Primed4Design{er} of the Month ~ Total Makeover!

This month's Primed4Design{er}is Kelly James, our Canadian who shares her love of all things pretty with P4D. Check out her home makeover...it is just AMAZING! Take is away Kelly!

You know that saying about how the cobbler walks around with holes in his shoes?? Well, I feel just like that cobbler — because even though I’m a total interior decorating fanatic and love helping other people make their rooms beautiful, my house is in a constant state of upheaval with more half-finished projects than I can count!! Just to name a few… loft, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, basement… not to mention that we’ve been railing-less for over a year. A big exposed gaping hole in the floor is NOT a good thing. Plus it must break about 7 building codes. So shhhhhh, don’t tell!! ;-) In the midst of the mess, we do have a few finished rooms that I’d like to share with you.

The living room is the first room in our house to be 100% done. We did the majority of the work and shopping ourselves, but we did have some input from a designer (a friend at the time) who offered to help.




Hubby and I designed and installed the wainscoting, and I painted it. UGH. NOT a fun job!! We recovered the bench with a cool zebra chenille. The frames photos are from our trip to Luxembourg & Belgium in 2006.

The next room to be done was the guest bedroom. It went from this:


To this:


This was a total budget decorating job with almost everything in the room coming from somewhere else in the house or from standard box stores. The inspiration for the color scheme came from the two throw cushions on the bed. From that starting point, I decided on the purple & grey color scheme. The purple wallpaper that I loved (Darcy from Graham & Brown) was a perfect match to the purple cushions. I already had the furniture – it’s just cheap stuff, but I glammed it up a bit by replacing the brushed metal knobs with glass knobs from Lee Valley. A small investment for big impact!! That’s really what this room is about – creating big style on a small budget.

Our master bedroom went from bold orange with absolutely NO style whatsoever…


…to soothing grey…



I love the wall color – manta Grey by Debbie Travis. It makes my eyes happy. Hubby and I designed and built the bed (OK, I designed it, he built it!!). The painting above the bed is by Canadian artist Jennifer Kingsfield.

Our guest bathroom was just a mini-makeover. We have to keep the pink tiles, it’s just too much work to tear them out and they’re in excellent condition. To downplay the pink, I painted the walls ICI Purple Granite. And we removed the sliding shower doors and replaced them with a curtain.

Before:


After (ignore the wrinkly shower curtain!!):



And the ensuite went from this:


To this:



My favorite part of the ensuite is the vanity -- mainly because we were able to get rid of the icky dark green marble countertop with molded sinks. Yuck!! I painted the vanity (Farrow & Ball Mahognay left over from another rproject), and the new countertop is Silver Birch (Corian). I love the funky waterfall faucets. They were a total steal on Ebay -- $30 each!!

And finally, my latest makeover – my home office. It was the previous home owner’s gun room. Seriously!! It went from icky hospital green with orangey wood trim….



…to shades of grey with white trim and a letter mural on the walls…



It’s a small room, but it was a big project!! We replaced the parquet floor with laminate, designed and installed a drop ceiling (made to look like a coffered ceiling), and I painted all the letters on the two walls by hand. I recently wrote a post about my office makeover on the blog I share with my friend Victoria, DesignTies. If you’d like to see more, head over to our blog and check it out.

So that’s a little peek into my home. It’s been a work in progress since we moved in back in 2001. And there are still a lot of things to do!! But at least we’ve finished a few rooms!

Kelly