Well guys, when you saw the title of this blog you may have been thinking to yourself "is she still working on that house?" The answer to this question is yes, yes we are. This little house has been quite a labor of love for me. If you are new to The Southern Merc, and you have missed the story on our Alder Street Renovation, you can catch up by clicking any of the links below!
Alder Street Social Club
Alder Street Renovation
The Floors
The Porches
The Living & Dining Area
The Kitchen
It has taken me a little while to get the bedrooms and the bathroom "photo ready." I have moved the furniture several times, rearranged the pictures several times, and have finally decided this is as good as it gets for now!
We'll start with the guest room. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job documenting our progress in this room. What you need to know about the room before we started working is that it had a dark, orangey-brown wood floor, walls and ceiling. Here is what it looked like when we started working on the house. We closed up a window on the side wall and made the window on the back wall larger.
Alder Street Social Club
Alder Street Renovation
The Floors
The Porches
The Living & Dining Area
The Kitchen
It has taken me a little while to get the bedrooms and the bathroom "photo ready." I have moved the furniture several times, rearranged the pictures several times, and have finally decided this is as good as it gets for now!
We'll start with the guest room. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job documenting our progress in this room. What you need to know about the room before we started working is that it had a dark, orangey-brown wood floor, walls and ceiling. Here is what it looked like when we started working on the house. We closed up a window on the side wall and made the window on the back wall larger.
Here is the same wall today. The picture over the bed is hanging where the window was that we closed up. I chose a pretty light gray by Sherwin Williams for this room called "Aloof Gray". The trim and ceiling are "Ceiling White" by Olympic.
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You guys know I love a well-made bed - in fact, I wrote a blog on that topic! These vintage embroidered pillow cases that say "Good Morning" and "Good Night" were just what I needed to cozy up this guest bed.
I try not to clutter my house up with too many collections, but I just can't help myself sometimes! In this room I used vintage jars to house my collections of old dominoes and vintage thread spools.
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The closet in this room was a nice size but only had one small door, making the space hard to use, so I had the opening widened. Luckily, there was a door from the bathroom that we did not need that matched the original closet door to make a pair. The antique glass door knobs are not original but I thought they made a nice touch! Little details like that make nice upgrades to any home, large or small.
This little bookcase is full of family pictures. I love displaying old pictures, it is so comforting to me to walk in and be surrounded by loved ones that went before me.
Y'all, what can I say? I like pictures too much! Haha! You can also see in the picture below on the left that there is a mirror and hooks for the convenience of our guests.
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This is the little hallway area that connects both bedrooms and the bathroom. When you walk into the hall from the living/dining area, the guest room is to the left, the bathroom is straight ahead and the master is to the right.
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There were two closets in this little hallway. We closed one up and made it open into the master bedroom. This gave me a good place for the air conditioning return. The other small closet houses the water heater. I would have loved to have gone with a tankless water heater but it just wasn't in the budget at the time. The closet below became the bedroom closet. That is the original water heater. Don't worry, we got a new one and installed it across the hall in the smaller closet.
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Now, on to the bathroom! Just in case you forgot, it was disgusting. You can see the panel box was in the bathroom, so we moved that out to the hallway when the wiring was replaced. We moved the window to the right so it would not be partly in the shower. The flooring had to be completely ripped out and replaced. Hopefully, it goes without saying that we replaced all the fixtures! Ha!
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This is our very small bathroom now! When you embrace living in 980 square feet, you have to make use of every inch! When we bought the house the washer /dryer hook up was in the kitchen. Rather than give up much needed closet space in the bedrooms, I decided to go with a stackable unit and put it in the bathroom. It is certainly not luxurious, but it works for us! As long as we keep up with the laundry and keep everything in its place, it doesn't feel too cramped.
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Even the smallest of spaces deserve some special details. I couln't really find a ready-made shower curtain that I loved so I splurged on some fantastic fabrics. Dad helped me make this no-sew cornice board, and Aunt Janet was quick to lend a hand in sewing my shower curtain.
Keeping essentials like q-tips, bobby pins, and cotton pads in pretty containers on a pretty tray helps keep your counters looking good while still having everything you need conveniently located.
Next on our virtual tour is the master bedroom. I call this the master because this is the room that Matt and I chose to be ours but it really is exactly the same size as the guest room, just with two closets. This room had been used as a nursery about 30 years before we bought the house! My dad actually put up this wallpaper for our neighbors at the time when they were preparing for their first baby! Funny how things come full circle. Dad did an excellent job hanging that wallpaper because it was a pain in the you-know-what to get off of those walls!
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This is my beautiful, peaceful bedroom now!
The walls are painted "Misty Lake" by Valspar. The trim is the same as the rest of the house, "Ceiling White," and the ceiling is the same as the living area, "Spare White" by Sherwin Williams.
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| Those beautiful closet doors came from my dad's garage, which is truly a treasure trove! Lucky for me, he and my mom held on to lots of cool things they have collected over the years. I LOVE the color of these doors and all of their chippy-ness. I lightly sanded them just to knock of the loose paint and clean them up a bit. I coated the doors, including the glass with a good coat of polyurethane to seal them up and enhance the rich color. |  |
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The chandelier is vintage and is my most favorite light fixture in the house! We have low cielings so I didn't have many opportunities in the house to use a hanging light fixture. Since this one hangs over the foot of the bed, it keeps us from bumping our heads!
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I hope you have enjoyed keeping up with my home renovation! It has taken a little while to get things settled, but I love a work in progress! I have been working on the yards this year so that will be the next thing on the list to share!
If you like what you see in the house, check out the store! It is full of beautifully currated items that speak to my southern style!
If you have been keeping up with what's happening at The Southern Mercantile, I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you think of the house and if you have a project of your own you are working on!
Check out more Alder Street Renovation stories here!
If you like what you see in the house, check out the store! It is full of beautifully currated items that speak to my southern style!
If you have been keeping up with what's happening at The Southern Mercantile, I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you think of the house and if you have a project of your own you are working on!
Check out more Alder Street Renovation stories here!
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