Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder is the perfect light and airy color to help modernize any dated room and give it a fresh update!
Giving a dated room some fresh and easy updates
I’m popping in today to sharea project that isn’t from my house…which means you finally get to see some color around here 😉I’m sharing my mom and dad’s master bedroom update, and those two love their color, specifically purple.
They’ve been over to our new house a lot helping us with getting things together, and every time they’ve been over, my mom has said, “I want to re-do my bedroom!” (Well, it’s usually bedroom, kitchen, and living room, but we’re sticking to bedroom today.) They haven’t done anything to their bedroom since moving into the house in…2005?
As you can see, it was in need of a little help. I don’t know what it is about bedrooms…they often seem to be neglected areas of the house. From the lavender walls to the lace curtains, this room needed some love! After chatting with mom about what she wanted to do and surfing Pinterest, she came up with some ideas.
She still wanted it to be feminine, but she wanted it to look less like a single old lady and seven cats lived there. More modern, she said. Now I’m not a designer, but I thought I could help her out. In this situation, I knew a couple coats of paint alone would give this room a huge boost, so we started with paint colors and went from there.
Before pics: Lavender, and lots of it
Alright folks, here’s where we started. Lavender walls, a dated fan, nightstands that aren’t even really nightstands, big and bulky brown furniture, and lots and lots ofstuff.
Full disclosure, the piles of crap on and by the dresser are not usually there…my mom was prepping for this little facelift by going through their closets, drawers, and under-bed storage to purge lots of stuff they didn’t need. Again, lots of stuff my parents probably haven’t even seen since moving in 2005. Neither of them use a cane, so I have no idea where that came from. 🙂
Here is the task list:
- Paint all walls in Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder with an accent wall or two in Quixotic Plum; paint all trim
- Declutter and streamline storage
- Ditch bed frame and move bed in front of window (note: already done in these pictures, and it made a HUGE difference!)
- Paint both dressers and replace or paint hardware
- Find thrifted nightstands and paint to match dressers
- Paint and upholster old trunk
- Replace curtains and rods
- Stretch carpet
- Buy a simple raised bed frame and new mattress (they’d been in the market for a new mattress for years)
- Replace ceiling fan
- Update all wall decor
- Mount new TV (CRITICAL step for dad)
- Add window, which they decided to do this literally right in the middle of things…after painting…this was not in the original plan, but it looks awesome (my dad is a licensed contractor, so unlike us normal people, this kind of update is not a huge deal to him)
Alright then, that’s a pretty beefy list, right? We didn’t set a budget, but we knew we wanted to keep it as low as possible, so let’s chat about how we did that in every aspect of the makeover. Painting is up next.
Painting using Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder and Quixotic Plum
I was particularly excited about painting because mom wanted a dark purple. I’m generally not a color girl…but this was really fun to paint with, and the color turned out so beautiful. It’s Quixotic Plum by Sherwin-Williamsin Eggshell. We decided to do Quixotic Plum on the wall the TV would be on and wrap it around to the closet. We also wanted to do it on the wall with the windows behind the bed.
The first coat looked a little scary once it was dry, and I was a little worriedwe’d end up needing three coats. But a second coat evened out the coverage and deepened the color really nicely. Always remember to reserve judgment about deeper colors for a second coat at the least! It was the same with the Tricorn Black wall in our living room.
Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder as the “Anchor Color”
We chose a very light gray, Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powderin eggshell, for the remainder of the room. It was actually a lot of square footage to cover, so we definitely wanted something really light and bright to help perk the room up a bit more.
Basalt Powder is a really nice mix of very light gray and beige. I find that it looks light gray in my moms room much more of a light greige in my bathroom (we painted our bathroom this color after seeing is on mom’s walls). Overall, this paint color did the most legwork in updating this room. It did an amazing job giving the entire space a facelift without even doing anything else.
We didn’t paint the ceiling because it didn’t really need it. It’s just a flat white and was in good shape. Once we were done painting the walls, we painted all of the trim using a fresh coat of semigloss white to brighten things up. Painting trim always helps more than you think it will!
Painting the furniture in Grizzle Gray
Next up? Furniture: The dressers, thrifted nightstands, and trunk makeover. New furniture wasn’t really in the budget for this makeover, so we decided to paint the existing furniture. We also removed the big, bulky mirror from one of the dressers to make room for dad’s wall-mounted TV.
To make this job easier, I used a paint sprayer to spray down all of the furniture with a coat of primer. Then I painted the dressers with Sherwin-Williams Grizzle Gray. A little lighter than I’d thought it would be, but dad wanted lighter.
Mom also scored two perfectly sized nightstands for a steal of a deal. We painted those to match the dressers. (Dresser hardware was eitherspray paintedor replaced withcrystal knobs, which you’ll see in a bit.)
Painting the old trunk…
Remember the ugly trunk at the base of their bed? It got a coat of primer and then a few coats of Americana Decor Satin Enamels in Dove Beige, which is one of my favorite paint colors. (I also used it on this trunk makeover of mine.) I used the paint sprayer for this job as well…all of those nooks and crannies would have been an absolute nightmare to paint with a brush.
To top it off, we added a sheet of plywood, some upholstery foam, and some fabric to cover the peeling veneer top of the trunk. Now it makes a nice place to sit…and doubles as Yuri the cat’s fav place to sleep. Before all of the furniture went back in the room, mom had the carpet stretched and then cleaned it with a steam cleaner. That made huge difference.
New Bed Frame & Mattress
Let’s talk about the bed next…the biggest piece in the room! As I mentioned earlier, they used to have a giant bed frame with an overwhelming headboardand footboard. It took up SO much space, was difficult to place in the space, and just really gave the room a dated look.
Mom wanted to streamline their bedding situation, and she also wanted to move the bed in front of the big window, so she opted for a minimal wire bed frame. They bought this framefrom Amazon, which is the same frame we’ve had since 2013. We recommended it as an affordable and simple bed frame that would still give them plenty of under-bed storage if they wanted it.
When we bought this bed, we lived in a 700 sq foot apartment, and the extra storage space was a real life saver! It’s held up well for us through FOUR moves taking it apart and putting it back together. Unless it falls apart or something, we’re not planning to replace it anytime soon.
To top off the bed frame, they got this mattress (affiliate link), which is the same mattress we have. A couple thoughts about this mattress: We decided to get a king-sized bed back in 2013 and shopped around some mattress stores. We couldn’t believe how expensive mattresses were, so we decided to take a gamble and buy one on Amazon.
It doesn’t come with that bottom box spring-y part, just the mattress on top and the cover. It also came with two memory foam pillows that I love but Mike hates. 🙂 The mattress was a fantastic price with excellent reviews, plus Amazon had it, so we felt pretty comfortable moving forward.
Guys, NO REGRETS. Still holding up amazingly many years later. So if you’re in the market for a new mattress on the cheap, wecan recommend this one without reservation. We also bought a protective cover for it.
Small caveat: We didn’t have any shipping issues, but mom and dad’s first mattress did get “lost” in shipping. I have no idea how something this big gets lost. My mom called the company, and they immediately sent out a new mattress, so theirdelivery was a bit delayed. A few days later two mattresses showed up on their doorstep, one box looking a little worse for the wear and taped up to high heaven:
All’s well that ends well, though. Also, can you believe a king mattress is in there? It comes totally vacuum sealed and tightly rolled up. It’s pretty wild watching it inflate after you puncture the plastic it’s wrapped in. This videohas a review of the mattress and shows how it’s packaged, as well as how it expands! Just skip ahead to 1:45.
And dad’s new TV…
Finally, dad got to work mounting his massive new TV that he got for a couple hundred bucks from one of his job sites. The TV was a little big for the space, but the man had only one request. Request granted. It’s mounted on the wall that faces the bed so they can watch their night time news in bed. 🙂
Somewhere around this point, my mom mentioned that they were going to put a window in. Nothing like a major mid-makeover change, but I was TOTALLY in favor of another window. My dad is a licensed general contractor, so he did it himself. You’ll see the new window in the after photos; it makes a huge difference in the room!
The final updated room!
Ready to see the final room?I’m ready to show you! But first, because I’m mean and want to keep you in suspense, here’s a reminder of the before:
And the after…look how good it looks!
Here’s the view of the room looking at the big window, dressers and TV behind you. You can see the new window dad put in on the right and the solution hecame up with for mounting the ceiling fan remote to the window to avoid losing it, haha.
The only new items in this view are the thermal curtains (buy them here), the curtain rod, and the nightstands. They already had the lamps and bedding. Mom picked out some new art, too. They also hung their marriage certificate on the wall on the left-hand side of the bed. They’ll be married for 35 years this December! 🙂
You can see the trunk we made over in this shot. We used this fabric, which is the same fabric I used for my DIY sewing machine cover. It really helps to tie in the brown carpeting with all of the silver accents. Mom uses the trunkto store extra linens and blankets. The kitties love their new bed, too.
On the opposite site of the room is their dressers and dad’s TV. Seriously, this thing is massive. But mounting it on the wall really helps to free up space on their dressers. They have a perfect view while lying in bed. You can see the painted dresser with a mix ofspray paintedand newcrystal knobhardware.
Last but not least, the fan got a major upgrade (seethe fan here). Talk about a huge difference, and I love that this fan comes with a remote.
Before and after shots
Here are a few before and after shots to really show what an improvement we made to the space. What do you think? Which is better…before or after? 😉 I’m still in awe of what a difference just painting the majority of the room with Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder made. Paint is incredible!
And here’s the source list for the whole sha-bang:
(Affiliate links below; read more aboutthosehere)
- Wall paint: Sherwin-Williams Quixotic Plum and Basalt Powder
- Trunk paint: Americana Decor Satin Enamels inDove Beige
- Dressers and nightstands paint: Sherwin-Williams Grizzle Gray
- Dresser hardware: Crystal knobs or spray painted old hardware
- Bed:Mattressand raised bed frame, both in kingvia Amazon Prime
- Thermal curtains in grayish white
- Paint sprayer
- Fabricand upholstery foam for trunk
- Ceiling fan
What do you think? Not bad for working under a pretty tight budget! I think it turned out awesome, and mom and dad love their new space. That’s what matters the most! P.S., if you like Sherwin-Williams Basalt Powder, I also used this color to paint our DIY murphy bed in our house, as well as paint our tiny powder room! It’s such a great color.
