Going coastal may make me go Postal

Ya'll are going to have to indulge me a bit here as I ramble try to explain this post title. I'll try to keep my rambling to a minimum, or ,as my kids tell me, "give us the condensed version please."  Seriously, they don't seem to understand that what shoes I'm wearing, if I'm having a good hair day, whether the clerk at the grocery was nice, or what the weather conditions were are important facts in telling about what I'm doing. Duh!  So hang on, here we go.

Back in May, BDJ graduated from college and took a job in Las Vegas (okay, all you moms out there know that this alone is traumatic and I think I'm doing quite well with it  despite what my family says, thank you very much).  The day after graduation we helped him pack up his house in Memphis, transport it back here, and plopped it all in our garage.  He arrived home a couple of days later and within 2 weeks had sorted through both his belongings in our garage and what was left in his childhood room to make his new life fit into a Ford Mustang...no easy feat.  Piece by piece he threw away pieces of his life that no longer seemed necessary to him (no sweat, I just went behind him and dug it out and squirrelled a lot away in the attic).   His room was now a shell with only his bed and his wall of awards left.  At least I could sit in it from time to time and pretend he was just away at college, right?  Just 2 short weeks after he graduated we stood in the driveway as he and all his wordly goods pulled away from us and headed out on a 27 hour drive into his new life.

Wonder Hubby and Mini disappeared into the house as I stood in the driveway till I could no longer hear his car in the distance, wondering how long it would be till I saw him again.  Pretty emotional stuff.  So I went from copiously weeping to sniffling and headed inside worried that the positive spin Mini had put on this move was only her game face and that I would find her curled into a ball mourning her brother leaving.  I was totally unprepared for what I saw when I went into BDJ's room.  Mini announced as I walked in "I'm moving in."  This was something that had come up from time to time since BDJ left for college but we just never responded.  Apparently she had cleared it with her brother and was well on her way.  By the time I arrived she was ready to disassemble his bed and had already removed his awards from the walls.  She must have started before he was out of the drive.  So much for my shrine (I know it was probably a bad idea anyway) and any hopes that if I left his room he might come home.

Within 2 days, Mini had online shopped new bedding and curtains and had even arranged furniture moving help and was completely ensconced in "her" new room.  The good news is BDJ didn't have room to put his queen bed in the Mustang so I now had a start on a guest room.  Since I am obsessed with really enjoy the beach, I knew that creating a space with a calm, beachy kind of feel was right for this room.  Plus I thought I could make this look gender neutral.

Step one would be painting the room as Mini had painted it a hideous blue 3 years ago and decorated in what I called Early Circus.  I didn't spend much time with her in this room as the colors and patterns made me a bit queasy. 

This picture makes the room look like a nice blue - pictures are deceiving believe me.

 After only a few days of driving Mini and Wonder Hubby crazy with paint chips asking for input on paint colors, I was happily taping and preparing to paint.

 Since I was intentionally dragging around to fill time I was in no hurry to complete the room, I painted on and off for a week or so.  I was actually finishing up the paint when brush in hand I answered a phone call from BDJ.  "What is in my room right now?"  he asks, "Umm, your sister," I respond.  Despite assurances from Mini and BDJ, he seemed a bit annoyed by this information.  For a few moments I secretly was hoping his dream job in Las Vegas hadn't worked out and he was coming home ( I know, I'm a little sick).  Soon I understood why he was asking. One of his best friends needed a temporary home and since I was down a kid we got Bri (aka our spare).   Literally as the paint dried I quickly pulled together enough bedding to make the room presentable and within hours welcomed our spare daughter home.   So, although painted, my coastal feel room went on hold for a few weeks.  Like all kids, they eventually manage to escape and Bri got away as well (kind of, since I demand that she is here at least once a week:).  Down a kid again, I got back to work.

Since then, I have been adding pieces one by one that eventually will come together to create my coastal room.   The process of finding the right pieces and making them work has been seriously frustrating, thus the feeling that I may go Postal.  Especially considering that BDJ will be home in 5 days for his first visit and I'm feeling bad that his room is gone and the guest room isn't complete. 

Now that the room was painted and a bed with doable bedding was in place, I was ready to add stuff.  I had seen this headboard at Pottery Barn.  So finding just the right shutters to create a similar headboard was priority.

Once again my ADD kicked in and I was dragging this old nightstand out of the attic. So much for priorities.  This guy has been around.  In a former life it was Wonder Hubby's when he was a kid and then early in our married life became an "entertainment center" for our big 12 inch, no remote, black and white TV with a coat hanger antennea and then lived on in BDJ's Americana themed room.

Not only was it painted like a flag, but it was crackle painted, and since I was in a hurry being lazy, it really needed to be stripped and sanded.

 After some thought, I decided since I was going for a worn, coastal cottage look I would just paint over it all and make it work.  So I started by sanding with my handy dandy hand sander to knock off any loose crackled paint and then painted it white.  My first intent was to paint it white then black and distress it to show the white.

Red, White, and Blue are hard to cover, so the white took several coats.  Then after candle waxing the edges and a couple of coats of black it looked like this.

Ummm...upon further study I decided that was too much black, even with distressing, so back to white she went.

Finally, after many coats of black and white, lots of waxing, and some light sanding, this is how it looks.







It is now happily living in the guest room, waiting till I get around to finding the perfect hardware.  I will, I will....eventually. 

So there you have it my Coastal feel room is officially on its way.  I am working on various projects to use in this room that I will share in the coming days.