Ceiling fan switcheroo

On Friday night, we found ourselves at Home Depot picking up a few things (this is usually where we are on Friday night). We happened to walk by the fans, and decided that this weekend might be a good time to finally update our master bedroom ceiling fan. It had these can-type lights that blocked off lots of light, so it made the room really, really dark. Adam had installed a ceiling fan once before at his grandma's house, so we were confident we could do it!

Here, we've already removed the old fan and Adam is about to open the box with the new fan (which we got from Menard's... Home Depot didn't have a huge selection of fans, we discovered.)

The wiring was a challenge, since one of us (me!) had to hold up the fan above our heads, while the other (Adam) had to do all the electrical work. Here it is completed--with much more light than before!


We decided that the fan we took down should go to replace this ugly one in the guest bedroom. It has tacky gold accents, and people who've stayed in our guest room complained that it made a loud wobbly noise:

This was a bigger challenge, because we didn't have directions for installing this fan. And two of the screws that held it up in the other bedroom didn't work here, which frustrated us to no end... But finally, finally, we got it up and working!


Up next: replacing two more interior doors? Painting the bathroom? Decorating the office? Starting the trim? So many options...

More painting!

Saturday morning, we got up and decided that it would be a good idea to paint our guest bedroom. This is why:

Formerly a child's bedroom, it was all decked out in dark blue and bright orange (not sure if he was a Bears fan or an Illinois fan...) We weren't sure what color to go with, but ended up going with "Chocolate Froth" from Behr. It's definitely a lot more neutral than before:

We've now painted almost every wall in our house. Still up: the bathroom and the office, both of which are OK colors. But I think we'll still paint them :) No more orange walls left, though! Whew.

Bedroom Makeover

This past week, we finally got around to making some decorative changes in our master bedroom. The bedrooms have been last on our list in painting and updating, since generally people who come over to our house don't really see them.

Our room previously had three different paint colors on the four walls: two dark, navy blue walls, one dark red/maroon wall, and one white wall. Kind of patriotic, I guess?

Anyhow, like many of the former paint colors in our house, it was dark -- it made a small space look even smaller and cave-like. Our only bedroom window had maroon curtains (already removed here) that didn't block out much light, and no blinds at all.

We went with two different colors (three walls in green, one light brown) and added these bamboo-type blinds and some new curtains. The room looks totally different now. I love it!

We hung the blinds and curtains higher and wider than the window itself to make it look larger. Plus, these curtains actually block out light, so that's always a plus on a sleepy Saturday morning!