I'll start with the master bedroom remodel/renovation.

I wish that I had the 'before pictures' but my computer crashed last Spring and I haven't tried to rescue them yet from the hard drive. I'm a bit intimidated about doing that and with money being tight, that's been put on the back burner. I'll put it into the house first every time anyway. I'll post them when I can get them. The difference is night and day. Here's what it looks like now. This is the pretty much the first room we did so we would have a nice 'retreat' to go to amid the remodeling mess. I should mention that while this is a Victorian house, I am not trying to create a Victorian atmosphere. I have some Victorian elements in the home but I have my own individual style and I have eclectic taste. Might not be everyone's taste but I'm not trying to please anyone but us. ;)

I wanted to really highlight the round room and draw all the windows together. I purchased 50 yards of aqua bengaline (faille) fabric on Ebay for just over $100.00 (a real deal, that seller doesn't sell it anymore) and made a huge gathered 22" valance (the ceilings are 9' high in this room). Next I had to figure out how to mount them. I surely didn't want to purchase expensive round curtains rods so I had John make a double layer of 4" X 4" blocks made from 2X4's and we nailed them up with out nail gun. (THE VERY BEST TOOL you could ever buy!!!) He put them up about every foot next to the ceiling and then I just nailed the valance on with the brads in the gun.

Behind the bed John cut me large squares and just over squares (2 sizes to fit the wall) about 2' each out of pegboard and I padded and upholstered them with the fabric. For interest I turned every other one so the grain of the fabric would look like a checkerboard from the side, although from the front you can't see it as much. It took 13 of the 50 yards to do the wall. They were nailed with the nail gun on the wall in a marked pattern and I made teeny little yoyo's out of the fabric and then hot glued them on where we had nailed the boards on.

The headboard was made from an antique interior Victorian railing, a piece of salvage bought at an auction, I paid big for this salvage not even knowing what I was going to do with it. It was $110.00, that's a lot for me. We cut it down and put ends on it. I did a crackle finish in aqua using the same shade as the walls on top and a deeper teal under the top coat. The dresser across the room is done with the same crackle finish.

The nightstands were a dressing table John took apart, separating the sides, I painted the tops white after John added a small back to them. I wanted them to coordinate in color to the piece under the stained glass window (in front of the large window). We paid just $20.00 for the dressing table at an auction!

You can see the 'checkerboard' pattern I was speaking of above in the picture below.It's all about texture in this room.

The piece of furniture under the stained glass window is one of my favorite things. I bought the furniture at an auction for $35.00. It had a formica top over that beautiful bottom. I tiled the top with aqua tile in a crackle pattern by breaking the tiles. We trimmed it out with wood and John made a short back for it. I went to another auction and bought an antique server that was water damaged for $2.00. The only reason I wanted it was for the mirror which fit perfectly for the back. John actually made the back to fit the mirror as it was the perfect width. The top is painted white because the wood wasn't pretty, I don't know what they had done to it but something had to be done, so it was painted white. Now this piece and the nightstands coordinated with white tops and dark bottoms. The wood embellishment was added too. After painting I didn't care for the contrast between the white and the dark bottom, it just needed something, so I made a sweet little gathered skirt to soften it up and nailed it on.

For the long drapes I bought ready made but since they were too short for 9' ceilings, I added a 'stripe' of the bengaline fabric about 1/3 of the way up, that's quite popular now too, and hung them on short stationary rods. They stay where they are. They were from Penney's. The sheers were from Walnut. The diamond design is repeated throughout the room if you really look. The stained glass window was $35.00 at an auction.

The couch, chair and ottoman came from an auction. I saw them online, they were the perfect style, color and I could tell they were in good shape. We waited for three or four hours and I got them for a whopping $65.00! They are in gorgeous condition!

Can you tell what the ceiling medallion is? I bought a non-working clock from the 50's on Ebay for $5.00, took the clock off and we mounted to the ceiling, nail gun of course, but you have to be careful! Much nicer than the ones you buy at Lowes and a whole lot cheaper!

I found out that the original floors of the bedrooms on the second floor had been painted with a faux wood design and this room was able to be salvaged so I just freshened it up. Doing some faux painting myself I wanted to save it as it was over 100 years old. We did put a new piece of aqua carpet in most of the room but the part of the floors that you see, is the original design. That's not real wood graining you see, it is painted on! Back then, typically on the second floors of houses, they used lesser woods like pine, which didn't have the nice grains like oak,(typically used on the first floors) so the builder of this house had faux painters paint nice graining in the wood. This was the only room that was able to be saved. I'll show the other rooms in the near future.

I think we spent about $1500.00 and that included the comforter, drapes, fabric, new carpet ($700.00) and everything else (paint, etc.). It's a challenge for me to decorate with next to nothing and this is probably one of our most expensive rooms.
Keep tuned....more to come!!