Office/School Room/Guest Bedroom Redo

[KyMama]

That's a lot of function for a room that's only 8½' x 10'.  My son left for boot camp the other day and this was his bedroom, and he left it in need of a serious deep clean.  Yesterday DH and I spent all day cleaning it out and boxing up the stuff that he wanted to keep.  (For the record, I all but begged him to get his room packed up before he left.  It was very tempting to just throw it all away since he couldn't be bothered with it.)    I'm pretty sure the neighbors think we are moving out because of all the stuff we put up at the road for the garbage pickup.   lol    

We discovered after removing everything that the floor is all but destroyed.  Between him not cleaning up any spills and his cat peeing on things it was horrible to clean.   I've swept and mopped several times so now I'm getting ready to prime it so that all the odors are locked in before laying a new laminate floor.  The laminate will be the same that we put down in the living room and hallway several years ago.  The only advantage to the size of the room is that it will be less than $200 for the floor.  

In the one picture you can see where the paint is peeling off the wall.  I have no clue why it started peeling, but it won't stop.  I'm pretty sure I could pull all the paint off the bottom of that wall with very little effort.  The original plan was to just paint the room a brighter color.  Since the paint is peeling I'm going to install some bead board wainscot along the bottom.  It will be white and I'm repainting the chair rail white, as well as installing new baseboard that will also be painted white.  I'm hoping all the white will make the room feel bigger than it is.    The plan as evolved this morning to add trim around the closet too.    I'm thinking of painting the top of the wall a pale blue.  I want some color, but I don't want the room to feel closed in.

We have a futon in the basement that we bought for him to use to hang out with his friends that was used once so I'm bringing that up to do double duty as seating and sleeping when (if) he comes to visit.  We'll probably replace it later with something nicer, but for now it will do.  I also bought a new desk to have in there for my youngest to do his school work instead of the living room.  Hopefully I'll be able to contain our homeschool clutter in there too.   And we are moving all the video game systems into this room as soon as I find a wall mounted shelf that I like enough to hold them all.   If not I'll be buying the bookcase that matches the desk, if it will fit next to the desk since the tv is going to be above the desk.  Does that make sense at all?    

I thought this was going to be a quick clean and refresh of the room.  I should have known better.  

First, some pictures of my decorating inspiration.  I came across the map cut-out on Hobby Lobby's website and loved it so I'm making my own instead of spending the $30. It will be paint and vinyl, not a cut-out.  My jigsaw skills are not that impressive so I'm not going to even try it.  The fabrics will probably become some throw pillows to help make the futon look better or I may even frame the squares from the panel one.  
  

And some before pictures.  

     

While trying to upload the pictures I realized that I have no idea what he did with the outlet covers I gave him to replace the old ones - last year.  

[KyMama]

In the middle of trying to get photobucket to work earlier I was able to pull off the baseboard and get the primer down.  Since that was hours ago I've now gotten the second coat of primer down and it looks better already.  Of course that may be the paint fumes.  lol

[shellymay]

Will be watching as you progress with your project

[krisinmi]

Two thoughts on the peeling paint, as I've seen this twice. First was in my parents house, and turned out to be a moisture problem in the wall. It was an exterior wall with a leak under a window .

Second experience was in my basement stairwell. The drywall didn't get wiped down well enough to get all the fine dust off of before being primed and painted, which made the primer and latex paint not 'stick' properly in a few areas.

Sounds like the bead board should take care of the issue, but check to make sure there isn't a moisture issue first; don't want to end up with mold in your wall.

[KyMama]

krisinmi, This wall is an interior wall between the bedroom and the living room so no window or pipe leaks. I did poke at it the other day to make sure it wasn't soft and it seemed fine. I'm thinking something was on the wall when we painted it the first time since the green paint under that dark gray is peeling off too. I was very pregnant with my 9 yr old and wasn't allowed in the room with the paint fumes so I have no clue what kind of prep my sister did. Having watched her paint since then I'm going to guess there was no prep and that there is/was something on the wall that affected the bonding.

I know I should probably try to fix the problem instead of just covering it up, but I don't have the time or ambition right now. When I put the bead board up I'm going to use nails only no glue. That way we can take it down with minimal damage later if we need to or if we sale the house later the next owners won't hate me too much. Having ripped off glued on panels in two rooms since moving in here I can honestly say the builder's and previous owner's ears were probably burning.

[KyMama]

Honest opinions please?  I'm not sure how I feel about my version of the map picture so you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it.  I guess I just need a few more opinions because my husband always says anything I make looks good.   That's sweet and good my ego, but sometimes I just want honesty.  

[shellymay]

Personally, I am not all sure that it doesn't look BETTER then your sample you posted earlier, You rock girl!

PS, you need to trust that husband of yours 

[Deleted]

Jul 27, 2016 23:39:33 GMT KyMama said:

Honest opinions please?  I'm not sure how I feel about my version of the map picture so you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it.  I guess I just need a few more opinions because my husband always says anything I make looks good.   That's sweet and good my ego, but sometimes I just want honesty.  

Wow, I REALLY love this!!! It's fantastic. You're very clever. And so's your DH for recognising his DWs talents.

[KyMama]

Thanks y'all. I just needed some opinions from people who are not family. lol When my husband got home he, of course, said it looked great. He did suggest that maybe I put a heart where Kentucky is on the map so I might do that or maybe "H♥ME".

And I've decided to not paint the top part of the wall. At least not yet anyway. I've been washing the walls today and it doesn't look too bad once you get it cleaned up. So one less thing for me to do. Yay!

[KyMama]

√ New Floor
√ New Baseboard
√ Bead board
√ Reinstall Chair rail

I need to do one more coat of paint and then I can move onto the fun stuff - decorating.  I'm not 100% sold on the gray now that I've got the white on half the wall, but for now I'll keep it because I'm already tired of painting.   

[shellymay]

What a great improvement, when I look at it I feel relaxed and it looks so clean in appearance, yep works for me......

As for decorating don't do to much as you don't want to be dusting things all the time, a room for school work or office type work yet being able to concentrate on the task at hand you wouldn't want to clutter to much, JMO  

[KyMama]

shellymay, I agree. When I said decorating I mainly meant getting the new desk in there and out of my living room. The only thing I will adding to the desk is a new lamp and some type of pencil holder. I also have to get the futon out of the basement and get it cleaned up and covered. I'd like to add a few things on the walls, but I won't have a bunch of dust collectors sitting around.

And I'm looking at different things to make the closet more usable. I'm thinking of getting one of those cube shelves to store our school stuff in there out of sight. My son has a lot of manipulatives for math and such and they've never had a real home as I keep moving them around trying to find a place for them. No matter what I figure out the closet is getting a complete redo. The bar is too low and the shelves aren't very sturdy. The only problem is that the attic access is in there too so I gotta be careful to make sure I can get around everything to get up there if needed. Oh and closet doors. The bifold doors were taken off because the bed sat too close to open them but I'd like something put back up, I just don't know what yet.

[shellymay]

Maybe for the closet with your skills you could do a heavy material curtain ? No more door ? 

[KyMama]

Curtains are definitely on the list of options. There are two things that are holding me back. One is that I would like something to keep the cats out of the closet and I don't think the curtains would even slow them down. The second thing is that both of my boys act like they can't operate curtains. Their closets had curtains at one time and they either ended up getting pulled down or just left open.

I'm also trying to plan ahead and think about what will work on all the closets because they all need to be redone. I have a small linen closet in the hallway and that one is throwing all my ideas out the window. It is 20" wide and I can't find anything that fits there that isn't custom order and very expensive. I definitely don't want a curtain there because of the cats and puppy. I don't want to have to worry about what is stored on the floor being eaten by the puppy or just destroyed by the cats. My cats may be a little evil. lol Then I've got the closet in the other bedroom. The entry door is in the right hand corner and the closet is directly behind it. It had bifold doors also and the problem was that if you wanted to open the closet door you had to shut the bedroom door. This is the one of the kid's rooms so you can imagine how that worked out. Generally speaking they opened the other closet door and threw things towards that side of the closet. (You gotta love boys!) For the bedrooms sliding doors would probably work best, but I can't do that in the hallway. And I know that they all don't have to be the same type of door, but my OCD would prefer it. lol

So my options are curtains, bifold or sliders. There isn't enough room for regular swing out type doors in any of the bedrooms. Or sliding barn doors, but I don't think they would look right in my brick ranch. Am I forgetting any options?

[dw]

I think it looks really GOOD!!!!

[KyMama]

The futon is done.  Finally.  I don't have a before picture because I had to take it apart to get it out of the basement so this is a picture from Walmart you just need to picture it dusty and dirty.  Think teenage boys and birthday party, plus 2 years of dust and you'd have an idea.  The cover is microfiber so it couldn't be washed so I just trashed it and covered with layers of other stuff.  The base layer is a 1½" foam, then a waterproof mattress cover, and then a fitted sheet.  The mattress cover is because of my cats since they have been known to pee on things and I didn't want them to ruin everything if they did.   I also painted the frame with a dark brown metallic spray paint.  So here's a before and after picture.  I think the new look is much more casual than the modern look it had and I'm happy with it.




And here it is with the new pillows I made.  I was going to buy the fabric in the original post, but I started digging through my stash and found these.  The bigger pillow is reversible with a fabric that is dark blue with white stars on the back.  These were both fat quarters so I just made the pillow as big as I could.  The small pillows are a thin denim that I'd bought at Walmart last year.  I like them even more because I didn't have to spend more money.  

 

I'm almost done in there.  We bought a closet organizer at the store last night.  It's nothing fancy, but it will fit and I think I will like it.  I also ordered a small table that matches the desk so that I can put the printer in here and out of the living room.  I'll get it Wednesday as well as my lamp kit and then I think I'm done.  I hope I'm done.    

I just glanced up at the picture and remembered that I want to recover the lamp shade too.   Oh and I need to put the curtains up.   So maybe I'm not as close as I think.  lol 

[krisinmi]

Aug 1, 2016 18:36:31 GMT KyMama said:

I just glanced up at the picture and remembered that I want to recover the lamp shade too.   Oh and I need to put the curtains up.   So maybe I'm not as close as I think.  lol 

I am amazed at how much you've gotten done in such a short time.  Loving reading the updates, and comparing the before and after pictures.  You're an inspiration.  

[shellymay]

So some of us want to know if your for hire    Looking good girl.............

[KyMama]

krisinmi - Thanks, normally I wouldn't rush it this much but my son is super excited to start school in there this year. That alone is enough motivation for me to get it done.

shellymay - Um, no. lol

[Deleted]

Wow, what a great job you did on the room. I enjoyed reading your updates and watching how nice it has turned out.

[Maura]

The futon looks so much better, and l like that you matched the wall.

As for shelves for videos and such, think about a cabinet. Then you can close the door and hide all the stuff.

Great job!

[KyMama]

Change of decorating plans y'all.  My son came into the room last night with his 2-pack of maps and asked if I could hang them on the wall.  At that moment I realized I had approached decorating this room the wrong way.  I should be decorating for homeschool not the imaginary guests we're going to have.   lol    The maps are huge so I had to improvise a way to hang them.  This year we are doing Early American History so I decided to hang the US map but I had to plan for the size of the world map.  It's the same size as the pieces of wood if you were wondering why they are longer than the map.   Hopefully the sides of the map will relax after it hangs there awhile.  It's been rolled up for at least a year.     To hang them I just cut a piece of trim to the size I needed and painted it.  Then I laid them on the floor with the map face down and used thumb tacks to attach the ends of the map to the wood.   I'm thinking this will make it easy to switch out to the world map if/when we need it.   I've saw some ideas on Pinterest where you sandwich the poster between two pieces of wood that have heavy duty magnets attached to them.  You hang it with a piece of twine attached at each end.    It's reversible so I could have both maps up at the same time.   Later on I may replace this with something similar but I really didn't want to go to the store and spend money on more wood and magnets.   Quite frankly I'm tired of Lowe's.   lol



As I was going through our homeschool stuff I found our copies of historic documents like The Constitution and Bill of Rights.  I also have a copy of Lincoln's handwritten  
Gettysburg Address.  So I got to thinking that those would look nice framed and on the other walls instead of just pretty pictures.  That'll work in an office.  Right?

Maura,  I would use cabinet if I were stashing all the stuff that goes with the video games near the tv, but they are going to be stashed in the closet in the new organizer.  The closet thing came with a shoe organizer and all the games and controllers and stuff are going in there.  Then when I get closet doors they will be nicely hidden away.    I just need to find some wall shelves that are big enough to hold the systems, which is harder than you'd think.  

Here's the empty organizer, the black area on the right hand side holds 12 pairs of shoes so that should hold the game stuff.    I was really happy with it until I realized that I can't pull the drawer things out on the left side because of the wall.      The bars are as small as I can make them without cutting them so I scavenged in the basement and found some plastic drawers that I've had forever and they fit perfectly on there to hold school stuff.  I'll post an updated picture when I get it all put together.    (Did you notice the new trim around the closet?  I'm rather proud of that.  And I think it makes the closet look so much nicer.)

[Maura]

I like the shoe organizer better. Really tucked away nicely. You keep coming up with good ideas. You’re on a roll.

I like the idea of framing the Constitution and Gettysburg Address. It gives them importance and adds to the theme of learning.

[shellymay]

I believe it is all working and what great idea's you come up with, love the closet organizer and yes I noticed the new trim and it looks great   So does Lowes know you by first name yet? LOL

[KyMama]

shellymay , they should definitely know my name. lol

We went back to Lowes last night to look at their closet and interior doors but they didn't have anything that I liked in stock. Since we were in Lexington my husband decided we should go to Home Depot and see what they have too. I'm so glad we went. We found the sliders that we wanted. We debated back and forth and decided we really didn't want bifold doors again because the bedrooms are so small that sometimes the bed gets in the way of the opening the doors all the way. I just finished getting the doors up and I think I'm going to like them. Here are some pictures of the closet. Wow, that's sounds exciting. lol

On the left side are the drawers that hold our homeschool stuff.  There's one drawer for History, one for Science, two for Math and the bottom one is Art supplies.  On the right I'm using the shelves for our board games.  They are normally kept in the basement and that meant we hardly ever played them.  We've already had some of them out playing so I think this is a much better place.  I'm using the top bar to store our winter coats.  We don't have a coat closet so they ended up hanging on hooks in the living room year round.  For some reason that really bothered me so now they have a summer home.  I'm leaving the bottom bar empty for when my son comes to visit or any other rare guests we get.  

  

And the best part of our trip to Home Depot - a door for the hallway closet.  And it was half price!  We had the sliders and were walking away when I just happened to look back at the end of the aisle and there they were.  I was super excited to get a prehung 18" door for $47.   

[countrymom22]

Great job! I think decorating with the learning theme is the way to go. So happy to hear that your son is excited to start his school year. Nice surroundings can only add to his enjoyment. Keep up the great work!

[countrymom22]

Great job! I think decorating with the learning theme is the way to go. So happy to hear that your son is excited to start his school year. Nice surroundings can only add to his enjoyment. Keep up the great work!

[shellymay]

   

What a great find and what a great price score on the doors, So happy you found what you really wanted and didn't settle 

[dw]

I like the doors!!!