IKEA Malm Inspiration

In my recent Master Bedroom Update post, I showed you some of the changes going on in our master bedroom. It's about time I got my grown up room. :)

One of the changes is our new nightstands. We picked up two MALM three drawer nightstands when we were at IKEA last. They were on sale so I talked my Hubby into getting them!

I have seen the MALM series all over the internet and there are some pretty awesome things you can do with them. You can pretty much do a hack to any IKEA piece you want to change.

I wanted to share some inspiration pictures with you. Maybe you can help me decide which one to do because I love them all and can't make up my mind!

Here is what the MALM nightstand looks like right out of the box:

Pretty plain and simple. Now let's look at all the fun ways to change it up!

 

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A quick coat of paint can do wonders for any furniture piece. And I am in love with these L brackets!

 

 

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I am pretty obsessed with these knobs. You could even spray paint them a different color.





 



 

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O'verlays are designed specifically to go on top of IKEA furniture. It really makes the piece look completely different and gives it so much character. You can spray paint the overlays to be any color you want. There are several pages of designs to choose from depending on which IKEA series you have.

 

To recap, here are some of the things you can do to make an IKEA piece of furniture look more custom made:

* Paint the whole piece one or two colors

* Do an ombre effect on the drawers

* Add knobs - there are so many to choose from!

* Add L brackets - spray paint these whatever color you like

* Add O'verlays - also spray paint these any color you want

* Use Washi Tape to give it some pattern or sparkle

* Use painters tape to make a pattern and paint the piece two different colors

 

Or you could do all of these! I am really having a hard time deciding so if you could leave me a comment and tell me your favorite or what you would do, I would appreciate it. :)

 

 

















Half Bath Inspiration

I am starting to mentally prepare myself to renovate our half bathroom on the main level. Ok, it's definitely not a full renovation because there's not much in there. This is on my to-do list before baby comes in November and I'm getting the itch to get started. It's the only room left on the main level that has not been painted.

I thought I'd share with you some of the inspiration pictures that have been going through my head the past few months while thinking about this project.

I love this powder room from Centsational Girl. The contrast between the dark top and the white bottom is stunning. If I had the time and energy I would definitely put up bead board on the bottom like she has but I need to make this a quick project so I'm keeping this in mind for down the road.

Cassie is not afraid of color and pattern (I'm super jealous because it scares me) and her bathroom is simply amazing. Never in a million years would I have thought to do something like this. It is beautiful.

I love stripes painted on a wall (which I still need to start in my daughter's room). A bathroom would be a great place for them. It would add some nice dimension in an otherwise boxy room. Virginia added these stripes on this wall and I love them.

My biggest problem with my half bath is there are no windows. Insert sad face here. :( A big part of me would love to do a dark rich color but I know in a month it would start to feel gloomy. So what about a pop of color?

 

{Yellow Bathroom}

Green bathrooms are very calming which would be nice because most of our guests use this bathroom.

{Green Bathroom}

 

But I'm totally a sucker for blue and this aqua color is gorgeous.

 

 

{Smokey Slate}

 

It actually crossed my mind to do a coral bathroom... for a second (again, scared by color). I found this one with stripes that's amazing! I'm not sure I'm this daring but maybe I should just go for it???

 

 

{Coral Stripes}

 

Because there are no windows, I started thinking maybe a very very light gray on the walls and then add in some color with a picture or fun hand towel. Jen is one of my favorite bloggers and this is one of her gorgeous bathrooms. It's simple and elegant at the same time.

 

 









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There are just so many options to choose from. Stripes, solids, light, dark, medium, lots of color, a little bit of color, no color. How will I ever choose?!

 

I know you're curious what my bathroom looks like and I will definitely give you a sneak peak. It's also on my Home Tour page. Are you sure you're ready for this??

 

 

Yes, that would be a tree in the bathroom. Very overwhelming and maybe a bit frightening. It's time for this thing to go! Now I need to pick an idea I love (or at least like) so that I don't change my mind a week after it's painted. I have been struggling with this room and that's why it's not done. Which inspiration photo do you think would look good in my bathroom?



Master Bedroom Wall Inspiration

It's probably not true for everyone, but I know for a lot of parents the master bedroom is one of the last rooms to get painted, decorated, and finished. Kids take priority, other rooms in the house take priority (like the ones your guests will see), and life just gets in the way.

I am making it my mission in our new home to take the time and make our master bedroom a retreat. A place where we can go after the kids are asleep to relax and unwind. It seems like as parents we put ourselves last but I really believe we should have our own special room in the house that brings us peace.

In our first house (before kids), we were able to make our master bedroom our own with Craigslist furniture. Although I never got around to hanging any pictures on the walls. I know, I know... it's brown!

In our second home, I did not touch the master bedroom until about 2 months before we moved! I wanted it to look nice for showings and that's all the time I had to spend on it while we lived there. It never got pictures on the walls either.

This is before we moved in. An older couple lived here for a long time and didn't do much to keep it up to date.

Here it is after I finally took off that wallpaper border and painted it 2 years later. The color is Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore. A greige color that is a perfect neutral for anyone to fall in love with.

I have painted our bedroom now with Comfort Gray by Sherwin Williams. I have a love-hate relationship with it. In the daytime it's a beautiful color mixed with blues-greens-grays. When it gets dark outside, it's plain old green. Since the rest of our house is pretty neutral, I figured I would make our bedroom bold (at least for me anyway).

At first I wanted to paint it gray. Totally insane I tell you! So I'm living with this color for now but have fallen in love with a few ways to make it unique. I wanted to share them with you!

One of my favorites bloggers, Jen, has a similar color in her bedroom. She created a border with trim and added these awesome pictures which I totally plan on copying!

Kate at Centsational Girl did this amazing trellis wall in her bedroom. It adds a feminine effect so hopefully your husband won't mind. :)

The Nester did this diamond wall with duct tape! Did you hear see that?! DUCT TAPE!

Another one of my favorites, Thrifty Décor Chick, did this amazing board and batten wall in a beautiful dark gray color. It adds so much character. Love it!

There are so many different options for the master bedroom. I definitely want the wall behind our bed to be the focal wall so now I just have deicide which one of these is my favorite. Hopefully it takes me less than 2 years to decide, huh?!

Inspiration for the Mantel

There's a big project brewing over here and I can't wait to share it with you! If you remember a few weeks ago, I showed you how to DIY a White Wash Fireplace. That fireplace is going to be getting a makeover soon!

Right now there is just brick surrounding the fireplace. It looks very plain and I've always loved a good mantel. So we're going to build one. This will be our first big project... ever! I'm so nervous, terrified, and excited at the same time!

My main inspiration comes from Sarah at Thrifty Décor Chick. She actually had her fireplace moved in her home and built a fabulous mantel with surrounding cabinets. I plan on building something very similar to what she has.

Totally gorgeous!

I also love that planked wall on top and she has a full tutorial on that here. I plan on doing this exact same thing with ours. Notice she actually has her TV built right into that planked wall and that's totally a genius idea. Not having any cords showing gives it a nice crisp look.

Another inspiration for the mantel is this gorgeous one.

I love the clean lines. It's simple yet beautiful at the same time. You could really paint this any color you'd like. I have a dark gray couch in the living room so I think I'll stick with white but maybe down the road I'll have some fun and paint it a shade of gray. But then again, I am loving gray right now so who knows!

Kate's fireplace over at Centsational Girl is stunning. Elegant, romantic and subtle.

I think you can see where I'm going with my inspiration but I want to give you a few more looks just incase you're ready for a change!

Carmel at Our Fifth House did an amazing Chalkboard Brick Fireplace Makeover. It would have never crossed my mind to do this!

Young House Love is a great blog and I'm super sad that they stopped blogging about 6 months ago. However, they have 7 years of house DIY tutorials still up and this fireplace redo is one of them.

There are so many options when it comes to a fireplace. You can gut it completely and design it exactly how you'd like. Or you can work with what you have but still make it fit your own style. You can paint brick, tile, or use chalkboard paint! The possibilities are endless.

Wish us luck! This project will probably take a few months to complete with little kids running around but I'm excited to get started.