Well I’ve been away from the blog the last couple of weeks.  I’ve been working on our bedroom.  Frankly I started this project back in September and found it so frustrating that I had to abandon it for a better idea.  

I picked up new curtains from Pottery Barn last year.  Not in love with them, I knew I could make them work and frankly I just didn’t want to think and analyze it.  I just wanted simple and I didn’t want to spend the $$$ for custom and I didn’t feel like making them myself.  These were very textural and pretty neutral with a subtle gray multi stripe in it.  Those installed I found a Pottery Barn quilt in a gray Ikat on Ebay that worked wonderfully with them.  I made a new tailored linen dust ruffle added some inexpensive tape over the top of some leftover neutral linen that I frayed the edges on just to add a bit more texture and the dust ruffle was done.

This north facing room is impossible to photograph with a heavy plaster faux finish on the wall.

On a beautiful Friday last spring I was searching small towns in the area looking for either antique shops or home decor stores.  I landed in Ashland NE just down the road from us.  A corner shop on the main drag, there was a shop unfamiliar to me.  Salt Creek Mercantile.  What’s this? Hmm!  Looks interesting, let’s go inside.  

This is such a fun shop.  It is very spare but full of wonderful stuff.  

Old French cutting boards, copper, cookbooks, the coolest brushes for every purpose you’ve ever seen.  Of course I had to buy a mushroom brush!  I don’t even like mushrooms!   

Real light the wick candle tapers!  Market baskets, textured throws, oh, this throw would be great with the new curtains!  

Marseille Soap!!! I have been trying to get my hands on this soap for years.  You can order it online but it’s like $18.00 to ship.  12.00 for the soap and 18.00 to ship, I don’t think so. 

 Needless to say I just kept taking stuff over to the counter.  She starts to ring me out and I find a darling piece of French white enamel ware that says something (I don’t have a clue) but I have to have this thing so that gets added to the tally!  By the way, it says matches in French.  Who knew?  The French of course!!!

Love the open pizza box on the counter.  Oh brother!

 I am having so much fun this room is just falling in my lap I say to myself with cocky confidence. 

So now I have all these fun elements to play with for a new look to a very tired bedroom.

Then I started trolling Pottery Barn again just to see what was new, and I found a quilt that I absolutely fell head over heals for.  They had put it on clearance and the price was right and I couldn’t pass it up.  Problem they only had one sham.  Ok, so I just make some shams of some kind and use the one in the center of the bed.  Now I’m on a mission to find some fabric.  Easy right,  well I didn’t want to order fabric so that left me very few options.  I just couldn’t find anything I was satisfied with.  So one last ditch effort into Pottery Barn and they found one last sham in Minneapolis for me, I was thrilled.  Problem solved.

Or problem created.  I have these off white drapes with this cool off white and black throw, charcoal gray dust ruffle, and now I have a black and white quilt I’m in love with.  Why do I do this to myself?!  Can I pull this off without replacing all these other elements that I have just purchased for this room?  I let it simmer, and simmer, and simmer.

Now one day during the summer I’m wandering thru Restore and I come across the Queen Ann desk chair with the hideous sweat stained leather and the bottom falling out.  Structurally it was sound and for 35.00 I couldn’t pass it up.  After all The Husband has been saying he wants a chair in our tiny bedroom so he can put on his socks!  I’m such a thoughtful wife!  I knew I could turn it into something, I didn’t know what, but I figured it would come to me.  Wow this room is really coming together! NOT!!!

Now I’m at the antique mall looking for some kind of primitive cabinet like the pie safe I used to have, for storage in our soon to be lower level powder room.  I came across an 1850 Regency dresser that had me at the key holes!  I don’t need a dresser or do I?  Can I make this work.  I go home to mull this over because we are leaving on our epic vacation in just 2 weeks.  This was the end of September.  I think it over for a couple of days and decide yes I do need a dresser so the Husband and I hop in the truck and head back over to the mall, they except my offer and we load it up and bring it home.  I decide that my Ethan Allen Farmhouse Pine chest of drawers could work downstairs in the powder room if we build an upper for it so we put the new dresser in our bedroom.  It gives us one more drawer so that’s helpful.  But, the farmhouse pine chest was perfect with this very country headboard that my dad built for us years ago and now I have some big decisions and adjustments to make. No I don’t want to lose the headboard, don’t really want to lose the crazy round end table. 

 I let it all simmer some more.  

In the mean time I know I have to address the very large elephant in the room.  The Heavy Plaster Faux Finish in the room (learn how I get rid of it here).  That’s what I’ve been working on for the last two weeks.  Here’s a sneak peak.

Tune in next time for the debut of our tiny primary bedroom, maybe I’ll get the rest of the brasses on the chest polished by then!

Thanks for stopping 

Shelley