Accidental redo

OK Squeezies. Hang in there with me on this post. I’m going to try to make sense of the way my mind works and the stream of thoughts that go on. Aren’t you so excited to get a look into how my decorating ADD happens? My mind can be a very scary place.  ;)

As I mentioned last week, I’ve started a little redo of our playroom/loft. I can’t even pinpoint when it started, but it’s been in the works for months. I’m just finally getting the projects going.

I’ve told you before, I’m nothing if not efficient. :)

Let’s look back at how the playroom looked for a while:

There was a time when I didn’t care for our wall color (the one I had them paint half the house with) – and I thought I had to match everything to it. Hence the reason I used so much red. (I thought it was the only color that worked with the hue of the paint.)

I’ve grown to love the color, and realize it’s an excellent neutral paint. And it’s opened up my world people! I now know I can use more than red to decorate these rooms! ;)

Anyhoo, remember when I told you back here how I took a couple trips to IKEA in a couple weeks? (Gleee!) Well, the reason for my first trip was to pick out this beauty:

It’s the Hemnes dresser and I thought it was going to be perfect for the Bub’s room. I planned to paint it RED (OK, the red isn’t gone for good) to go with his room. Because of that, I got the navy blue version of this dresser, so it would be a good dark base for the red paint.

Well…the reason I loved this dresser was because it had so much storage. What I didn’t realize (even though I measured the space before I got it) was that it’s MASSIVE. I mean, seriously. It’s SO stinking big people.

So I put the MONGO dresser together, and moved it into the Bub’s room, knowing full well it wasn’t going to work. It was too tall and too deep.

Drats.

I was freaking out just a little. What in the world was I going to do with a gigantic navy blue dresser? We certainly don’t need anymore dressers in this house. (You know my dresser obsession.)

And then…it hit me. I could use it in the playroom. Ah HA!! (You can see how I resolved the Bub’s dresser issue here.)

We have had a cheapy laminate TV stand in their for years and years – and a while back I tried painting it. Most of it held up OK, but some parts were flaking off daily:

I’ve been wanting to toss that thing (it was literally falling apart) forever, so I knew this could work out perfectly. Oh yes, my evil plan always comes together…even when I didn’t have a plan to begin with. And it wasn’t evil.

So I crushed the laminate stand (it. was. AWESOME.) and put the new dresser in it’s spot. LOVE.

Even the insides are adorable:

I changed it up just a bit by adding some fun green knobs (half off!) from Hob Lob:

The blue and green color is so FUN – and will make even more sense in just a minute. :)

Because the dresser is ginormous, it works insanely well for toys and games. Between another purge and this dresser, all of it is hidden away. And there are even empty drawers:

Glorious.

Because the dresser was a lot wider than the old TV stand, it created a few more issues. I had to take down the mirror and the art pad off the walls to accommodate the width of this monster.

And doing so left lots of these:

But we don’t have matching paint to touch them up. And even if we did the wall is about ohhhh…20 feet tall? I’m not painting it, and I don’t know anyone who will. :)

I decided to hang the TV above the dresser, so the need to repaint continued when I went to take the vinyl off the wall:

NICE. What the ??

Good. Ness. See how these things happen? It’s just a tidal wave.

But tidal waves are good around here. They give me an excuse to get creative. And in my mind, creative usually equals putting wood on our walls. Or mdf, in this case. :)

I used about $40 of the good stuff and did another board and batten treatment on that wall:

Oh my, I never tire of how fresh and crisp and classic it is! Nevah!

The height has no rhyme or reason to it – I just wanted to cover the big holes that showed up when I took down the bottom shelves. ;)

I used this method to fill the other holes, painted a couple coats of primer on the wall, installed the mdf and then gave it a coat of primer. I covered everything one more time with glossy white paint.

It gives the large wall a base and grounds it – which is a very good thing in this space:

By the way, this whole room is still so in between – nothing has been accessorized, so many projects aren’t done. I just couldn’t wait to show ya. :)

Onto the final project (for now), which may have been the first project. I have no idea. It’s all jumbled in my head. Remember that beautiful fabric I used for the kitchen window treatment?

Well this is the space I got it for:

I wanted to inject some more fun, make it fresh -- but keep it an adult space too. This room has morphed from a playroom to a game room over the past year, and I’m going with it.

And the new fabric was the a beautiful change – still lighthearted, but more grown up at the same time.

I don’t know. All I know is I LOVE it.

A couple weeks ago I found a couple of pillows at HomeGoods that happened to have the exact same colors on them:

And the Bub loves them because the one side has pirates, and he’s ALL over pirates lately. They a little whimsy in the room.

So far I’m loving the changes – so fun and bright!:

That new coffee table is for another post – a Craigslist find a few months ago:

It’s Pottery Barn and it’s fantastic! And no, it’s not staying red. :)

I love looking back to see how our spaces have changed – here’s the playroom a couple of years ago:

And the new game room, as it is today:

There are so many things left to do – the chairs will be replaced with our family room sofa…when we get a new family room sofa. :) The lights will come down, and my plan is to put built ins on each side of the windows. (Dad? You there?) The gallery wall is coming soon, and I’m figuring out a couple of other changes as well.

For now, I’m so pleased with how it’s coming together! All of the voices in my head are making sense…finally. ;)

P.S. To see a few of my board and batten tricks, go here to watch a short video. :)