Heather is my youngest sibling (there are five of us and I'm the oldest). She graduated from college last spring and came to live with us in the concrete jungle where dreams are made. She is working and also helps me with some of my business stuff and she pitches in with the kids (basically, she is saving my bacon. Also she is clever and funny and lovely and a general dream of a person to get to be around every day. We feel lucky to have her.)
So Heather was living down on the garden level for the first few months, but we decided to switch things around in December-ish. Michael and I moved downstairs, which made it so much more convenient for us to be closer to the office where we both log in long hours, and she moved into the small room up by the kids on the third floor.
She was super down with doing black walls like I had originally planned on for that room. So while she was home in Arizona for Christmas I decided to surprise her with some room progress.
Remember those dang shelves hanging above the bed from when the bachelors lived here? Well those shelf rails must have been there for decades because there were probably 17 layers of paint slapped on top, leaving the ugliest deep trenches behind. It was such a pain, but we scraped and sanded and filled up those trenches with as much joint compound as we could pack in there.
Here's the sad, neglected before shot, right after we pulled down the shelves and while we were building the IKEA Pax units (those mirrored doors to the right).
The light from the windows is casting some funny shadows here, but the walls are about a million times better than they were before after that sanding and scraping. They are old, imperfect walls though, so we went with an eggshell finish with the paint (since gloss would only highlight the imperfections). The color is Benjamin Moore's Bavarian Forest. It is the perfect dark teal. Close to black, but a little softer. Heather's favorite color is green too, so I knew she'd be cool with the small change in plans.
Since the room is so, so teeny and clothing storage is super tricky, we ended up buying this bed with drawers in the frame. Guys, I don't recommend this route unless you are in dire straights like we were. But the frame itself is pretty non-descript and the drawers actually work well. We ended up screwing the velvet footboard right onto the bed frame's existing footboard, so you can't even really see any of the old frame.
But as you can see, there is zero space for nightstands, especially because of the drawers in the frame (there's one up by the head of the bed). I looked around for wall-mounted options, but I couldn't find anything right, so I ended up buying a pair of these corbels from the hardware store.
They fit the narrow space perfectly. I was on my way back to the hardware store to buy some wood to cut down to act as the table top, when I stopped by Michael's and checked out the wood section.
These little pine boards were about $5 each on sale, and they were the exact right size. Too perfect to pass up, I say!
Two quick drywall screw-ins later and we had a nightstand!
Since the table top was securely attached to the corbel, I could just hang the corbel itself on the wall and it sits there securely. I also filled in the screw holes and the small little pine knots with a bit of wood filler and then I painted out both nightstands in the wall color.
I love how these turned out! They add a little something to the lines of the room, but they also disappear since they're the same color as the wall.
And isn't the wall color perfect with the coral velvet headboard?
More projects from this room to come. Lots to share!
PS Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words in the last two posts. I am so grateful for you all.
PPS The Apartment Therapy Homies just went up and I'm so flattered some of you already nominated me in the Home Design and the DIY categories. Thanks a million for your votes! xoxo