Just Call Me Martha Stewart

Okay, so I don't have a criminal record, I can't do art crafts that well and I don't cook with fresh herbs. I am not exactly Martha Stewart but I am so proud of how our bedroom redecoration went that I have to brag.

First things first. The only real before picture that I could find was this one from when we first moved into our house.

In the past four years, we did put blinds, curtains and one picture up in our room. The wall that the bed is facing just has one, lonely, used, dresser with a TV on it so I didn't take a picture of that side of the room at the time. So since we had moved into our house in December of 2004, our room has seriously looked like this. Almost all of this furniture is either from college or just after I graduated college. It was sad and a little pathetic but it worked for us. I had even been told that our look was eclectic but far from it. We just weren't decorating the whole house the minute we moved it. It wasn't like we were trying to get our house in the Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Josh and I had been trying to figure out what we wanted to do in our room for awhile but either hadn't agreed on it or didn't want to spend $5,000 on new furniture. It actually wasn't even a high priority after we found out Ms. Abby was on her way. Then enter this past year. Two major things happened. One, we got an Ikea store. I know my last post talked about Ikea but I really do love this store. With the quality that I experienced in in our first Ikea purchase, I love this store. Plus, I found that with Ikea, we could actually afford a bedroom! The second thing that happened, was that I started having back problems. I have no idea where they came from but our bed seemed to be the culprit. I would wake up every morning and have to untwist myself so I wasn't in pain. Now, because my husband doesn't like seeing me in pain, he convinced me that we need to buy a new bed...and of course upgrade to a king size.

So after much shopping, Ikea catalog and website browsing and a lot of phone calls to check measurements, we were ready to go! We decided to do the bedroom in bits so we didn't take the whole financial hit of a new bedroom all at once. But then Ikea called me again...yes I am convinced the store talks to me. To celebrate their first anniversary in Orlando, they decided to have a sale. They had coupons on their website that if you downloaded, you got a $20 gift card when you spent over $100 bucks. With buying things for a new bedroom, easy. (On a side note, they also had a coupon for a free lunch. It was worth the trip right there!) So armed with four different coupons and Josh and I going in different lines, we did very well. Of course it took us about three hours to assemble all of the furniture but it was worth the wait:

Here is the middle:

And the other wall.*

* The dresser with the TV on it is actually the old dresser I was referring to before. They were out of the dresser we wanted so that is the one outstanding piece of furniture we need. We will probably get that over winter break.

Big difference? Now, we did not go from one extreme to the other in one Ikea trip. We had painted the bedroom almost 2 years ago and then we put up the crown molding. Then we got the bed frame, bed, then it just got completed from there. I probably won't take a picture after we get the new dresser because I think that you got the point.

I actually think I hear the bed calling me now. Good night!