The Old Lady Room Makeover

Some of you are scratching your heads and wondering, "what is an Old Lady Room?"

When we were first shown the home we now live in, the front living/sitting room had very much of a parlor appearance. It had these creamy pink/beige/purply/gray walls, one of those very low, long couches, a wing back chair, a rounded, standing radio, and red carpet with roses all over it. And drapes. Oh my, drapes. This is the part where I disclose that I'm still a pushpins-and-sheet-or-light-blanket-or-scarf-over-the-windows kind of girl at heart. I buy curtains on clearance from Big Lots or Bed, Bath & Beyond. These were drapes. With valances! 

And just like that, someone sniggered and the Old Lady Room was born.

You can see the light color of the walls, above, and see how depending on the light the color is all over the place. Normally it didn't have everything shoved into the center of the room, obviously, but spread stuff out in your head and you'll get the idea of how we'd dealt with it.

The Thingz were all to be out of the house the same week thanks to camp and Pap, so what better time to paint than when I didn't have to stop to break up fights or stop to feed anyone or stop to figure out why certain technology was having issues or stop because of anything Thingz-related. 

So I kind of turned things over in my mind and decided I liked a paint square called Greenblack by Sherwin Williams. It had a dark gray look that was kind of smoky and would help the light drapes and painted wood furniture pop while going well with the red furniture and that red, rose covered carpet. Some people scratched their heads again and I'm sure they would have hiding grimaces during the priming process, above, where the room looks really dark and like the first room you'd paint differently if you were moving into a new house.

But, add those crazy thermal drapes back in to cover the darker wood of the windowpanes, get stuff back where it belongs, and let PaPa go crazy with the vacuum and the Murphy's Oil Soap and the Windex and ta da! One spiffy looking room that actually pulled together really well. 

Not bad at all for an Old Lady!  

Huge thanks to camp and Pap (babysitting) and PaPa and Dada (working, cleaning, taking down and rehanging drapes and valances) for all the help!

Come on over to see our New Old Lady Room!