The Little Bedroom that Could

Our children at Brainard Lake.

I thought I'd share a couple of photos from our day up at Brainard Lake. I discovered Brainard my first summer here.
And here we are on our 4th Coloradan summer! It has been a beautiful summer with afternoon showers to keep everything so green and the flowers keep blooming.

Okay...on with this Milkbarn Makeover! I think we need to actually rename it the Milkbarn TAKEOVER.
This might be the most exhausting project of our lives.
I'm pretty sure having babies was easier.

The Big Before
In case you forgot the delightful pebbly linoleum. Here it is again under the carpet in the girls room.

Hickory Flooring
We decided on a hickory floor, hand scraped and 4 inch width. It wasn't hard for me to decide. I want a pretty clean fresh space. I really love texture so Clay suggested the hand scraped floors and I wanted to mess around with hickory.
It worked out just how I wanted.
Finally, something worked out.
Finally!!!

Mission Impossible: Possible
After about 27 paint samples I decided to put an end to the torture. I was trying to just find a color for the girls room in a rush while Clay was out of town. I was so tired and just relented on these three colors. Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore was the winner(center color). It's a nice gray with a bit of green in it so it brings the outside in. I'm big on bringing the outdoors in. After getting it
up on their wall, I decided it must go throughout the house to save my sanity and our checkbook.

Putting up trim

Trim Helper
Henry helped Clay with the trim and door frames for the girls room. He doesn't like helping too much unless racing by on his bike in a supportive role counts. Actually, if the work included more paper airplane making or decorating with Legos, he would be incredibly helpful.

And here is the perfectionist in Clay
Clay built the closet doors for the room to match the doors we are using throughout the house. Here they are drying in the driveway.
Right before it hailed.

Closet Door install

Floor install late one night

Window trim. A little nod to a craftsman look.

Sick of looking at our doors yet?

We like doors around here
I feel like these last 2 shots are like craigslist ads. You know the ones where the product just can't get into the entire picture? I was apparently a little tired.

Lucy's closet by ELFA

Audrey's closet by ELFA

Lucy's reaction by ELFA

Audrey's reaction by ELFA. This one has my organizing bug.

Finishing touch
Clay built a long, narrow storage space above the closets. Sometimes I just lay on Lucy's bed and stare at her closet, visualizing the future. Then reality starts yelling from the front room and poof...Mom...mom...mom, where are you?!? What are you doing? Why aren't you two feet away from me ready to answer all of my life's questions?
I'm in here escaping.

Cheapo fan from Lowes.
Not the best decision. It clunks and stirs like a fan that belongs in a cheap Mexican motel.

The dirty before

the clean after

Ta- Da!
Not totally decorated but it is done. In celebration we hung some lights around their window from IKEA. Style wise, it's a mix of shabby chic bedding and modern bed frames with an old farm bench. I'm not done with the look of it but when I am, I'll get it up. I am toying with a design blog idea. I know they are a dime a dozen but mine might be funnier.
Maybe?

The Summer went by way too fast. Below we took a field trip to IKEA to get some curtains for the girls room that I cut down and sewed to fit within the window frames.
Frankly, it just felt good to be somewhere with clean rooms and cupboards that open and close.
We tested out quite a few and had a blast.