* Remodelaholic *: Retro Remodel: The Yellow Room

I know, I'm late this was supposed to be up yesterday.... Sorry! From now on I am just saying next week... to be safe.

So the "Yellow Room" was one of two upstairs bedrooms. It was one of the easiest rooms to tackle, so we started on it right away. (We actually finished this before the bathroom, but the time lines all overlap so... anyway)

The very best part about this house was the existing bead board. The bedrooms both had it, and later we also discovered it in the hallway. (after layers of junk peeling... just you wait!) The funniest part of this room was the flooring, you will see what I mean in a second.

I do have a few regrets for this room though. First, I wish I had kept the top rug! Now that I look back at it, I see the coolness of it. It would have been awesome in a little girls room or a funky living room. It only needed to be cleaned! But like I said, we learned how and what to save over time, so it wasn't a lesson I had learned yet!

Also, we didn't have the time to finish this project. We built a new closet and made doors to match the existing door to the bedroom, and didn't ever get to install them before we sold the house. So Sad! It would have been the perfect finishing touch.

Also, it would have been fun to have some of the furniture painted white... It would have looked so crisp and fun... Alas, we left the chair and book shelf when we moved, and the bed is still unfinished (I am debating on painting it bright pink??? DO I DARE?)

Okay, here is the process.

Before:

Check out the layers of carpet. It still makes me laugh!

The detail I miss most about the house, 3/4 inch thick solid pine bead board. Sob!

Okay, to work... First I ripped out all the layers of flooring, how many do you think there were? Oh, I know, lets count.

First, the cool pink oriental rug. dang it!
Second, three patches at the end of the room of random carpet.
Third, wool shell patterned carpet (which also would have been so cool if it wasn't so thrashed. (in the picture below I am rolling this layer back.

Fourth, green rubbery carpet padding (kind of like those rug grippers that we have today only huge and 1/2 inch thick.)
Fifth, Now this was also REALLY cool, a vinyl rug. Isn't that cool? Another thing that I would have loved to keep if it had been in better shape.

Sixth, paper...
Seventh, the actual floor! Finally.

Did I mention that all of these layers were nailed down? About a million times per layer?

The next project was caulking the cracks of the bead board. Some people are gasping now at the horror of my choice to caulk. But the problem was, the cracks were half filled and yucky, not to mention, I don't like spiders... What does that have to do with anything? I didn't want all the hidey holes!.. and I wanted it to look clean. I may or may not do this step again if I ever had the chance (here is hoping someday I get the option again).

Anyway, have I mentioned lately how much I love caulk? It is true. Caulk saves the project! And speaking of caulk... Stay tuned for our weatherizing the house this weekend... Moving on.

After the caulk, (the 15 bottles of caulk, I kid not!!!) we carpeted. My awesome mom, HI MOM! found out her friend was replacing her carpet with wood floors. The carpet was only a few years old! Score, FREE, doesn't get any better than that! We had enough to do three of the four bedrooms (not the master). And guess who installed it? Justin and my very kind bro-in-law Sheldon. (My sis, his wife, is also a fantastic remodeler, I should have her guest post her kitchen, I'll email her RIGHT now!, okay done, I hope she has pictures, her house flooded while she was out of the states a year or so ago so... )

Enough tangent, so, Justin and Sheldon carpeted the room. What we learned, after he had finished, Justin informed me that he will never do it again, and I have respected that. It was back breaking work! And the professionals do it so fast, just thought I would let you know. (although we saved a ton of money, so I don't regret it that one time.)

Next, we primed, patched and painted.

At this point, we were done with this room for about 3 1/2 years. In the mean time, it became our at home studio, since both our majors are design oriented (his-landscape architecture, mine-interior design) it worked perfectly to have an at home studio.

The problem with the house, was the fact that there was only one bathroom. The existing closet in the yellow room was big enough for a little half bath, also a funny little secret in our master bedroom made it possible to easily install plumbing (stay tuned for that find...).

I am not going to show you the half bath yet, since it was one of our final projects, but it was HOT!!! Let me tell you. Moving on, here is what we did in this room to rebuild a closet, and also repair some existing walls. First Justin carefully removed the bead board planks from the closet wall. We decided that it wasn't necessary to have it inside the closet and by taking it all down, we could wrap the outside of the closet in the matching board.

Also as shown in the before picture, near the door, at some time in the hundred years this house had lived, someone cut out a section of the bead board, most likely to insulate, and they patched it with plywood, so Justin, cleaned up the edge and reinstalled the plank bead board there! Yeah... That was actually a proud moment for me, reusing a very small amount of wood to make everything match.

In order for the bath to have a sink, which I think is a must.. believe me I know, ha ha, the bathroom space had to come into the bedroom's space a little. That made the closet in the center, too shallow for hangers. Instead, we did shelves.

The biggest regret for this room is not getting the closet doors in. I am so bummed that we never finished them, cause we had the wood routed in beads to match the original doors, which were adorable.

Here is the rest of the room. I realize that the shutters are a little small, but I found them at a garage sale and they were really rustic and fun, so I thought what the heck. I might have added a little something to them if I redid it today, then they would have fit, either way I really liked it.