Project Diary #15 – Apartment LivingRoom Before & After

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Posted on August 6, 2019 by Roeshel

We’re on a roll! Time to reveal the living room area of the #helloredreno #suitethyme series. This room used to be one of the two upstairs bedrooms. The building is a house from the late 1800s. Upstairs was 2 bedrooms and a full bathroom. Now it’s a beautiful luxury apartment. So let’s get to the good stuff, the before and after!

And oh man, I really need to get some professional photos for the entire reveal. These looked okay at first but as I’m writing this post, I know they could be so much better so I’ll work on that but let’s stay on track for now. A living room before and after transformation.

Before… plain, boring. Snooze. But potential!

then some new rustic wide plank flooring from Shaw Floors… (details here)

and a stunning floral wallpaper mural and some resin decorative accents for the fireplace…

After… I can’t even believe this is the same room. There’s a lot going on but to me, it seems so much bigger and it works!

A breakfast bar with usb pub table. Connect the lap top and work work work. OR grab the remote for the Smart TV and plop on that couch for some relaxation…it’s a getaway retreat, ya know. 😉

How about that gorgeous wood plank wall feature from Reclaim Arbor and black paint paired with that dramatic floral wall mural for a bold and dramatic statement wall. It’s such a challenge to photograph a black wall but in person, there is so much texture with the rustic distressed wood planks in varying heights and widths (you can see it in pictures further down) and the black fireplace surround is gorgeous. I am so in love!

Share your thoughts!

What do you think? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Mr. DIY jokes that all I need to do is cover up the wallpaper with more Reclaim Arbor wood planks. That entire wall was a little outside of my comfort zone but I took the opportunity for creative freedom in this space.

The queen sleeper sofa, glass/brass console table, pub table with USB port with bar stools are all from Wayfair.

Next up:

The dining area/coffee bar!

More about #helloredreno

The building has so much historical charm. It’s about one block from our town’s Main Street. The bus stop is literally steps away. There’s a gorgeous Butler, PA Bed & Biscotti across the street called Suite Retreat (how cute is that?!) and an antique shop nearby. There are breweries, the YMCA, shops, restaurants, salons, florists, candy/coffee shop, holiday parades and festivals within walking distance. So fun! If renovation from blah to ahhhhh is your thing, stay tuned!

So subscribe and be reminded of updates as the renovations progress! I’ll share before and after photos, projects underway and updates, plans and design boards, sources and links as they relate as well as fun events going on in and around the downtown area. I’ll be using a specific hashtag on social media to keep things all neat and tidy and organized.

#helloredreno and #suitethyme

I welcome your thoughts and ideas! And as always, thanks for your encouragement and support and for sharing in my joy and vision!

The #helloredreno project diary:

Project Diary Entry #1 – Hello Red Reno!

Project Diary Entry #2 – Efficiency Apartment

Project Diary Entry #3 Color Passive Paint

Project Diary Entry #4 – Full Bathroom Demo Day

Project Diary Entry #5 – Sealing A Wood Plank / Shiplap Wall

Project Diary Entry #6: Bathroom Flooring

Project Diary Entry #7: Sealing Brick

Project Diary #8: Hardwood Floors

Project Diary #9: Carpeted Stairs

Project Diary #10 Vinyl Floor Tiles

Project Diary #11 – Living Room Before & After

Project Diary #12 – Christmas at the Studio

Project Diary #13 – Wallpaper Mural

Project Diary #14 – Entryway, Stairs & Landing Before & After

Project Diary #15 – Apartment Living Room Before & After Reveal

Project Diary #14 – Entryway, Stairs & Landing Before & After

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Posted on August 5, 2019 by Roeshel

I’ve been sharing teasers for so long, it’s ABOUT THYME I got to the good stuff! Right?Time for a reveal, room by room of the project I’ve been working on. The main floor is my wellness studio, the upstairs – finally: A luxury AirBnB apartment I’ve nicknamed “Suite Thyme”. Ready? Let’s go! Here’s the before and after when we walk in the door and up the stairs.

The Reveal

Before when you entered, it was old industrial blue carpet, dirty dingy walls and a 2nd floor landing without personality. Now it’s a welcoming, inviting entryway with a place to sit and remove/put on shoes, doors with keypads for guest self check in and keeping the wellness studio off limits, a bookshelf with information on the services offered by the wellness studio as well as information on local attractions. That back door, we call it the “hobbit door”…seriously watch your head, tall people! It’s locked from the inside (it’s access to the wellness studio/back door).

before – the banister and railing is original, probably at least 100 years old (beautiful!)

Good bye blue carpet.

after – the original pine floors are very scratched, marked up with paint and scuffs too. We’ll add that to the project list for another day and embrace the imperfections for now, okay? It adds character, my friends. lol

before:

after:

before: It seemed that this space and the entire upstairs was used for storage only in the recent past. It feels SO good to give it new life and purpose!

after: The stair landing is now an indoor porch area/comfy and relaxing reading nook for guests with a huge cozy egg chair, lots of pillows, a salt lamp and water fountain. The perfect spot to ‘getaway’ with a good book, to catch up on social media with friends or to take a little cat nap. There might even be room for two in that chair. 🙂 The electrical/light switch has since been updated. Oops! Just seeing that I didn’t cut that out of the shot. There’s a new wood beaded flush mount light fixture not shown. It has a very boho vibe and it’s one of my favorite spots in the apartment. Well, to be honest…wait ’til you see the rest. The entire apartment is my favorite spot!

before:

after: so cozy, so fun! A small thrifted basket gallery wall,

before:

after: clean and simple!

Share your thoughts!

What do you think? Notice the wallpaper on the back window wall of the landing?Wallpaper fan? Not your thing? Not your style? Know what I mean when I say I sure loathe the removal? Willing to change your mind and take a risk when you fall in love with a print/pattern and it’s just want you and in mind for adding interest? I felt like this print was less trendy, the design is traditional. How about carpet on the stairs? I partnered with Shaw (see the info HERE) to replace what was there. I love the subtle design and features for it to be a long lasting investment.

Let’s talk about that chair! It’s the OpalHouse Southport chair from Target. Something I really wanted but outside of the budget. And my entire family knew I wanted that chair. So when Mr. DIY asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day, he immediately knew the answer before I got the words past my lips. lol Then at our Mother’s Day dinner, I said to my girls “guess what I got for Mother’s Day?” and Evangeline “did you get THE chair?”, Alainee: “did he buy you the chair?!” Me: “I got the chair!” It was just like a “He went to Jared’s” tv commercial. Moral of the story: I got the chair. ::love:: And guests renting the AirBnB just might find me hanging out in it! (Just kidding!)

Next up:

One room combination living room/dining area/kitchen with a BIG WOW factor! AHHH! I can’t wait to show you!

Upstairs apartment door…

Sneak peek looking the other direction from inside of the apartment:

More about #helloredreno

#helloredreno and #suitethyme

I welcome your thoughts and ideas! And as always, thanks for your encouragement and support and for sharing in my joy and vision!

The #helloredreno project diary:

Project Diary Entry #1 – Hello Red Reno!

Project Diary Entry #2 – Efficiency Apartment

Project Diary Entry #3 Color Passive Paint

Project Diary Entry #4 – Full Bathroom Demo Day

Project Diary Entry #5 – Sealing A Wood Plank / Shiplap Wall

Project Diary Entry #6: Bathroom Flooring

Project Diary Entry #7: Sealing Brick

Project Diary #8: Hardwood Floors

Project Diary #9: Carpeted Stairs

Project Diary #10 Vinyl Floor Tiles

Project Diary #11 – Living Room Before & After

Project Diary #12 – Christmas at the Studio

Project Diary #13 – Wallpaper Mural

Project Diary #14 – Entryway, Stairs & Landing Before & After

Project Diary #13 – Floral Wallpaper Mural

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Posted on May 16, 2019 by Roeshel

Woo hooo! Work on the #helloredreno series continues and is back with motivation to get the renovations completed by {hopefully} July 1st, 2019! That might be a tad ambitious but that’s the plan! This past week I installed a beautiful – stunning! – floral wallpaper mural! And you guys, I love the look of wallpaper. There are so many fun patterns/colors/designs – I could (and have) looked for days! But after lots of not-so-fun wallpaper removal in my past, I swore I’d never ever install wallpaper again. Well, the lasted all of a decade or two. I just couldn’t resist this. It’s just a small space, right?

I LOVE that I have creative freedom in this little slice of apartment oasis space to be bold and dramatic! Be still my heart. So many beautiful details and an inspired vision. The plan is for an airbnb rental but oh man, I want to live here. Think guests would mind? lol

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

• how it looked when I took ownership…

• good-bye blue carpet…

• hello gorgeous hardwood floors…

• before (and still a work in progress)…

• current photo…

(notice any other decorative changes?)

What’s new?

So, this isn’t a sponsored post. Just a review of what I purchased and a little overview on my installation experience. I ordered the wallpaper mural from MuralsWallpaper and the entire experience from start to finish was so easy that it’s something anyone can DIY! (Do you use “DIY” as a verb too?)

This specific design is called Vase of Flowers by de Heem. This Vase of Flowers by de Heem Wallpaper Mural from 1645 is a beautiful design that will completely reinvent your interior with minimal effort, a wonderfully striking piece of classic art that will be sure to impress. This wallpaper will be particularly eye catching as dining room wallpaper, but the stylish floral design will work well in most rooms. It was love at first sight for me.

The best part? It’s a custom! This mural was made to be the exact size of the wall space where I wanted to place it (with a little extra thank goodness, because old house = not square!). They send a mock up with quote for my approval BEFORE I paid for it. And because I wanted more of the colors on the left hand side, I responded with a request to ‘mirror image’ the design. No problem! The entire process was friendly, quick and easy.

Ordering in three steps:

1) Select your image. Choose from the extensive collection of mural designs and photo wallpapers.

2) Specify your dimensions. Measure up your wall full height and width.

3) Produced and shipped within 3-5 days. For a custom order, it arrived quickly! Yay!

It comes in one continuous roll (with awesome packaging to ensure no damage) with printed instructions to use a straight edge and box-cutter/X-acto knife to split it up into pieces. My design size was divided up into 4 vertical pieces.

I originally was looking for a removable peel and stick type wallpaper and shopped EVERYWHERE so when I finally decided on this, I completely forgot and overlooked that I was looking for a self-sticking adhesive backing. But, this actually was a lot easier than I thought!

What I did:

I picked up a wallpaper paste and brush from the hardware store along with some other recommended tools: a seam roller and wallpaper smoother tool. Other tools: level and utility knife.

The installation probably took around 1- 1.5 hours. I unrolled the wallpaper on the floor, used a piece of cardboard underneath to protect the floor and using a straight edge, I cut along each dotted line to divide the roll up into 4 pieces. It has a nice durable thickness and the pieces were labeled.

Next, I brushed the wallpaper paste onto the wall, picked up my piece and starting from the top left, smoothed the wallpaper down the wall over the wet paste. I used the smoother to remove air bubbles and to smooth the wallpaper into place. I had a wet rag on hand for cleaning up excess glue. So much easier than I anticipated. Hurray! The key is making sure that first piece is nice and level!

There is no overlapping. Each piece butts up against the other, lining up the design. There is a little extra wallpaper to trim away on the top and bottom. I used the seam roller on seams, wiped away any excess wallpaper paste. Top and bottom of the wallpaper was trimmed using a straight edge and X-acto knife where wallpaper meets trim.

The last piece was a little trickier because it was wider and a lot of the right hand side had to be cut off. Again, I just used a straight edge and trimmed away the excess.

Ta-da! The result:

STUNNING! I am SO in love! It’s exactly what I wanted. Maybe even better!

Photoshoot:

And makes for a beautiful photography backdrop, doesn’t it? lol I told you it was love at first sight! Seeing it ON my wall makes me so happy! The vision for this space is happening!

This specific print is so interesting too. Each time you have a relaxing seat and gaze at it’s loveliness, there’s something new to discover. An ant or butterfly, a spider. The photos don’t do it justice.

I can’t wait for the entire room reveal! Stay tuned!

Share your thoughts!

What do you think? Wallpaper fan? Not your thing? Not your style? Know what I mean when I say I sure loathe the removal? Willing to change your mind and take a risk when you fall in love with a print/pattern and it’s just want you and in mind for making a dramatic statement? I felt like this print was less trendy, the design is traditional. I absolutely love that it’s an art print mirror image. I can’t wait to design the rest of the room!

Next up:

More details on the fireplace and finishing the feature wall!

More about #helloredreno

The building has so much historical charm. It’s about one block from our town’s Main Street. The bus stop is literally steps away. There’s a gorgeous Butler, PA Bed & Breakfast across the street called Suite Retreat (how cute is that?!) and an antique shop nearby. There are breweries, the YMCA, shops, restaurants, salons, florists, candy/coffee shop, holiday parades and festivals within walking distance. So fun! If renovation from blah to ahhhhh is your thing, stay tuned!

#helloredreno

I welcome your thoughts and ideas! And as always, thanks for your encouragement and support and for sharing in my joy and vision! Watch for #helloredreno!