Upstairs Room Reveal!

Today I finally get to unveil the upstairs room. It was the last space in our house to be complete, but now we can officially say we have renovated and updated every square inch of this place! :)

When we first moved in this room left a lot to be desired.

BEFORE

The staircase leading up to it even had these "adorable" little houses stenciled on them. (They have since been painted over.)

Although it was ummmm. . . not quite our style we spent a good couple of months living in the small space while we renovated the downstairs. After the downstairs was mostly done, I tried to get going upstairs by creating two wood feature walls, but I ran out of gas. At that point the room became a catch all for unused furniture pieces.

DURING

Working at Anthro left me itching to actually design an entire room rather than an art installation or one large focal point. So once I quit that job and heard from DIY Magazine we finally made the time to finish out this space. Here's how it turned out.

AFTER

AFTER

This room is very long and narrow which meant it really needed to be split up into 3 sections (a bedroom/sleeping space, an office/work area, and a small entry area.

I love how the rug on this side speaks to the DIY book page wallpaper. There were a lot of hard surfaces (wood and metals) in the room, but I balanced them out with things like the softness of the rugs and texture of the book pages.

We wanted the style for this space to feel a little more masculine, rustic, and patriotic. We achieved this by using a red, white, blue, and black color palette. We then paired that with lots of wood tones, slick steel, and a little warm leather.

What is always most important to me when designing a space is that it reflects the people who live there. I always like to include elements that pay homage to that person's/family's background, passions, hopes, and dreams. In this particular room, I did that in many ways. For example, I displayed Tim's architectural model and used a one of drafts as artwork. I also used a side table Tim designed in the space.

PS- The book "Love and Respect" (that makes up the "book" shelf) is one of the major sources I used in an independent study class I took in college.

Another fun thing I did was artfully display some of the amazing World War II relics that we found in our homes walls as we were renovating it.

Many of the books I used as decoration in the space were about furniture, design, and basketball. I also made a sunburst frame (I still need to attach the mirror) out of shims to celebrate our renovator's spirit! :)

And because one of you asked about the fan installed above the bed, here are a few pictures. Those vintage style fans have a hole in their base, so all you have to do to hang them is put a screw in the wall.

So this room is finally complete and I am very excited to be spending more time in it! If you missed any of the posts about the different projects in this room you can find them all right here. Each post has a ton of info about how the project was completed and why we made the choices we did for the space!

Refinishing the Floor

DIY Book Page Wall Paper

Built-In Metal Bed and Night Stands

DIY "Book" Shelf

Flat File Redo with Homemade Stain

Drafting Table Mini Makeover

So, what do you think? Are you a fan of the final look? Anything you would add or take away?