Bedrooms, Dining Rooms, & DIY Projects at Cabana de Rosa

After a long few weeks of eating massive amounts of tacos and tamales, wrapping presents, and consuming thousands of calories in rich chocolate and eggnog drinks, I’m dusting off my project list for the Winter and we started with some art items with the wee-one at Cabana de Rosa.  Entire DIY.  I LOVE projects and I LOVE Lists. My problem is finishing the project. While I have the visionary element of space, projects, tasks, etc. the execution is in a whole other ballpark.

Enter my Mr. who is the enforcer of my projects and ideas.  I start them and generally he finishes them – lucky guy.  I will say that with painting I will finish a project as he refuses to paint but everything else, well, some help is much appreciated. I’ve got two left hands with a hammer and struggle with assembly of products so thank god I’ve got him to implement my crazy ideas.

PROJECT #1: I must decide and complete whichever room I love the palm print curtain in more – It is still not done!

I have a plethora of items left to work on in here including wall art, bed frame, bedding, throw pillow, furniture and lighting – essentially the bulk of the room. I also am now toying with swapping these curtains into my dining room and putting a more subdued curtain into this very tiny space.  I originally intended for these palm drapes that I had made custom to be in my dining room but in a flash of panic on the wee-one’s fourth birthday threw them up in this room to offset the heavy dark wall.  I am not moving them back into the dining room and and it is changing the very course of my entire concept for the master bedroom to shift.  It is all very versatile so it can work in a lot of different spaces but it is time to finish this room up!

PROJECT #2 – Camp Cole’s Bedroom

As in, swap out the baby/toddler room for a very requested camping-cowboy-fishing room theme. This theme was so exciting to me, and still is, when he first asked me to create something such as this but I must say that 95% of what is on the market for these themes is pretty awful.  Therefore, we are looking at a custom room, custom textiles, and a full designscape to bring this idea to life. I may need to pull Grandma in on this one for her superb sewing skills and textile creations.    The room is a cross currently from toddler-land into 4 year old bigger boy land so I have a lot of work to do in here. There great news is I can recycle/reuse a lot of pieces such as frames for artwork, curtain hardware, the bed frame, etc.   Here’s a current status pic: 

The Giant “C” came in recently and his Forrest sheets from Target. You cannot beat the price point as kids destroy everything and/or get it all dirty (bless their little hands) so we don’t have to be committed for life here.  He just really wants a room that feels like he is camping, outdoors, and maybe with a touch of cowboy in there too. So this is on my list!

PROJECT 3 – Dining Rooms

This room of my tiny cottage house has the best lines and shapes to the walls.  I love a curved entry point and the arches sold me when I first saw this house. I had a hideous contractor, of whom we shall not name, tell me he would charge me thousands to rip the arches out and patch them into a “nice square opening” for me.   I think he was insane. No, really.  Why on earth would you want to destroy the charm of these little old cottage houses?  But this room really has been on my list for too long now and I’m happy to report we got it painted out and now just have to add in the details: wall hangings, window treatments, art work – you name it.   And folks, don’t worry, that awful ceiling lamp is now gone too. 

I love the little round port window of this room – my favorite feature and as vintage as the house.  It adds so much extra charm to the room and wall for this style of house.  During various holidays, I like to hang a little something from the top of the window reflecting that time of year (an ornament, etc.) and they sparkle through the day light shining in.   While these pictures are not pretty, they reflect the ‘before’ phase that is always good to look at in the process so you can see where you want to head and, more importantly, what you want to move away from.  The beige-yellow-taupe wall color that the Realtor sprayed in the entire house is now gone to a crisp, clean white palette.

​So these will be my top three room challenges this year for 2017. We will see how far I get. I will keep updating here as things progress and document the process.  We are DIY’ers and don’t believe you need to spend a ton of money to make a space look fantastic. There are plenty of cut-the-corner tricks and tips to keep your budget on track.  With the Wee one and The Mr. I keep things fairly simply, organized, and purchase items that are durable as they have high wear/tear in my home.  

More to Follow…