Tesakiah's Room

I wrote a piece on this blog a while back called "The Hoarder's Revenge".  This post could be the second installment of that.  I may have too much stuff (COOL stuff, I might add!) but I love that I can give a room a whole new personality using stuff I already have! Surely that disqualifies me from the "Hoarder" category?  Maybe it gets me into the "Creative and Well-Supplied" category?  Or at least JUSTIFIES my stuff somehow?  Maybe?

Yesterday I said to Tessa, "I have the whole afternoon, what should I work on around here?"  She suggested that I work on the living room. But then she caught me sweeping the kitchen.  To which I replied, "I can almost guarantee you that I WON'T end up cleaning the living room today because that's now what I'm SUPPOSED to do!"

Sure enough, I ended up in Tessa's room.  I'm not sure exactly how I ended up in Tessa's room.  But, hey!  Whatever works!  Oh!  I remember.  I found a set of bed risers that we had been waiting to have turn up (yeah, I know, "what are bed risers doing lost in the living room?", I know).  We went up to raise the bed and ended up staying!

Here's is Tessa's beautiful room:

A couple of months ago we painted her walls.  For too long they had been the lovely shade of "Sailcloth" that the builder painted them for 15 years and it was time for more color.  Tessa chose a color called "Running Trout Stream" (Target, $8.11) which Emily describes as  "I told you not to feed Papa Smurf dynamite!"(she cracks me up!).  I was worried about the color at first but it turned out to be absolutely PERFECT!

Tessa had apple green curtains so we went with that color combination for a while.  Then we noticed how good butter yellow looked with the teal blue.  And white was always good contrast.  We had already painted Tessa's vintage bed white with some free paint that had come along.  But finally, the whole thing came together in a way I hadn't anticipated.

The hydrangea print comforter from Simply Shappy Chic (Target) came to us for free.  I would never have thought to put the pale blue comforter with the teal blue wall but it works!  The green and white stripe dust ruffle (also Simply Shabby Chic) that pulls on the green color from the hydrangea leaves I bought on clearance many years ago and had in the linen closet -- along with the ruffled accent pillows (also Simply Shabby Chic -- I'm sensing a trend!).  The pink sitting pillow was also free and coordinates perfectly!

We made the  chalk board frame out of some leftover moulding from an old construction project (from back when I got to renovate and flip houses) and painted the interior wall space with black board paint that I also had around.

The white shelf came from the garage -- a $2 Salvation Army buy.  The white plates used to be in Emily's bathroom.  They were 99 cents each.  The ribbon came off a gift.

We also painted the doll house with the free white paint.  Poor Tessa!  Her dollhouse has been unfinished and unpainted for the last 8 years.  BAD Mommy!  I think it looks very farmhouse-like and church-like now that it is white.  Someday we'll add some color to it but, for now, it coordinates with our use of white for contrast! 

The green dresser and a wicker laundry hamper will be painted a peachy pink color picked up from the hydrangeas.  And we are dreaming of ruffled white curtains ($32 each from Simply Shabby Chic, of course, like the accent pillows on the bed) for the window and closet openning.  I'll have to find a way to come up with those!  But aren't they pretty?

I've got the perfect lamp and the perfect lampshade to go on it too! Just gotta dig up that lampshade or remember which house I staged with it. Hmmm...

Last night I wandered into Tessa's room and found this message:

If you can't read it, it says: The spot on the wall where all the random junk
 my mom hates shall be hung when I finally get around it it".

Ugh!  She's gonna put all that junk (that I took down to de-clutter her wall) back up!  But, at least now it will all be contained inside the pretty white frame!  Maybe she'll never get around to it!

For now, we are so happy with the room that we both keep having to go up and look at and admire it frequently. That's the best part! That and the fact that yesterday's transformation didn't cost a penny!