Grey Really Does Matter

With the Chandelier looking new it was time to get this front entrance way into shape.  The first thing people see when coming over.

When pulling off a full house facelift, knowing your budget is the most important thing.

Once the budget is figured out the facelift can be planned out.

• Will this be a working with "the bones" of the house operation? 
• OR maybe a little extra pulls and tucks here and there?  
• OR is this a complete and total make over.

Unfortunately for us, this facelift is a on a tight budget a.k.a working with "the bones."

The first thing we HAD to give up on our wish list was new flooring.

Our house has (ugly) tile from entry way, to kitchen through the hallway, half bath and laundry room.  We do have beautiful hardwood in our family room, dinning room and a boarder of hardwood surrounding carpet in our front living room.  The stairs going up are carpeted with carpeting through out the entire upstairs with exception of bathrooms which are tiled.

Plan (with budget in mind)...Keep Tile and save money.  Let me just say, I hate this tile!
I did not want the tile to stick out, I wanted it to blend and work with the tile. Colour choice was extremely important for this. I literally took my colour wheel and sat in the middle of the entry way pulling colours and pairing it with the tile.

I wanted something soft and calming, however that made a big impacted. I was planning a focal wall that will be seen from the front door so I did not want to compete against or clash with that.

But most importantly I wanted something clean, fresh and new.

WE WENT WITH Grey Matters Sherwin-Williams  

But before we started painting, a plan for the gritty/dingy/smoker yellow wallpaper wrapped around the lower half of the front entry walls encased in gold trim was needed.

First thought...take it all down.  It was just so so hard to look at.  

 However once some of the trim (that was glued onto the wall paper) was taken down the wallpaper wasn't looking so bad. 

Before the paint but with extra trim removed

I did think about the possibility of installing all new wainscoting, more modern, a lot nicer but then...of course the budget came into play.  

And I thought to myself...maybe I can just paint the wallpaper, save some dough and time?  

Painted

Painted

 And it turned out GREAT!! I LOVED THE LOOK!!

Now time to add a little Grey Matters

Done! Well, kinda...

 Walls painted, Chandler rope in need of a little more black spray paint, and that door...it still needed an action plan.  But the wall colour, the white painted wallpaper and trim...I loved the way it turned out!

 

Concrete bedroom Part 1

The concrete bedroom, well not 100% concrete but headboard...concrete, storage bench top...concrete and makeup/desk top...concrete, did not start out to be that way.

Kay's room Purple and Concrete, a bedroom transformation

The concrete desk and storage bench started off basically with the same design and construction.  It is basically a concrete slab.  So we measured out out area and I molded their forms for the concrete to be  poured.

Next I had to find some legs for the desk and a storage unit for the bench.

The legs were easy to find, unfinished table legs or stair railings you can find in any hardware store.  We cut them to size, spray painted them black and done.  The storage bench was not so easy.  We had to find something to fit an already fixed size and shape.  We had the concrete top made for it, we had the location for it, but we just could not find anything to fit the area the way we needed to.  We were very close to making our own, until we took a look at Walmart.  We found a great little storage unit that was the perfect measurements we needed...and when I say perfect I mean not even a cm off.  So, yes, there was a little concern there!

make table/desk form

storage bench form

Forms filled with concrete

 The desk is supported by two things.  First it is held up by the 2 front legs that we cut down to size and spray painted black, same as the mural border and screwed into the floor to make sure no one is able to knock down/out the legs causing the desk to fall.  Secondly, it is also supported by a  2x4 sill running the length of the wall.  We drilled into the wall studs and glued down the concrete top.

The storage bench, like I said, fit perfectly and it took a lot of work and force to make this happen.

The box

The pieces

We first had to put the pieces together to build this shelf that we picked up at Wal-Mart.  We turned it on it's side to make a bench that fit a little too perfectly into the space we measured for.
As you see, in the picture below we put a hole in the wall trying to force the bench into place.  We also cut out the trim on the wall...in the end it fit!! and so did the concrete top.

See the hole in the wall on the right hand side...but it fits :)

and btw the pillow are NOT hiding the holes.  We did fix it.