16 Dec 2017 Funky Frugal: New life to old bones

by Tanner Cangelosi 

A few months ago, we went for a quick visit to my in-laws. Their home looks like “Gone with the Wind” and is always welcoming, from their food to the people that greet you at the door. It is a lovely place to visit.  

We knew we would stay two nights, so we had no plans on this short stay. My mother-in-law mentioned in passing how they wanted to redo one of the upstairs bedrooms and make a playroom for all their grand babies. They have 18!  

As Cory and I laid down for bed that night, I looked at him and asked, “Would it be crazy if I tried to redo that room tomorrow?” He said that it would, but it hadn’t stopped me before.  

I told Mimi that if she could give me a few hours of keeping my kids, that I wanted to make her a surprise. I had visions of taking the dated wallpaper and bringing those walls up to date with fresh paint and rearranging.  

I started by purchasing a great primer to paint right over the wall paper. If this had been a bathroom, I would have taken the time to take off the wall paper because with the moisture, it would bubble.

But I chose to paint right over it in this office space. It was not a perfect paint job, but only a professional would probably spot the mistakes. Priming took the longest, and then I followed that up with a nice coat of light gray.  

After the painting was done, I decided to spray paint some items — lamps, clothespins, picture frames — in a fun turquoise. This was fast and saved my budget.  

Next, I recovered the futon in a fitted sheet from Walmart and took some simple acrylic paints to doodle on the walls. I did a mural of a family tree with all the grandkids’ names on it, along with a Winnie the Pooh quote (one of Mimi’s favorites). Then I hung some things she already had in different spots around the room. 

Finally, I enlisted my husband to hang boards with brackets as shelves. You see, Mimi loves pictures. And she never gets rid of any of them — she loves her people so much! These pictures were cluttering up all the tables, so these simple shelves solved that problem with a place to display the pictures out of the way of little hands.

This was such a fun project for under $100! We blindfolded them and did a reveal like on HGTV. That was the most fun part! Mimi’s reaction was worth every hour spent in that room. My kids still talk about how fun it was getting to surprise their Mimi.