Before and After: Mum's Pine Box

Mum has defeated the seemingly unconquerable obstacle of this wretched cold and has applied the finishing touches to her pine box.   

Hurrah.

Well, pictures aren't up yet, but everything else is in place.  So prepare yourself to witness an extreme makeover of epic proportions.  

To refresh your memory - BEFORE.

So what you're seeing is a whole lot of vertical blinds covering oddly angular windows, and enough pine cladding to rival a Swedish sauna showroom.  There's also an enormous drop-down drafting table attached to the wall on the left side.

What you're not seeing, and what I don't seem to've documented, is the pine ceiling and the 1980s vanity unit right next to where I'm standing.

And now, drumroll...

The plantation shutters cost an absolute fortune

but without them the room wasn't habitable,

so they were definitely worth it.  

The paint job through the lower half of the room remains
somewhat dubious not to mention they should've been covered
in semi-gloss, not low-sheen wall paint.  But the effect is what
we were after, even if the finish isn't what a sane person
would pay for.

The tall cabinet occupies the space 

previously inhabited by the vanity unit.  

I love this room.  The potential was always there for it to be interesting and stunning, and now it's been realised.  

Mum's made it into her bedroom, although with all the light it gets (having big windows facing north and east, and a small window facing west) it could've also been a lovely dayroom.  

Yes, very happy with the outcome here, overall...

Mum's Pine Box.

The biggest challenge of the House at Porter Street, decoration and function wise, is indubitably Mum's pine box, aka the Room formerly know as Rumpus, aka Mum's bedroom.


It is north east and east facing and has two oddly shaped, and one enormous standard window, on three sides, so at practically all day times (other than a total eclipse) the light in this room will be blinding.  There is a giant fold down table which will be removed. There is handy storage space inside the wall cavity in place of any insulation (not so handy).  There is also a bathroom vanity installed just next to where I stood to capture this delightful and ponderous image.


Mum's pine box is going to be baking in summer, brrrrrrrr in winter and glaring all year round.

Walls and ceiling of pine (uninsulated), 

irregularly shaped windows on three sides 

combined with fear and loathing of vertical blinds - 

herein lie some the challenges of this room.

I daren't ask why...

We will be painting out the timber in "White on White" gloss to create a blank canvas and satisfy an overwhelming desire to purge the room of all that knotty, Scandinavian sauna-style blondness.
  

After the expunging, the next imperative will be to find a streamlined solution to cover all those windows.  You can't see it from this picture, but the ceiling is vaulted, and the upper frames of the windows run parallel to the bottom frames. (I'm thinking rhombus or trapezium.) The obvious answer is the vertical blind, but for us, this is no solution.    

Did I mention yet that the room's location, over the garage, means that anyone looking might be able to see in from the street or the neighbouring house?  (This is the only room in the house where this is the case.)  So I'm a bit in love with the idea of blinds that go from the bottom up.

Luxaflex Duette Literise Shades

Or plantation shutters...but I shudder to think how much they'd cost...

www.yourplantationshutters.com.au

And then you'd have to do a drape from floor to ceiling...but, can you do a drape that has a diagonal track that doesn't look mutated?  Or would you just put a horizontal track across the window (visible from the outside)?

I always say I'm up for a challenge, and love a parameter.  However, I need to remember to be careful what I wish for, because this room is the mother of both.

And this is the mother of me.

My lovely Ma, in the midst of the

pine challenge.