Evolution of a Bedroom

As you may have noticed, I've been posting projects here that are staying in my mother's bedroom. But before all of these projects were conceived, the bedroom looked like this.




It started evolving on the day that we moved in 8 months ago. We were determined to give it a fresher look by painting the walls with Robin's Nest Egg in Behr primer and paint in one.



Once the paint was dry, we proceeded to rip out the carpets and the underlayments.



Since the floor under the carpet is concrete, I set out to put this special underlayment.



Clicking and locking these laminates took us a looong time, but it's all worth it. The floor is starting to give the room a warm and inviting feel already.



When all areas have been covered by the laminates, it was time to install the baseboards.



When the walls and floors have been upgraded, we proceeded in revamping her $10 garage sale dresser, $4.49 Goodwill junk, and made her ruffled headboard.



Not far from her angels wall art is the latest addition in my mom's bedroom - the sheer curtains to add softness and femininity in her area.



Each panel is $5 from Big Lots and we used up 3 of them - 2 for the whole width of the sliding door, and 1 more to add to the length of each panel so they will reach the floor.



To hide the seams where the two panels were sewn, a scallop stitch was done, the same scallop stitch that was used at the hem of each ruffle in her headboard.



It echoes the same scallop pattern that's found on her headboard.



I'm so happy because we didn't break the bank: for $15, we gave her room more privacy and more home-y feel.




Her bedroom now looks far different from when we first moved in. We have just proven that even with zero experience and zero background in DIY home improvements, it's possible to create a beautiful and peaceful sanctuary one can call her own. We all just plunged in to doing things that seem right and beautiful to us and learned along the way. You can say that our approach was like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants but it worked. And if we're able to do it, you can also do it. Now I can't wait to tackle our other projects in the TO-DO list :)



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Solution Found in Numbering Comments in Blogger - YAY!

I found it, my dear friends! It's so unbelievably simple and easy. Now you can go back to your merry ways of giving away valuable stuff without the cumbersome method of counting each entrant. Credits are given to Tech TNT for such simple html codes and concise tutorial in numbering my comments, and thank you for Lauren Wayne for leading me to Susie over at 1st Floor Flat Computery who in turn led me to Tech TNT. Susie's tutorial is detailed, and I highly recommend that you read her post first because she provides practical insights when tweaking your blog. Since every blog has a unique set of html codes, her tutorial led me to having the numbers to the right side of the commenter, as you can see in this picture. (This is my beta blog where I do all my experiments first before putting it live in my actual blog).



So, I further explored by following the resource links she recommended and that's how I found Tech TNT. His tutorial made it look right for me because the number is now before the name of the commenter. See it for yourself.

So, my awesome friends, remember to back up your blog template first! Happy numbering your comments :)

Is there a better way to identify the winner of your giveaway in Blogger?

Here's my dilemma, my dear friends. I never thought it will be this tedious to do a giveaway. I was all so excited to hold a giveaway for my special readers that I joyfully posted it here a week ago, not knowing the logistics involved. True, Blogger will let you know the number of entrants in your giveaway because it tells you the number of comments you received, and there's random.org that can randomly choose the winner. In this instance, it's comment #10.



Who is commenter #10? So here comes the arduous task of matching the numbers to each participant so you can identify the corresponding number that random.org generated. I saw some of you did it the old-fashioned way, writing the name and number on slips of paper, then picked one. Or just simply count the comments from top to bottom. Thank goodness entries are less than a hundred but what if they are more than that?

So for now, here's what I did. I copied all of the entries in my comments section then pasted in Notepad so as to delete all special characters and just have text. I copied the text in Notepad into an Excel file where I easily assigned numbers from 1 to 63. (I know, it's a long and inefficient way because I did this first before using random.org. I could have just counted from the top going down. Just excuse this mommy brain who is currently sick but is still glued to her blog.)



Doing this helped me determine that it's Jennifer from Life, Crafts and Whatever. She said, "I'm a follower of yours, SJ!"

Just a little shoutout: CONGRATULATIONS, Jennifer! You won a $25 CSN Gift Certificate. I'll be emailing you the code soon. Thank you, everyone, for joining in!

So, the big question is, is there a better way to identify the winner of your giveaway in Blogger? Is there some sort of an html code that I need to incorporate so each commenter has an identifiable corresponding number displayed just like in Wordpress? Please share your thoughts.

Update: I found the answer and it's found in this post.

$29.14 Ruffled Headboard

It feels like the time gremlin stole the month of February from us! It was just Valentine’s Day yesterday and now it’s already the 19th. Speaking of Valentine’s, just sharing with you the best Valentine’s present ever that I got. I’m in the middle of upgrading our master bath after winning the $250 gift card during the Mom Cave contest over at Between Naps on the Porch and finally, my dear hubby got the hint that flowers nor blings won’t make that day special for me, so we shopped together for this!



Woohoo! I used this DeWalt sander to smoothen the cabinet structure and doors of the vanity and I’m one satisfied gal. I used to sand the recently-filled holes manually but I’ll never look back after experiencing how fast and efficient this tool is. In 5 minutes, I was able to scrape off the unwanted dirty white paint and get a really smooth finish. The best part is it’s so easy to move it around the part that I’m sanding. Powerful! How about you, what special gift did you receive last Valentine’s Day?

For a while there, you might have thought that my post today is about our master bath. Gotcha there :) Actually, it’s about my mother’s ruffled headboard, the inspiration of which is this from Country Living Magazine:



Here’s how she did it:

She cut 6 pieces of 7-inch strips to make up for the ruffles part then stitched the bottom edge with scallop design.



She then marked into the backing where each strip should be sewn. (Psst..we snuck in taking this picture around 6 a.m. while Princess Two was still asleep.)



Here's a close-up of the stitches at the bottom of each ruffle.



And another. Now let's move on to the overall look, shall we?



The ruffled headboard looks so feminine and sexy and adds that much needed softness in her bedroom. On your right, you'll see the $10 garage sale dresser she turned from drab to fab. On your left is her $4.49 Goodwill junk that we initially planned to be her TV console but ended up being her nightstand.



I really like looking at it in this angle because it really radiates a girly-girly look.



This project looks so lovable and cuddly that I'm planning to recreate it in another bedroom.



Here's a breakdown of our expenses:
Fabric at $2.79 a yard x 5 = $13.95
Curtain rod on sale at $15.19
Total is $29.14

So for only $29.14, we have a unique and lovely headboard that gives a dramatic impact on my mother's bedroom wall.



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