer fronts before you remove them!  I didn’t and had a heck of a time trying to figure out which drawer front belonged to which drawer.  You wouldn’t think it would make a difference, but believe me, it does!

Here is the furniture with the primer applied…

I decided to hand brush the paint onto the furniture rather than spray it with a paint sprayer for two reasons.  First, I had tried spraying my younger son’s furniture last year and had less than satisfactory results.  I kept getting little, tiny air bubbles in the finish.  I never was able to figure out what I was doing wrong and I didn’t want to repeat that with this project.  Secondly, I really didn’t want to move all of the furniture out of the room.  When you use a sprayer, paint gets EVERYWHERE!  So, I hand brushed everything.  Did I mention there are 24 slats on that bed?  It took FOREVER!

After painting the room Navy blue, I knew we were going to have to choose a light color for the furniture.  I thought we would do white, but Brady really had his heart set on a light gray, just like the New England Patriot’s helmets!  We chose Coventry Gray by Benjamin Moore.

Here’s a look at his furniture now…

I am very happy with how it all turned out!  Even though it took weeks to finish and a whole lot of patience, I think it was all worth it.  And, Brady was right…the gray is really cool!

I am so close to being done with his room!  I just have to hang some art work and shelves, replace the door knobs & hinges and replace the light fixture.  Hopefully I can get all that done in the next week.  Stay tuned!

Easy Window Cornices For Brady’s Room

Brady's Room, DIY

Hi Everyone! I’ve made some great progress in Brady’s room this week and I want to show you the window cornices I made for his room. These were SO easy (and cheap!) to make.  I apologize upfront for the poor quality pictures.  I never said I was a photographer!

Supplies:

Foam Insulation Boards

Fabric

Batting

Utility Knife

Glue Gun

Staple Gun & Staples

Straight Pins

L brackets

Here’s what I did…

First I measured the window and determined how wide I wanted the cornices to be.  Brady’s window is 33.5 inches wide and I wanted the cornice to extend 2 inches on either side of the window, so I measured and marked the board at 37.5 inches.  The board was 13.75 inches high and I decided I liked the height as it was.

Next, I used a utility knife to cut the board along the markings I made.  I’m not going to lie…this part was messy!  I had little bits of Styrofoam flying all over the place and sticking to everything!

I then determined how far out I wanted the cornice to stick out from the window.  I decided on 3 inches.  For the top piece I measured another board at 37.5 inches wide and 3 inches high and cut the board long my markings.  For the sides I used a leftover piece of board that I had cut from the other boards.  I measured 2.25 inches wide  and 13.75 inches high and cut 2.

I then used my glue gun to attach the sides to my cornice board.  One cautionary note…if your glue gun gets too hot it will melt the Styrofoam.  Yep, it happened to me!

Then, I glued on the top.

This is what the cornice looks like after you’ve glued on the sides and top…

Next, I cut the fabric and batting to be big enough to wrap around my cornice.  I placed the fabric on a flat surface, then the batting on top of the fabric and the cornice on top of both.

Using my staple gun, I pulled the fabric and batting up and around to the back of the cornice and stapled it into place.  I continued to pull the fabric tightly around the cornice and staple it into place.  I did the bottom first and then the top, taking care to keep the fabric straight and smooth.  When I got to the corners I played around with the fabric and folded it into place until it was neat and stapled it into place.  Along the edges I found that using straight pins were easier than the staples.

Here is what the cornice should look like when all the fabric and batting is stapled and pinned into place…

I hung 2 L brackets above the windows.   The cornices are so lightweight I didn’t even bother with wall anchors.

Lastly, I slid the cornice over the L brackets.

I LOVE how these cornices turned out!  Honestly, the pictures don’t even do them justice.  They look super sleek and modern and finish off the windows perfectly!

These things only took me a half an hour to make and only cost me about  $30 in materials!  I would call this project a success!

Next up, refinishing the furniture.  Wish me luck people!  This is the project I’m most worried about!  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

P.S.-Did you notice the new wall color?  I’ll tell you all about that soon!

 

 

 

 

 

Make Over Plans For Brady’s Room

Brady's Room

Hello! Anybody still there? It’s been a long time since my last post and I’ve missed being here! I wish I had a really good excuse for staying away for so long, but really it’s just life with two kids. When things get busy (and let’s face it, things are always busy) my creative endeavors just seem to take a back seat.
Somehow, the beginning of the school year and the return of Fall have a way of motivating me to get back to what I love. Perhaps it’s the nesting instinct that takes over when the temperature starts to dip and I can envision a long winter indoors. I have the desire to make everything cozy and homey. Or, maybe it’s just that the kids are out of the house for a good chunk of the day and I finally have time to do the things I want to do! Whatever the reason, I am back tackling another project. I don’t know if anyone out there in cyberspace actually reads this stuff, but it feels darn good to be back!
We had a big change this year…My oldest son, Brady, started high school! What? How did that happen? Am I even old enough to have a kid in high school? Wait, don’t answer that! Anyhow, I realized that Brady’s room hadn’t changed all that much since he was in kindergarten. It is still a shade of baby blue, he still has Lego creations displayed on his shelves and he still has the little red bookcase I got him when he was a toddler. It’s time for him to have a more grown up room!
Here is what it looks like now…

This is what I plan to do…
-New paint! I would love to paint it light gray, but Brady want’s navy blue. I do love a navy and white color scheme so I may go with his choice.                                                                           -Refinish the furniture.  At some point in the past 9 years my husband and I got new bedroom furniture for our room and Brady inherited our old furniture.  Surprisingly, the furniture is still it excellent condition so we’ll just give it a new finish. I’m not sure yet if I’ll paint it or stain it a darker color.  I guess it will depend on what color I end up painting the walls
-A new furniture layout.  The current layout is not really working.  It’s very crowded so, I think I’ll remove one of the dressers. He doesn’t use it and I would love to make room for a desk in there. He has a desk in another part of the house and it’s always a mess. I think if I can contain the mess to his room and just close the door I’ll certainly be happier and he’ll have a quiet place to study.
-Something different for the windows. I don’t dislike the curtains he has now, but he suffers from really bad allergies. The curtains are just dust magnets so I plan to ditch them. I have been looking up how to make window cornices and I’m thinking maybe I’ll try that. It will dress up the windows without collecting dust.
-I’ll add other finishing touches like new door hardware, a light fixture and artwork.
I haven’t decided what to do about the bedding yet. I bought the current comforter a couple of years ago and Brady still really likes it. I would love to do white bedding, but who am I kidding? It would be dirty in 2 seconds. The only reason I’m contemplating getting something new is because the comforter is not quite big enough. It’s a full/queen and the bed is a thick queen mattress. I don’t like that the comforter doesn’t quite cover the box spring. I’m thinking that I could just put a fitted sheet on the box spring and call it a day. I guess I’ll see how it all looks after I finish the other items on my to do list and then decide what to do about the bedding.
OK, I think that’s all for now. Wish me luck and check back in with me next week to see my progress!