A “Hospital-Scrub Green” Bedroom Becomes a Calming Retreat for Just $400
Some homes are family heirlooms, and it takes TLC to have them survive for generations. Brittany’s home used to be her grandmother’s. “I grew up about 20 minutes away, so I spent a few days a week in this house as a little girl,” she says.
Next door to Brittany’s house is the house her great-grandparents purchased circa 1910 after coming to the United States from Slovakia, and the land has stayed in the family: Her aunt and uncle live on the other side, and her 90-year-old great-uncle still lives across the street.
Brittany says transforming her grandmother’s house into her own “has been heartwarming and meaningful.” Her grandma actually used this space as a guest room, but Brittany chose to make it the primary bedroom “as a way to establish the house as my own by making the use just a bit different than she had,” she says. “Plus, it had a larger closet.”
The big difference-maker was repairing the walls.
Prior to moving in, “the walls and ceiling were in rough shape — peeling and cracking,” Brittany describes. The “hospital-scrub green” wall paint — as she puts it — was from the ’70s or ’80s, and the light brown carpet was around the same age. Brittany’s family helped repair the walls before she moved in.
“Washing the walls and then patching them before trying to paint made the biggest difference in the finish quality,” she says, and she selected Sherwin-Williams’ Sea Salt paint. Brittany says the color “is perfectly shape-shifting: sometimes greenish, sometimes blueish depending on the light.”
The homeowner describes the bedroom style as minimal, vintage, and cottage.
Although Brittany was hesitant to remove any of the hand-cut trim in the bedroom, she’s glad she decided to remove the wooden box valances. “Their removal visually elongated the windows,” she says. She also tore up the 1970s carpet to reveal hardwood floors.
One vintage element worth keeping, Brittany says? The light fixture. “No boob lights here!” she says. The room also features some family heirloom furniture pieces: The bed was a gift from Brittany’s aunt, and the dresser belonged to her grandmother. But there are some new additions, too, like the art print, duvet cover, and new rug from Wayfair.
“I love that a formerly unused bedroom is now my cozy and serene retreat,” Brittany says.
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