When we shopped for a house in Tucson we were only looking at old houses. We wanted a mid century modern house if possible, and this 1970 house was as close as we could get in our budget. The most unappealing room of the whole house was the master bedroom. It was dark and reminded Andrew of a prison cell with its grey walls, and tiny window that had literal bars on the outside. “Don’t worry,” I told Andrew, “I can fix it.”
Our offer to buy this house was accepted before we even saw the house in real life. “If the offer is accepted, we will immediately get the whole family in the car and come see it.” we told the house flipper who was selling the house. He accepted the offer, we packed, and an hour later we were driving to Tucson to see our new house. When Andrew saw the bedroom in real life he thought that we had made a mistake in choosing this house. “Don’t worry, I can fix it.” I kept saying.
Here is how the bedroom looked when we first moved in—a mishmash of old bedding and throw pillows, no headboard, and dorm room style curtains. It was dark and ugly.
And below is how I improved the bedroom last year. See the whole post HERE. It was so much better, but the 50 year old single pane window was not energy efficient, and I really wanted to have access from here to the pool. So we cut through the brick and put in outswinging French doors.
Below are the after photos that I just took, with the new outswinging French doors! Andrew keeps saying that he can’t get over the transformation. The doors make the room feel bigger, let in so much more light (while at the same time reducing the electric bill), and now we can go straight from the pool to the master bathroom. No more getting the whole house wet.
The only new piece of furniture I added since putting in the doors is this bench at the foot of the bed, which I found at T.J. Maxx. It matches the wood tone of the 1950’s mirror, and the bedside table baskets too. I love it!
Pepperoni is a huge fan of the bedroom renovation. This is her spot.
I most love the new view from the bed.
The chalk drawing below is new to you, because I added it after posting the first transformation, but it’s been there for a long time. It’s a really nice frame that I found on the side of the road years ago. I removed the glass and added a piece of wood to the back of the frame. I painted the wood with chalkboard paint so that I could draw on it with chalk. It also holds my hat.
I’m not a tchotchke person, but I fell in love with this black bird (on the table) after buying it at Michaels for a Rather Keen photo shoot. It goes great with my bedroom color palate, and we are obsessed with birds, especially the hawks that have babies in our neighbors tree every year. If you follow Rather Keen Instagram Stories then you’ve frequently seen the juvenile hawks in our bird bath.
Finally, I got the same exact dark blue curtains for the new French doors that we had in our last house. I absolutely love white walls with dark curtains, and the curtains look great with the dark blue upholstered headboard. Also, with modern style rods, these dark curtains block pretty much all of the sun in the morning, so I can sleep.
The view through the new doors is such a pleasure. Our yard and the shed looked nothing like this a year ago when we bought the house. I painted the shed when we painted the house to get rid of the army green barn look. I added window boxes, green sun sails, a new grey path, and grass (artificial turf squares leftover from the new front walkway). It turned out so cute that I had to add an outdoor rug, two French bistro chairs, and a little table so we can enjoy it.
First, here is a before photo:
And here it is now:
On the far right you can see that I planted a dwarf orange tree that will get 6′ tall and 6′ wide, and on the left is one of three palm trees that I planted. On either side of the shed door (which is much more handsome all one color) I added three solar powered lanterns to light the whole “grass patio”, as I call it. Lastly, you can see that I added dark grey pavers in front of the new French doors.
I really pinch myself every day that we have a big beautiful pool, and now we can access it from the bedroom.
For more links to items you see in these photos, check out the first bedroom post HERE.
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♥, Kelly
