Joanna Gaines has, no doubt, made a name for herself in the design world. Her “Farmhouse Look” is a must-have for all newbie house owners and aspiring DIY designers. As Brandon and I renovated the master bedroom of the “headache house”, I tried to let Joanna Gaines inspire me. I’ve always been a fan of the “Farmhouse Look”, a side-effect of growing up around barns and farms, and wanted a really airy and updated look to the room.
Originally, the bedroom was very dark and outdated. The floors, we assume carpet was originally installed, were ripped up and the leftover plywood had been painted a dark brown as to supplement for laminate flooring. There were shelves lining every wall in the bedroom, making the master bedroom feel incredibly small and closed off. The walls were also very rough and had many superficial holes in it. After assessing the room, Brandon and I went to work.
- Clean
We cleared all the furniture and clutter out of the room. This was the hardest part for us to do! We still have bags of junk that came from this room, which we can hopefully sell at a yard sale soon. We also swept the walls, floors and ceiling (trust me, it’s totally worth it!).
2. Walls
The walls were riddled with holes, so I popped over to Amazon and bought some DryDex Spackling. It is really awesome and changes colors when it is dry so you don’t have to set a timer or guess! It is also very cheap, just around $6 per half pint. I did sand the walls with a hand sander after the spackling had dried and I have to say I recommend a hand sander to anyone wanting to renovate! It took no time to sand those walls down smooth and the finished product looked very nice!
I knew that I wanted the room to feel very airy but I was not a fan of a white walled bedroom. I went over to the Home Depot and looked around at colors for about 3 days. Yes, you heard right. I looked at paint colors for 3 days. Ridiculous, but I found the perfect color. I ended up choosing a Behr matte in the color Silver Bullet. It looks somewhat like this, but in our bedroom it has an almost purple tint to it in the light. It only took a gallon of paint, so it cost around $40 after tax. We also repainted the trim and the ceiling a base white.
3. Flooring
I was very adamant about the floors being done the right way. I wanted to invest some money into them because the old floor had been so bad. Brandon and I took another trip to Home Depot and looked at flooring. We knew we needed water-proof, scratch resistant flooring because of our pets, but we needed something that wouldn’t break the bank. Most Home Depots have a clearance section in the back, and although the prices were cheap, they didn’t have the color we wanted. We ended up going with EIR Courtship Grey Oak Laminate Flooring. It is really durable and pretty simple to put it. We got some cheap underlayment ($15 a roll) and got about 12 boxes of flooring. The flooring comes $1.49 per SQFT, so it is roughly $40 a box. The flooring was pretty simple to put in, but make sure you have a saw handy! I would also suggest investing in some knee pads for your own comfort!
4. Decorating
This was my favorite part of the whole process! Brandon let me take full control on the decorating portion of this project and I was so excited. I went to
Big Lots and picked up some cute signs. Most of their signs are very inexpensive ($20 and under) and fit the “Farmhouse Look”. I also went to Target and picked up a chunky white board, a cozy knitted blanket, and a great lamp.
5. Finished Look
What an awesome feeling it is to look back on the room and know we were in budget and we did it ourselves! It’s a great cozy room and very “Joanna Gaines-esque”.
Daily Artemis 