going on vacation…

well we are going on a summer vacation. Where to? Our upstairs.

We do, in fact, have an upstairs. We just don’t use it. We have a curtain at the top of the stairs to try to keep the heat downstairs in the fall, winter and spring, and all the heating vents upstairs are closed. So it’s become more of a huge storage area for still-unpacked boxes, books, crafts, and things we don’t know what to do with.

Why?

Well when we bought the house we decided to focus our energy on downstairs. Afterall, it is were the only working bathroom is located and we felt that if we found some sense of accomplishment in making the downstairs livable, it would make us feel less like we were living in a perpetual work zone. And if we’re focusing all our time and money to make the downstairs presentable, it didn’t make sense to spend money and energy heating the upstairs, so we just blocked it off.

In the past year we’ve insulated the house, had drywall put in downstairs, painted the walls and trim, and tried to decorate with furniture, accessories, a tv, etc. We only ever go upstairs to search for something in a box or find a craft project. The walls are cracked and gross, the result of some old version of drywall put on the walls, then covered with multiple layers of wallpaper, painted and in some case had a stucco-like treatment over the top. The windows leak air like you wouldn’t believe (some of them are only storm windows, no interior windows), and I have seen spiders. BIG spiders. And – this is our own doing – it’s become a little overwhelming because of all the stuff – I don’t know about anyone else, but when we have an empty space, shelf, or tabletop, we always end up filling it up. It takes great effort to keep our tabletops and countertops clear. So, to keep our primary living space clutter-free, all the other stuff finds its way upstairs. Each room upstairs as A LOT of junk in them – christmas decorations, furniture, school papers, books, magazines, crafts, boxes of fabric, half-finished projects, you name it, it’s up there.

But, we’ve realized that it’s not so bad up there, especially in the summer. In the summer it finally gets sunny and warm, so the leaking windows aren’t such a big deal. Plus we have this great deck upstairs that faces south, and on sunny days (we average about 226 cloudy days per year, and the bulk of sunny days are in the summer between June – September) you can see Mt. Rainier and it’s just a beautiful sight. Ideally we’d like to take advantage of the space and the view. How can we spend more time up there? The easiest idea that occurred to me was to move our bedroom upstairs. If we had a bedroom upstairs, we’d definitely be there on a daily (or nightly?) basis. In the winter we could move back downstairs and close off the upstairs again.

So then this idea of creating a ‘summer bedroom’ came to be. It’ll be like a vacation, but in our house. It’ll be fun to move our bed and things to this room, to enjoy the different scenery and routine, and then move it back again in the fall, which will feel like a whole new room again, too.

There are 3 rooms plus a foyer/landing area upstairs. Originally we thought of making the back bedroom our summer bedroom since it is pretty much a blank slate and has a bathroom (although it doesn’t work!) But then it hit me that it would be fun to make the room with the deck our summer bedroom. It’s small, bright, reminds me of staying in a (trendy) one-room cabin, and of course has the deck! It’s like summer camp! Last week I moved our “office” (chair, desk, file cabinet) to the upstairs foyer. The original idea was to create a library/office in the room with the deck, but then reality hit us and we knew we’d never need an office area, and we have many great spaces in the house to store books or sit down and read. This space suits the office area much better, and frees up an entire room!

Here are some small attic bedrooms that inspire me:

I love the paneling on the ceilings, and the cheery yellow color.

Again, I love the paneling, and the mixture of the blue, yellow and red. I like the simplicity.

I love the soft blue with white, the rustic feel and the pop of color here. I think these blinds would be easy to do in the windows in our room, too. The paint color is Spring Mint and the white is Light Touch, both by Benjamin Moore.

Here is another color inspiration – I love the green undertones in this yellow. This is Benjamin Moore Sweet Pear

And I’ll let you in on a secret – I already picked out a color and painted the room:

Behr Lemon Balm (don’t look it up online – it doesn’t look like the images AT ALL)

Originally I wanted to go with the Sweet Pear by Benjamin Moore, but it was looking a little too sickly for me once I saw the real paint chip. I picked up some similar paint chips, and I really loved Benjamin Moore Rainforest Dew. After much thought, I went to Home Depot. I considered Martha Stewart’s Artichoke Heart, but then decided it was a little too ‘earthy’ for the summer getaway bedroom I was imagining. Finally I found Lemon Balm, which almost perfectly matched Rainforest Dew, so I didn’t have to worry about looking up a Benjamin Moore code and getting it wrong.

Stay tuned!! I still have to paint the trim, figure out what to do on the ceiling, and paint the floors (?!?!) And the porch door is only a screen door, so we need a real one. And curtains.

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