Bedroom Makeover (Goodbye Dusty Rose)

We've been spending a lot of time at Tom's parents' place this year. His mother is very ill, and they've had to do numerous renovations to the house to make it more accessible for her. One thing that was done was moving her into another room that was easier to get her wheelchair in and out of. This left Tom's dad with the master bedroom all to himself. The dusty rose bedroom. Dusty rose carpet. Dusty rose walls. Dusty rose patterned curtains. Here is a picture taken just before we started painting (but after taking it apart a bit).

That's kind of pink, isn't it? Even Tom's mom questions what made her paint it that colour so many years ago.

Tom "volunteered" me to paint the room. His sister told me she was buying new purple bedding (think eggplant) and that the curtains were staying. Other than that I had free rein on the colour.

I used the Sherwin-Williams tool Chip It! to match one of the beiges in the curtains. You upload a picture of something you want to match, click on "Chip It!" and it will tell you up to ten colours that are in your picture. One of the colours it came up with was Perfect Greige. I grabbed a paint chip at the store and took it to Benjamin Moore (my favourite paint store) to colour match. I've since learned that Benjamin Moore has a tool similar to Chip It! called Colour Capture, so I'll be using that in the future. At Benjamin Moore we found a colour called Evening Gown that was a perfect match to the SW colour.

This colour is really interesting. Depending on the time of day and the lighting, it can look tan, green, or grey with a hint of purple. That really leaves it open to any colour scheme.

A few years ago Tom & I built a closet system for his parents because there just wasn't enough storage. But we built it a little too well because that sucker wasn't going anywhere. You could use it as a jungle gym. Which means I had to tape around every shelf and support. This was the point where I started begging people to change places with me, but no one fell for it.

As always, I painted along where the wall meets the ceiling with an eggshell white to hide any pink marks from before. Then once it had dried, I taped it off and painted with white again to seal the tape and prevent seepage. This gives a crisp line when the tape comes off. I do the same thing around window frames and baseboards if they aren't being removed.

I had to patch a few spots and then applied two coats over two days. It was really rainy that weekend so the paint dried slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.

We gave it a full week to dry completely and then put the baseboards and outlet covers back on. Here is the "after" with the bedding and curtains in place. We got rid of the pink sheers and just left the printed drapes. And the green tomatoes on the window sill. Isn't that where you ripen your tomatoes? It's still an "old guy's" room so there was no way he'd let me style it - even for pictures.

It's such a huge improvement though. Tom's dad is considering pulling up the carpet and putting in hardwood (a great idea). It's so much more masculine now. Streamlined even. Imagine how much better it'll look with those new floors!