Painting The Master Bedroom and Chimney

Painting the master bedroom and the chimney too. (See the whole bedroom design plan here) I am so excited to finally tackle our second floor! First thing is first though (before I can do any kind of fun projects or décor or design up here) I’ve got to repaint. And, because I’ve already got the paint out, I’m also going to go ahead and paint out that stone on the chimney too just like I did down in the living room. Its not my favorite for many reasons… the stone is not real, it wasn’t my idea and, at least to me, it doesn’t belong in a 100 year old farmhouse. Painting it out in the living room made me hate it a lot less so I’ll be doing that up here too.

(Teaming up in our DIY Blog Hop this month with Bedroom projects, check out all of the projects following my post. If you’re interested in joining us click here for more info!)

I’ve decided to stay with the color called Sooty Lashes by Valspar because, quite frankly, I love it.

I took down the window flower boxes, curtain rod and old curtains first – none of it will be returning.

Lodi helped me get as much of the furniture out of here as we could without hauling it out of the second floor. (The entire master second floor is 500 square feet – the other half is the bathroom and walk through closet so, not a whole lot of extra space!)

With as much out of the way as possible I got to work first really cleaning and then moving on to prepping for painting the master.

I’ve found the best way to protect our hardwood floors is to first run a line of tape beside the base trim and then, over that, goes the plastic also taped down over the first tape line.

(The double tape layer really helps keep the trim paint from bleeding on to the floors.)

Unfortunately I was short on plastic so I improvised…

I went ahead and got rid of the chandelier at this point too so I didn’t have to bother painting around it – it also won’t be coming back.

With everything covered and ready to go I first painted out all the white in semi gloss. (Before it was a satin / flat paint, which is very hard to live with and I regret that old decision of mine immensely.)

As I was going to be moving on to painting the walls in a darker color anyway I could be “messy” with my ceiling and trim paint which saved me quite a bit of time taping off the walls.

I also went ahead and painted the strip of sheetrock between the windows white too and I think that was a good decision – even makes the windows seem bigger!

I can’t stress this enough: I underestimated how much of a pain in the butt painting the white up here was going to be lol.

There’s just SO MUCH molding and trim and beadboard! Even with a really thick paint roller I still had to do a ton of painting by hand. Wore myself right out!

With that finally done though the biggest and worst job up here was behind me.

We lived with our master in disarray for a few days until we finally had the time to tackle the rest of the painting….

Lodi: “Can I have an end table tonight?”
Me: “Sure, Hon, its in the bathtub.”

We taped off the trim and moved on to painting the master walls in Sooty Lashes also in semi gloss.

My local Ace hardware stopped carrying Valspar paint which, somehow, was almost every color I used in this home so thank goodness they do a good job color matching… Yes, I could go somewhere else that carries Valspar, however, I have yet to find a better brand of paint than Ace’s brand called Royal.

Its very affordable and yet it covers like a much more expensive paint.

Lodi volunteered to tackle the chimney and I happily let him take on that icky job. I painted the chimney in the stairwell and down in the living room so I was fully aware of how annoying painting that fake stone is.

In the time it took me to literally paint out all the rest of the room Lodi was cussing out the chimney and just finishing it out.

The pictures just don’t do the change in this space any justice!

Before, because the paint was flat and dingy, our master had an “unfinished” vibe that I really hated…. It almost felt like it had just been primed and never painted and that sheetrock mud “fix” under the windows certainly didn’t help any…

This space feels SO much better!

Even though the room is missing a light fixture, window treatments etc. that also FEELS GOOD. The space had been feeling close and dusty and cluttered.

I don’t think I’ll be bringing more furniture back into this space honestly. We had a little sideboard across from the bed on the short wall, along with a mirror and a dog bed too, but all that floor space now just makes me happy and makes the room feel so much bigger.

My solution for where the mirror is going is coming up soon and the dog bed isn’t needed at all as our Annie girl much prefers the hassock at the end of the bed anyway.

Currently having empty windows and all that sun coming in is just wonderful too! (Though I am very excited for new window treatments.)

That is the ladder I had been using in the master closet for shoes and scarves. Its a very old ladder that was here on the farm when I moved in and upcycled for up here.

I was tired of it in my closet and beside the chimney here actually turned out to be a good fit!

I’ll be adding hooks etc. to it for Lodi’s hats and belts – something he was quite happy to hear!

I will be repainting the bathroom and closet and also making some big changes in those spaces as well so, with the furniture and everything moved out of the bedroom anyway, I didn’t see any reason not to do the rearranging between all of the rooms up here right now.

And, YES YES YES YES YES, that is a door!!!!

So thrilled to have a door for the first time on our bedroom – stay tuned for that makeover!

So excited to move on to bedroom design!

This Month’s DIY Blop Hop: Bedrooms! (Click here for our upcoming themes and more info on how to join us every month!)

Niki from Life as a LEO Wife – Free Printable Bedroom Wall Art

Allison from Darling and Dapper Life – Making Throw Pillows Out of Shirts and Sweaters