from the nato’s: attic renovation. before and after pictures.

we re-did our attic this year. every time a guest came in town, we had to farm them out to relatives or they could sleep on our couch. that's not awesome. we needed a rad space for our friends. enter, the gross, dark, barn-ish attic. picture it in your head right now...scary movie attic...dusty...dirty...smelly.... do you have that thought in your head? good, because i lost the pictures of what it really looked like before. all we have is this picture from my husband's phone. enjoy. the stairs going up to the attic were like a ladder. very steep. so they had to be ripped out and re-done. we lost some closet space in the kid's rooms, but who cares. they don't need clothes. we went with dark stain. against white walls and trim, it pops quite a bit. at first it scared me. but then i was like, wait, i love this.

right when you get to the top of the stairs, there's a tiny little nook. we didn't want it to go to waste...so we made a little bungalow with 2 twin beds. slumber party central. layne and his buddies have already taken advantage of this little ditty.

the second dormer is a little reading area. or, if we put a mattress gate up, it can sleep a tiny baby when guests come. it is, after all, just a crib mattress that is upholstered. throw on a bunch of pillows and BOOM. comfy.

the third dormer is in the bathroom. the glorious bathroom. we went old school in here, since our house is colonial style. and subway and hexagon tiles never go out of style. i just adore bead board too...so that had to be added.

i love that guests will have their own bathroom on their own floor. there's nothing more awkward than walking in on a friend taking a number 2. neither of you will ever forget it even though you will pretend like you have.

anyway, on that awkward note, let's go back out into the main space shall we?

and then the back nook. a place for eating snacks, working, or pretending to do something awesome.

i did paint the very bottoms of the feet gold for a little flair. give the girl some fancy shoes, i always say.

i simply bought metallic gold paint at the craft store and painted 5 coats with a paintbrush. 'twas easy. and i saw this idea somewhere on the mighty interwebs.

i wrapped a map, that i bought at a bookstore for $10, around a canvas so that the pin could actually stick through easily. the canvas was a little smaller than the map so some of maine and california are cut off. people will have to deal with this in their hearts. no one likes main or california anyway.

Continued here:
from the nato's: attic renovation. before and after pictures.