Ann's Bedroom - Blame The Paint!

So, I get a phone call from my friend Ann. She tells me that she painted her Master bedroom last weekend. Awesome! Then she went on to explain that after the painting project was done, she had to buy a new bed ensemble with comforter, sheets, pillow shams, bed skirt, etc.

Okay … of course she then needed to buy new curtains to match all the bed stuff. Now Ann realized that the other side of the room also needed different curtains – OH MY (I am now seeing visions of dollars signs dancing in my/her head). At this point I am wondering why she is telling me all this. Well, how excited was I when Ann asked if I would help change her bedroom décor! Without hesitation, I said "yes". However, I did have a few conditions which I asked her to agree on. Okay, so call me tough.

• 1st condition - Let's NOT spend much money.
• 2nd condition - Let's find most of the items at estate sales.
• 3rd condition - Let's have fun!

After some serious negotiating, we came to an agreement :)

If you watched my BLOG from last week, you saw me shopping at an estate sale with Ann and “the teenage girls”. This time Ann gets to shop for her own fun things.

Once I arrived at the house, and a few cups of coffee later, we headed upstairs to begin the chit chat/figuring out what-to-do process. We talked about putting a little round table under her window with some kind of seating next to it. We also wanted to do something at the foot of her bed like a chest or bench. She only had one end table on one side of the bed so I knew we needed to search for another one. We spoke about painting her pre-existing furniture and decided that this would be a project for another time. The other side of the bedroom was pretty much an empty canvas. I figured another chair and maybe a lamp would fit against one wall and Ann wanted to look for a mirror to hang on that same wall.

After getting a good idea of what we would search for, it was time to plan out the day/weekend. This was the easy part. We sat down together at the computer, searched EstateSales.NET for sales in her area, and FILE – PRINT – grab the ESS Kit – GO! Watch out beautiful New Jersey Shore, here we come!

We wound up going to three different sales. Ann came away from each sale with new/old things to use in her bedroom. I think the best deal of the day was a heavy, good quality mirror that she paid $3 for. She talked a little about painting it but, once we got it back to her house, we realized that it really was perfect just the way it was.

Coming from a gal who planned a sizable outdoor engagement party around mostly estate sale finds, I did have my ideas of what I wanted to look for. After about 3 months of sales, I wound up with many interesting items that were never in my early plans but were in my budget. I have actually gone into a sale looking for a wooden chair and walked out with vintage rakes and rusty hooks! Go figure :)

Here with Ann's room, we wanted to do this quickly. If Ann had wanted to furnish her entire room, and given more time, we could have easily done that from estate sales. Depending on the sale, some have furnishings that are practically brand new and cost next to nothing. I have seen entire beautiful bedroom sets and fabulous dining room furnishings for sale. I myself am an eclectic shopper which opens up a whole world of estate sales!

Come back next week when we put Ann's room back together using her new estate sale finds.

Have a wonderful week!

~ Lela (aka: TrashFindRedesigned)