Empty Nest

My daughter got married this summer and left us with an empty bedroom.  She had been away before (5 years of college and living on her own afterwards) but this was the first time we knew she was not coming back to re-claim her room.  My youngest daughter who still has another year or so of college 'says' she will not ever be back permanently and doesn't really care what happens to her room (well, trust me, I do know that things can change - I am hoping she will be back at least for a 'time').  She did however express that she would like to take over her sister's old room for when she comes home to visit. So it was time to do some re-arranging!

Our already small budget shrank considerably these last two years and paying for college tuition and a wedding certainly didn't help. So as much as my heart was pounding with excitement with the thought of re-doing a room in the house, I also knew I had to hold back considerably. I decided to turn our youngest daughter's old room into a guest room and a second office for my husband (just a place to go and jump on a computer quickly) and I moved her things into her sister's old room. Painting the second office was easy - it was a wonderful green based yellow (Hampton Green 2150-50 by Benjamin Moore) which went with the rest of the house until I repainted this last year in the grays. So I selected a color that worked with my color scheme (Benjamin Moore's Nightingale AF-670). I love it and it is perfect for a more masculine room.  (I'll show you more photos of that soon).

But my dilemma with the other room is that although I wanted to change the color (lavender), I was sentimentally attached to the part of the wall above the shelf. Ten years ago, when my daughter was 16 she painted a beautiful quote in silver paint. She had taken everything out of her room, painted the quote and surprised me when I came home from work.

To laugh often and love much ... to appreciate beauty... to find the best in others ... to give of one's self ... this is to have succeeded 

I love the quote she choose and I LOVE that she did it. I am just not ready to lose that. So I decided to leave the wall color and work with it. I actually did paint the wall under the shelf one shade darker than what it was and left the top alone which matched because the light hits them differently (North Cascades - 1411 Benjamin Moore).  The bed was already there and I brought in my favorite piece from my youngest daughter's previous room (the only one that fit!).

I added the gorgeous rug that I had purchased to use in the restroom at the Newland Barn for Hayley and Emmanuel's wedding (see wedding post).

I painted the bronze frame on the other sentimental thing in that room I was not ready to give up (a  John Singer Sargent poster I purchased from Museum of Fine Arts on my first trip to Boston) and a previous 'bronze' cherub white 

The only new item I added to the room was an inexpensive nightstand from West Elm and a flower bowl from Ikea. I pulled the rest of the lamps and accessories from around the house and used the bedding that we had on the bed when the room was Hayley's. I found some previously used Euro shams in my linen closet. The room feels fresh and 'new' and yet it still feels like I have kept a little of what it was before. Change is fun but sometimes holding on to the past is worth it.