Tag Archives: Before & After

Reader Project! Amanda's new office

We’re kicking off this week with a lovely before and after re-do. Get ready to fall in love with Amanda’s new office – it’s fresh, modern and warm. Yes, I said modern AND warm, which is hard to accomplish. Amanda is a fellow Portlander and works in design, and she clearly has a knack for making things lovely. She also has a wonderful online shop you must visit – Dorothy Jeanne.

Now, here are the fabulous photos she sent my way as well as a few words about her new space…

From Amanda:

My original inspiration was a room in The Tides hotel, designed by Kelly Wearstler. I love her use of orange, gold and rosy pink, along with the graphic black and white print of the rug. At first I wanted to go very vintage glam with the room, but as it came together, it ended up being more subtle, and really more my style.

So lovely, right? She completed the entire room for less than $500 and most of the goodies seen above were Craigslist finds. Also, for those who love the paint color Amanda chose (me!), it’s Spring Thaw from good ol’ Benjamin Moore.

Amanda’s also giving away some pretty pillows on her blog today – enter here.

Three cheers to a great week!

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Basement Reveal Video

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Drumroll please. At last! The basement is revealed. It certainly isn’t finished, but it looks much more like a room than it did many months ago. The walls are painted, the carpet has been laid, the creepy spiders have been smashed, and we’ve got an extra room on our hands.

Just so you didn’t forget how ugly this room was to begin with, here are a few photos.

And here’s the before video from last January…

And finally, the AFTER video!

Clearly, we still have some work to do, but three cheers for progress! A few things annoy me about the video, particularly the TV cords, and unstyled shelves, but no biggie.

Have a happy short week, friends…holiday weeks are the best. EVER.

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The magic of paint

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One of my very first giveaways on Restored Style was paint. The folks from Olympic graciously offered me two cans of their NO-VOC paint to put up for grabs, and I’d like to think the perfect gal (and family!) won the giveaway. Amber Carter took home the paint, she she just so happened to be pregnant and in nursery planning mode. It was meant to be!

Amber emailed me awhile back with pictures of the finished nursery – it’s so fun to see how a few cans of paint can totally transform a room! So without further ado, here’s a sweet little note from Amber and a few before and after pictures she shared with me…

A boy! We had just found out that we were going to have a boy. Two years prior, we
were blessed with a girl and now we would have one of each. How exciting!

I immediately started brainstorming how to decorate little Micah’s bedroom (yes,
we already had his name picked out – we chose it way back when we were dating
about 10 years ago!). I knew that I wanted it to have the same feel of his sister’s
room, but still be personalized just for him.

As I was just beginning to look through paint swatches, I noticed the paint give-a-
way on Restored Style. Hmm… why not give it try? The only contest I had ever won,
in my entire life, was from some radio station when I won a half-gallon of ice cream;
I don’t think I actually picked up that prize… Needless to say, I was thrilled when
I found out that I won free paint for Micah’s room! Not only was it free, but it was
Olympic paint’s Zero VOC formula, which meant that there were no harmful fumes
for me to breathe in – perfect for an expecting mommy!

I decided to follow the same theme as Jada’s room with the bold, dark brown
horizontal line all around the room (I actually used paint from the same can!).
Instead of the girly colors (pink & sage green), I chose a more masculine palette
for Micah’s room (blue & tan). I’m very happy with the way it turned out. Simply
perfect.

Thank you, Restored Style & Olympic paint for helping me decorate my baby boy’s
room – a wonderful product for a wonderful little guy.

Thanks so much for sharing your adorable room, Amber! It’s super duper cute, and I’m sure Micah thinks so too:). Cheers to the weekend, friends!

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Quick Change! From black to white…

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This weekend my soul felt alive. We had our first blue sky and WARM weekend day of 2011 and it’s amazing what sunshine can do to your spirit. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, but I can handle rain during the week, if it’s sunny on the weekends. In short, we visited the farmer’s market, read magazines in the sun (or rather, Kyle mowed the lawn while I caught up on a huge stack of magazines I’ve been meaning to tackle), made iced coffees, barbecued, had a few fun visitors (which I’ll blog about later this week!) and I’m actually caught up on house chores, which will last about 18 hours when I’m sure I’ll fall behind again.

I also managed to finish up a project I’ve been meaning to share with you guys…remember our hutch in our kitchen area? I transformed it from black to white. It’s antique white now and I think I like it. It lightens up the room and gives it more room to breathe.

BEFORE

AFTER

Of course, with a new paint color, I felt like I had to switch out a few items on the hutch. I didn’t buy anything for this quick re-do, I just grabbed a few things I had in other rooms and did a little switcher-roo.