Tarva Dresser Hack & a Master Bedroom Sneak Peek

 

While I sort through all the living room and family photos I had stored on my camera, I thought I'd share with you all an Ikea hack I did a few months back. I was 9 months pregnant and racing to get things done before Mila came.

When we moved into our new house, we downsized on our walk-in closet space. We still have one, but it's just smaller and doesn't have the shelving our old one did. In addition, we lost the hall closet from our old townhouse that Jordan used for his clothes. Meaning we now share a narrow walk-in closet and I've lost some serious closet space (tears). As a results we needed to purchase a dresser to hold some of my clothes. 

 

We were using the Henmes Ikea dresser in our old master bedroom with matching night stands, but I wasn't crazy about going so dark again with the black-brown furniture. In true Jess fashion, I insisted we get new dressers. My compromise was that we'd buy inexpensive and I would DIY them to look the way we want. We had already purchased these Vilas night stands from Overstock, so their midcentury style look was an inspiration to me.

We purchased the 5-drawer ($99) and 6-drawer ($149) Ikea Tarva dressers. These dressers come very bare and unfinished, so they were begging for some DIY love. I had tons of crazy ideas of what I wanted to do with these dressers, including my top choice of mixing white paint and dark stain like in this pin. I will admit that Jordan was a bit skeptical of my DIY aspirations (hey, it happens) and worried that our dressers were going to look cheap. In the end I decided I wanted a look that was going to be classic and that we would be happy with for a long time. I chose to do a simple dark stain and fresh drawer pulls.

 

I love them.

While it doesn't match our night stands exact (but then again I wasn't really trying that hard), these are the perfect shade of deep brown and look amazing against our soft gray walls and the new drawer pulls. I even think they look a bit like the midcentury style West Elm dressers and that makes me happy for the price we paid. 

 

Below you can see the view of the two dressers from where we lie in bed. We debated a number of different ways to place this furniture, but in the end decided to put the dressers together. Once I give a full master bedroom tour it will make more sense. Our bedroom is a long/narrow one measuring 17"x11". Between having three doors (entry/walk-in closet/master bathroom), one fairly large window and another small one, we are limited to what furniture placement looks best. Plus I wanted to make the far wall an office space with a desk along with a corner for lounging/reading in our leather chair.

The tall 5-drawer dresser holds Jordan's clothes and the wide 6-drawer dresser holds mine. Isn't it bad that even with this dresser and half a walk-in closet I'm still struggling for space to hold all my clothes? I've recently decided I need to pare down and have begun selling some clothes on the Poshmark app. (Search JessicaDeMaio if you're interested!)

 

To get this look, I applied two coats of dark walnut stain on the dresser and drawers, followed by two coats of poly. This gave the dresser a nice clean finish with a soft shine, but still upholds a bit of rustic charm. I didn't want a super glossy finish that showed every ding and scratch. 

I chose these drawer pulls from Lowe's to swap out the wooden Ikea knobs. I liked their midcentury look and they tied in well with our night stands as well as the other nickel accents in our master bedroom/bathroom. 

Here is a wide view of the space. The door to our bedroom is on the right of these dressers and there is a small sitting space and large window to the left. Our hamper welcomes you into the bedroom (not my favorite location for it, but the only option right now.) It may look a bit cramped from these photos with the end of the bed, but I assure you in person it doesn't feel that way. The side with the leather chair is actually pretty spacious and we've put a desk against that wall next to the window so I can do some blogging and photo editing in a real work space and not just on the couch anymore. I even have a bassinet between the desk and the bed for those mornings when Mila wakes a little too early.

As I mentioned above, we still have a few small details to finish before I'm ready for a full master bedroom reveal, but I will leave you with these teasers.

Have you done any Ikea hacks lately?

Jewels On Display

Jewelry storage can be a tricky thing to tackle. These days necklaces are bigger, earrings more flashy and delicate, and bracelets can be the size of your arm.

I'm personally not a fan of having a large piece of furniture dedicated solely to storing jewerly. I've tried jewelry trees and they just look like a mess to me. Even some of the DIY jewelry displays I've seen around the internet don't seem to satisfy the storage solution I'm looking for. I prefer to keep my jewelry storage a little more simple.

I love the idea of hanging necklaces on the wall. Not only are your most worn pieces easily accessible, but they double as pretty wall art without looking too cluttered.

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My necklaces hang on small metal hooks on one of the walls in our bedroom. We previously had our bed against that wall and when we decided to move it between the windows, there was this huge empty space to fill. Limited on storage space in our bathroom and hating to tuck my jewerly into a dark shelf in our closet, I decided to take our sofa table and make a small vanity area to store my accessories. I'll admit I'm tempted to switch up the arrangement a bit in favor of the above styles where the necklaces stand alone spaced out along the wall. For now, I'm pleased with the way my necklaces hang and actually like how they are layered on top of each other.

As far as the rest of my jewelry goes, I honestly only have a small selection of earrings. I rarely wear earrings that aren't my round black studs or gold initial studs. I just can't get on board with large or dangle earrings, I feel like I look awkward in them. My bracelet selection isn't large either as my wrists are so skinny I have to stick to certain styles and fits. I generally wear my gold Michael Kors watch almost every day or a large gold adjustable cuff. All the bracelets I own are stored in the white Pottery Barn jewelry box I received for my birthday two years ago from Jordan.

What are your favorite jewelry storage solutions?

PS. See that sofa table? It's undergoing an emerald makeover! Can't wait to share with you all.

Look For Less: Anthropologie Bedding

A few weeks ago I stumbled across this picture on Pinterest and fell in love with the bedding. Jordan and I have been on the hunt for some new bedding  for our master bedroom and this set from Anthropologie would be perfect. I'm really loving that shade of blue. We currently have gray/white bedding from Target which is great, but is starting to look dingy thanks to a certain 85 pound pup who sneaks into our bed at night. We're working on that issue, too.

 

Image via Pinterest

 

Upon closer inspection I quickly realized that the above is actually two separate bedding sets. Now let me start by saying that I love, love Anthropologie and if you know me you know my house is a testament to that, but the prices there can scare you a little. I mean with the Rivulet bedding alone you're paying $98 for a sham. ONE SHAM. Come on Anthro, calm yourself. That doesn't even factor sheets, duvet cover, quilt, etc. I was starting to get anxiety just looking on their website.

 

I did a little searching around online and found a much more inexpesive alternative to the gorgeous Anthropologie bedding.

 

 duvet | sheets | floral sham | ruffle sham

 

The duvet cover is from Urban Outfitters and is a lightly brighter, less ruffled version of the Anthropologie Duvet (which appears to be discontinued anyway). The sheets are a simple jersey set from Target for $25.99. If you still crave a little ruffle, swap out the $98 shams for this Euro sham from Anthropologie for $68. You can get everything above for a total of $216.99. The two Anthro ruffled shams alone would cost you close to $200.

 

I haven't bit the bullet and bought these yet, but I will say I'm pretty tempted. I'm loving the idea of the darker sheet set, but I'm also wondering how I will feel in the summer when I'm craving light and bright. I could always swap them out for a lighter blue or gray.

 

What are your favorite bedding sets that don't cost and arm and a leg? Any suggestions?

The Great Bed Swap

When I was younger and lived with my parents, one thing I liked to do was rearrange the furniture in my room every few months. It was the easiest thing I could do to make a difference in the room without spending any money or doing anything 'big' like painting the walls. It was sort of a challenge to me to figure out different ways to arrange the room.


While we weren't necessarily rearranging the rooms, we did do a furniture swap between the guest room and our master bedroom this past weekend. I was craving something different in our bedroom and was starting to get tired of all the dark furniture along every wall of the room. I had talked to Jordan on several occasions telling him that when we move next I want to swap our bed with the bed in the guest room. 


Here is one of the pictures I took just after I put up the new curtains in the guest room. 

With the white walls, white bedding and the bright sunlight, you can see the bed frame sort of gets washed out. With all the white in the room I decided we needed a darker color to frame out the main focus of the room - the bed.


Here is the guest bedroom after swapping the beds. 

Please ignore the mess around the room. The pile on the left is all the bedding and comforter and feather mattress that we took off the bed to swap. We haven't put it fully back together because we are toying with the idea of moving some of the furniture around in the room. That and I sort of OCD wash the sheets in our house so these will be making a pit stop in the laundry room before getting back on the bed.

It's a little hard to tell with all the junk in the room, but the dark frame really works in the space. We are considering moving the bed to a different wall, creating more space in the front of the room for our guests to move around. 

Now onto the master bedroom. I didn't take a proper 'before' shot the day we did the swap because we did it at 9:00 at night. So I had to rummage around some old photos to get a picture of the room with the black bed. 

And the master bedroom now. 

Again, ignore the messy, unmade bed. I took the picture during the small window of time I had while Lucy was eating her lunch and was too busy to notice I stepped away (about a minute and a half). How much better does it look with the white bed? I feel like we should have done this swap months ago. The height of the tall bed is perfect for the thin wall space between the windows and the white of the frame pulls in the curtains, frame and lamps already in the room. 

Little by little I have been making small changes in our bedroom. I don't often show photos of this room for a number of reasons, mainly because it's usually an unmade bed with toys scattered all over the room and clothes tossed in random piles in the corners. It's our most 'lived in' room where we spend lots of family time cuddling and watching the tube together. I do have a plan for the empty frame above the bed and am on the hunt for a great rug to put on the floor beside the bed. And I'm actually considering stepping away from my sheer comfort zone and getting real curtains. I am such a lover of natural light and have a fear that 'real' curtains will make our room dark. But I think they will also make the space look more finished. 

For now, I will say that the great bed swap was a success!

Grey/Gray

What's the proper spelling of the word grey/gray?

I honestly never knew.

While I'm bummed the guest room renovations have temporarily been put on hold as we've been having guests actually stay in it, I'm happy to say that I've been able to focus my energy into other rooms of the house that need some love.

I'm working on actually making our master bedroom and bathroom look a little more finished. Ever since I repainted it a little over a year ago, the bathroom has been a simple white on white with some neutral accents. Because the space is so small, I really do like that the walls are light. It keeps the room from looking like a dungeon and it reflects some of the natural light that comes in from the bedroom windows. That being said, the white on white and neutrals makes the room look unfinished and I'm ready to tackle that problem.

Our bedding for the last two years has also been all white. I purchased a white duvet set from Ikea for about $50 and have been really happy with it, but I'll admit I'm ready for a change. Plus, once the guest room is painted, I plan to relocate the white duvet there to go along with the white and gold scheme.

This is the most recent picture I have of our old bedding. 

I have no recent pictures of our bedroom because we really haven't done much to it, so I avoid taking pictures. Plus these days our bedroom tends to be covered with baby toys, pacifiers, blankets, boppy pillows, etc.

For Christmas my parents bought us this gorgeous bedding from Target.

I purchased the large grey pillows on clearance from Target a few months back. The Missoni blanket has since been relocated in the living room. 

While I only asked her for the sheet set, my mom went ahead and also bought us the duvet cover with matching shams, and I am so glad she did. They actually aren't even part of the same set (at least I don't think they are), but my mom thought it would look great with the sheets I chose.

Jordan and I both agree that this is the softest bedding we've ever slept in. 

Just what we needed - something else to make it hard to get out of bed in the mornings.

For the bathroom, I recently ordered this shower curtain from West Elm, on sale for $31.

I also snagged these beautiful hand towels from Anthropologie last weekend during an impromptu shopping trip at the mall. They were in the clearance room and cost $9.95 for the hand towel and $3.95 for the wash cloth. I bought two of each.

My mom bought us these hand towels for Christmas from Target for the other towel rack in the bathroom. 

I'm not a fan of buying a whole bathroom set where the towels match the shower curtain which matches the rug and the trash can has the same print, and so on. I love the mix and match of the two separate prints paired with the stripes of the shower curtain. It will tie the room together without making it look like an ad from a JC Penney catalogue (no offense to those of you who shop there!)

Jordan and I also have talked about renovating both the master and guest bathrooms and replacing the sinks and mirrors in both rooms. Those are the only things in our house that have not been recently updated and I'm itching to get rid of them in both rooms.

Also part of the plan is to DIY some great wall art for the bathroom.

Wall art seems to be my biggest challenge...

Seriously, how do you spell the word grey/gray???

New Floor: Part I

We had our Empire estimate last Saturday for our carpeting and hardwood. As I mentioned before, we are ripping out the carpet in the living room and replacing it with nice hardwood and accent rugs. Since we were having them come out anyway, we decided to tackle a few other areas in the house that we weren't happy with.  About two years ago we had the carpet in our master bedroom, upstairs hallways and stairs ripped out and replaced. When we bought the house 3 years ago, the master bedroom was covered in a dark, cranberry carpet. The upstairs hallway, down the steps, and into the living room was a light berber. We aren't sure how long either had been in the house, but they were both showing signs of wear and tear.

Figuring it was low maintenance and easy to clean, we opted for a light, tight berber carpet. Here are a few shots of that carpet.

It looks nice, right?

When we first had it done, we were thrilled with the result. But in less than two years, the berber quickly wore and began to show signs of distress. Having animals has proven a bad combo when mixed with berber carpet. That and the fact that unfortunately the quality of installation seemed to be lost. 

Needless to say, we were very disappointed within a few months. Seams began to show, corners and edges were fraying, and it began to look just as bad, if not worse than the original berber we replaced. 

Once we decided we were ready to rip out the living room carpet, Jordan said he wanted to do everything at once: living room, steps, hallway and bedroom. We had our estimate last weekend and picked our new flooring. Since we were doing both carpeting and hardwood, we had to schedule separate installations. The hardwood needed to be special ordered, so the carpet was done first. This past Friday, Empire came out and our crappy berber was replaced with pretty, fluffy carpet.

(Excuse our unmade bed. Keeping it real.)

Ahh - we love it! It's so pretty and soft. We keep commenting to each other how great it feels to walk on in bare feet. Also the room immediately feels warmer and more finished. The berber was so low and hard that we didn't realize until we replaced it just how unfinished it made the space feel. 

Not a single seam shows and every edge is clean and perfectly installed. 

We couldn't be happier with the result.

Once the hardwood comes in we will schedule that appointment. I cannot wait to replace that flooring. 

Just for fun, here's a sneak peek at the area rug we chose for the floor in the living room.