From the get-go, this room had more personality than any other in the house.

I mean, look at this fireplace feature. It screams at you as you walk in the room.

Not necessarily the “belle of the ball,” but sort of cool. Definitely worth embracing.

First came the paint…

Next came a new entertainment center…

We have a WONDERFUL Amish furniture store in town. I would gladly take one of everything! We lucked up with this unit. It was marked down because it was a floor model and they wanted to make room for new samples. The craftsmanship is unsurpassed.

Then came the flooring…

This flooring was a sort of vinyl plank… somethin’ or another…

It was hard to get off and it shredded like cardboard.

To replace it, we wanted to go with something durable and sustainable. We decided to go with a bamboo at Lumber Liquidators. We did our research. We looked at samples in the store and finished rooms online before making the decision to purchase.

The sample we saw in the store essentially looked like this:

Nice, natural, variegated… However, we discovered (upon opening the boxes) that the dark tones on every single plank is sprayed on in a fairly consistent pattern. That was a bit disappointing – but also the risk you take when you order flooring online. There is a 20% restocking fee (which equaled a pretty substantial chunk of change) so we opted to go with it.

The end result isn’t as terrible as we expected, though.

Yes, there is a definite pattern, but it’s still a huge improvement over what was there.

Once the flooring was complete, we went on to check that everything else was in a semi-decent state. This meant checking the windows, skirtings, light fittings, and electrical outlets. Next, we needed to figure out how to fix loose electrical outlets, and thankfully it was an easy job to do with the help of online resources. Once these things were done, we could finalize the last finishing touches in the room and start working on getting our furniture moved in!

A little unpacking, fluffing, and new window valances (I used McCall’s 3632) and we are in pretty good shape!

And there’s a place for our collection of lucky little guardians!