Ready for some ugly before photos? Everybody loves ugly before photos.
If you’re new here, we purchased a custom-built 1961 MCM a year and a half ago and haven’t had a spare second (or dollar) to get to work on restoring it until now.
I’m so excited to finally start tackling a project in our house. The One Room Challenge was perfect timing for us this spring. I’ll be making over our bedroom, which needs it. Badly. We haven’t done anything to it since we moved in except for a patch of a paint sample (which was also ugly and made the room worse…still, it has been there for almost a year).
On another wall, there is also an ugly patch where I tested skim coating our sand-finished walls.
That’s a big fat “no” as well. The sand finish in our walls is incredible–not in a good way. You know I love a good texture, but this stuff will scrape the skin right off your body. Not exaggerating, I have had bloody knuckles multiple times after bumping into them. I was really hoping to skim coat over it, but it’s so coarse that I was up to 1/8″ of drywall mud and it still wasn’t covering. Any thicker than that and you’re in danger of the mud flaking off. Sanding was the other option, but no. Just no. Can’t handle all that dust.
So, now the big white drywall mud patch will be removed before I repaint and pretend there is no awful sand finish.
Our bedroom is a great size, it just has a slightly awkward layout. There’s plenty of room for our bed, and our big big dogs’ beds. As you can see Em modeling above, one or both of them sleep on a teeny little IKEA sofa every night. It’s very functional; it’s not very pretty. It is prettier than just crib mattresses on the floor though, which is what they did have. I have no idea what to do in their corner of the room yet.
The big plans:
- Open closet like we had in the Victorian
- Repair walls (cracks in plaster, flaking plaster at ceiling)
- Painting
- Getting and installing window coverings
- Grown up bed linens
- Nightstands
- Lighting! The closets have nice bright (blinding even) overhead lights, but the bedroom itself has three dim table lamps and it’s so frustrating.
- Bed(s) for the dogs that aren’t hideous
I sanded ourl sand-textured walls and it was so worth it! I used a palm sander and the dust wasn’t bad. I didn’t get rid of all the texture, just knocked it down so it didn’t make me bleed (I feel your pain!). Just do it, it’s worth it!!
Really?! That is good to know, thank you. How long did it take to do?
Honestly, I don’t remember how long it took, it’s been a few years. I just remember it not being bad. I’d guess it maybe took about as long as it took me to do a coat of paint. I don’t know if there are different types of sand–maybe we had soft sand that was easy to sand down? Maybe try a patch and see how it goes.
It was concealing a really terrible patch job that was more noticeable when the matte sand texture was gone (I swear, it looked like a monkey must have spackled the wall) so consider what the sand might be hiding.
Haha! I will try it, but I’m not sure whether to thank you or not yet… 😉 Thankfully, we’re only the second owners, so we know the walls are still on their first coat of paint. But not having to try to match the sand will make repairing the cracks a little easier!
Good luck! This is a pretty room already. And I am jealous. I still don’t have grown up linens. LOL
PS: The new site looks terrific too!
Ha! Thanks Stacy!
Love the high ceilings and details. Can’t wait to your process! 😉
Thank you Samantha! I hope we can keep up this year and get it finished.
Oh I love this space! You have some great bones there! We worked on our bedroom for the ORC last Spring – so worth it! I can’t wait to see what you create with this space!