Caleb's Room, Here's the Plan

Finally! This is why I began this project in the first place. I've been designing and re-designing my dream house and every room in it for over ten years. Over the next few posts, I'll be sharing my plans for the rooms. Eventually, I'll get to the before and afters. My plan for Caleb's room has changed as he has grown up a little. In my first home, Caleb's room was light and airy...soothing. Perfect for a new baby. 

Now that he is almost five (yes, FIVE!) he has developed taste and a little sense of style. Caleb's favourite colour is red. If he had it his way, his walls, floor, and ceiling would all be painted red. Since I'd rather not have my baby fall asleep in a "redrum," I decided to not show him what I have planned until it is all done.

 I know the room will read as red and I won't have to paint a single thing red. The overall vibe my house has is beachy, but I absolutely LOVE all things industrial. Is there a better place to incorporate this little obsession than in my son's room? I don't think so! So here's the plan.

All that is left is to execute...

The fun is about to begin! But first, an update...

I can't believe it has been nine months already since my last post! I have so many ideas that I want to share with you and about twenty ideas for blog posts. Since I am now switching from teacher mode to full on renovator mode as of Friday, I'm ready to pump out the posts and get this thing up to date. Promise! So much has happened in the past nine months. I'm going to share the highlights with you but I haven't been keeping track of what happened when, so it's only sort of in order. Here we go!

This is generally how I feel most of the time...overwhelmed and slightly confused. Dad is not allowed to talk to me when I'm measuring because I'll immediately forget my numbers.

Here's the face I put on to bed for somebody to build me some stairs...still no stairs!

One of the big projects we completed over the past few months is the flooring. I'll be writing a post on this project for sure because I managed to get amazing looking flooring for so cheap. The living room is coming together. It's so bright and airy!

Kitchen floor - check! Dance party anyone?

I don't know if you remember my comments about my budget tools from a previous post, but I've gotten pretty good at measuring and then improvising with whatever type of saw I have to cut the wood. For example, my circular saw finally bit the dust, so I use the table saw to cut out notches for plugs and switches. I'm pretty sure real carpenters would be appawled at my safety standards onsite, but I still have both eyes and all ten fingers. ha! ha!

Baby, it's cold in here...again! So, instead of suffering too much, we got our favourite electrician, Joe, to come install a couple heaters. Joe is awesome! Not only does he know his stuff, he lets my little man work alongside him as an apprentice. What a treat it is to have friends help with the house!

Once we completed laying the floors upstairs and downstairs, it was time to stain. I was so nervous about this because I had never stained anything before and I didn't want to ruin my beautiful floors. Dad assured me it was easy (even though I'm pretty sure he'd never done it either), so we went for it. Because the Ridge Cedar (the mill down the road where we purchased all our lumber) ran out of hemlock and there was no dry boards to be found in New Brunswick or Maine anywhere, we used pine in the kitchen. The stain on the hemlock compared to the pine is only slightly different, but I actually prefer the pine look.

We used Minwax Dark Walnut stain.

Kitchen sneak-peek! We had to take all of the lower cabinets out to polyurethane the floors, but you get the idea. Picture a giant island in the middle. These are the projects that feel like a giant step in progress has been made. This is the fun stuff!

Once I got the staining bug, I didn't stop at the floors. I decided to stain the outside of my front door just to see. I love a white house with black shutters and a wood door. The doors I got on Kijiji had an ugly orangy-brown stain on them anyway. Even if it looked horrible, I could just paint over it because I also love a white house with black shutters and a brightly coloured door! I didn't do any prep, as usual, and it gave the door a two-toned distressed feel. I love it!

The master bedroom turned out just as beautiful as the living/dining room.

Gotta' have our snuggles! Until next time...