Our very own multi-purpose room

Our old apartment was 550 square feet and our new place is 1050 square feet. Nearly doubled! With all that extra space comes rooms we didn't have before, notably a dining room and a second bedroom. Dining rooms are for dining, which we do a fair bit of (although it would be more honest to call it "eating" or perhaps "shoveling" around here). Spare bedrooms are for house guests, which we have once in a blue moon, and children, of which we don't have any. So the question presented itself: What should we do with our second bedroom?

This is what the previous owners did: 

Things we dislike: Purple walls, off-white trim.
Things we don't have: Baby

The obvious first solution was to use the space as an office. As it turns out though, our entryway is awkwardly large and absolutely needs a piece of substantial furniture in it so it doesn't feel wasted. Enter our giant rolltop desk, printer, and other office-y things (I'll post photos of this space once it's not covered in office paraphernalia, paint chips, and other assorted detritus). 

At first, we put our bed in the second bedroom while we set up our real bedroom. I loved sleeping in that room, mostly due to the ceiling fan and the woods out the window. The closet is cedar-lined as well, which seems very fancy to me. Who does that? (Answer: The same people who painted the entire house in different colors of off-white. I guess they weren't all bad.) The room isn't well suited to be our bedroom, though, because it's kind of a hallway - it has one door that leads to the entryway and one that leads to the hallway/bathroom/kitchen. The bedroom at the back of the house seemed better to me, so sleeping there full-time was not our solution. 

He's also a law student.
Photo credit to someone on facebook

We cleared everything out and Brendan (on the right) helped me paint it one day while Drew was at work. Brendan is very tall (helpful for the high parts), very funny (helpful for the part where we spend hours together), and very kind for offering to help his dinky sister in law paint things. He also came to Ikea with me one day, which turned into quite an adventure and ended with him getting stuck in the trunk. Story for another day.

From santorini.com

Drew requested a blue room, so I searched for a blue that wasn't too dark and wasn't too "baby blue" either. The woman who helped me pick the living room color wasn't working the day I went to the hardware store to choose the blue. In response to my request for help, the hardware store guy said "Don't worry about it. People put too much stock in color choices. Just pick a blue and paint the wall with it." Thanks, dude. Really. Very helpful. I'm not very good at controlling my facial expressions, so I think he knows I don't appreciate him very much. Whoops. All by myself, I chose "Santorini Blue," which looks nothing like the blue commonly associated with Santorini.

The blue is much more New England-y than Mediterranean, which is probably good because we're in New England. Here's the room with fresh, white trim and Santorini Blue on the walls: 

Once the room was painted, we had to resume figuring out what to put in it. Too many books leads to a bookshelf on one wall:

Hitler and WWI books, banished from the living room

One of my favorite girlfriends from law school, Kate, kindly offered us her futon. Her mother told her in no uncertain terms not to bring it home after law school, so I'd like to think that we all won. Really though, Drew and I won because Kate stayed with us this weekend (upcoming post: Painting the dining room during a hurricane), we put her to work, and we got to hang out before she left Beantown (sad). 

Once the futon was installed, I decided that we had enough walls painted and enough furniture in its proper place around the house to start hanging stuff on the walls. Exciting because now we won't have blank walls! Stressful because now I'm going to put holes in the walls that will probably be off kilter and cause me headaches! I decided to start big with a photo collage above the futon. We had one of these in our bedroom at our old apartment and it was less than perfect. We nailed a bunch of photo hangers up and hung things on the wall, which resulted in lots of uneven spacing. This time, I decided to be a wee bit more precise. 

There were lots of ideas using butcher paper (which some people just have laying around, apparently), but I went old school and used notebook paper, which I cut to the size of each frame and stuck to the wall. I marked where the nails needed to go, hammered them in (sorry neighbors!) and tore off the paper. 

It worked like a charm! 

If you ever come visit us, this is where you'll stay. Until then, it's a nice place to sit and look out the window and/or read books about Nazis. Hooray!