The Little Blue House Renovation: Bedroom Beautification

As I explained in an earlier post, we were really trying to get as far away from the bland white walls of our apartment days as possible. Some may think we went a tad too far with the boldness of our color pallette, but we really wanted to go bold or go home. While the bedrooms themselves didn't have very many renovation needs, mainly the removal of drop ceilings, the removal of plywood closet doors (the makeshift ones in the front bedroom), the installation of crown molding, plaster wall repair, etc., we still ran into some renovation glitches.

The bedrooms had many many layers of paint and wallpaper. The house (which is nearly 120 years old) had plaster walls and our painter didn't feel comfortable trying to remove the wallpaper for fear it would completely destroy the crumbling historic plaster underneath. As a safer alternative we decided to add yet another layer of paint (a choice that made me cringe until I saw the finished product). To create the illusion that the paint was applied directly over plaster, our painter smoothed the walls with a thin layer of mud and then lightly sanded before painting. It actually worked! And looks perfect! No muddy, oily, wallpaper walls. Thank goodness.

Front Bedroom

Antique Walnut Chifferrobe Detail

Closet Doors Removed (we now have a linen-like curtain cover for both doors)

Hallway Molding Detail

View From Hallway into Front Bedroom

We also added crown molding, which presented another finishing problem for the eaves (our house is technically only 1.5 stories). The crown molding, set against the ceiling, had to be built out to be sure to adjoin the eaves and the painter had to do some painting magic to make the seams and built out segments seamless. I've never seen such straight paint lines in my life. And if you are in the northern Vermont area and need an interior painter I'll be glad to give you his contact information. He's a genius.