A Castle Room and Princess Dress for Reeve's Magical Sleepover

A magical reunion with Reeve

It had been five months since my granddaughter Reeve had been to our house

 and she finally was coming back for a two night sleepover!

She always stayed in the guest room, but I had just 

put up a stone arch wall mural and I feared she would miss her old room.

I had the idea to turn the room for her into a castle room, and she would be the princess.

             It was an easy switch to just add princess type details to the bed and the room and voila!

                                               A castle room was waiting for its princess.

                            Next I searched online and found one of my favorite dresses from the 

                           Disney princess movies, Frozen's Princess Anna's coronation dress.  

            It's Scandinavian charm is so much more lovely to me than the icy blue gown that Elsa wears.

                         Sharing a screenshot of the listing on Amazon, 

where they had lots of princess dresses to choose from.

        The quality was amazing and the day Reeve arrived, so too did the package holding her dress.

                                It was time to go upstairs and show her the "Castle Room"!

                         The first thing she did was climb up into the bed with the little princess sheets.

                                I had made big pillows out of The Company Store clearance section.

                   The stone arch paper from Photowall was the perfect backdrop for a Princess bedroom.

                   Then it was off to rediscover all the things she remembered about her Grammy's house.

                                                 Like her Grammy's French Dollhouse....

The view to the city out of the window....

She wore it the entire day and even took her nap in it.

She even went next doors to show Grammy Claire, my MIL how

beautiful her new dress was!

It made a long awaited visit to her Grammy and Grampy's house

a magical experience that we will always remember.

We even had a princess photo shoot.

This coronavirus had made us miss our little one, and I know many

of you are missing your grandchildren too.  Making our reunion a

little more magical was so easy with this $20 dress and the idea that 

she had a princess room in a castle! 

We had such fun dressing up together!!

PS Read the Dramatic Wallpaper Mural post here

I am offering my readers a 25% discount until the end of August 2020

using the discount code amymaisondecor25

Visit Photowall to see all the amazing murals and wall treatments here.

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Dramatic Bedroom Mural

Our guest bedroom got a new look with a photo mural.  

We updated the room because our son's best friend, Kai,

 is coming to live with us while they start their college freshman year

together at our home, because of the Coronavirus situation. 

 The boys will be taking over the second floor of the house, 

which will serve as their college dorm!

I wanted the room to have a completely new look for the guys.

These murals are actually photos that are blown up and made into wallpaper strips

 to fit the exact dimension of the wall you want to cover.  I was excited to

collaborate with this Swedish company, PhotoWall, and selected a rustic brick

arch wall called "Arch Ruin" as the backdrop for our guest room

 from the thousands of images they stock. 

Look for my 25% discount code at the end

of this blog post for your own order from Photowall!

The wallpaper mural comes with a package of powdered wallpaper paste. 

Mixed up with a gallon of water in a bucket, it was ready to use in  5 minutes.

  I also ordered the $18 wallpaper tool kit so that I would be all set 

when it was time to rock and roll. 

I have hung a ton of wallpaper in my life yet this set up from PhotoWall is a little bit 

different than anything I had seen before.  The roll of wallpaper is continuous, yet has 

each strip numbered, and you cut it with scissors when you are moving on to the next strip.

Simply cut along the dotted line....

You apply the paste on the wall where the strip will go first, 

so I measured out 18" and made a small pencil mark to give 

me a rough guideline for the paste.

                     Apply the paste with the brush to the section of wall next to the strip you just hung.

                        The paste has some globs in it but they brush right out with the wallpaper brush.

This wallpaper was the easiest paper I had ever hung, 

and I was finished with the wall in just two hours. 

Now it was time to style the room....

First I decided to put the bed on the angle so

we could take in the dramatic backdrop of the wall mural.

But wait....do you remember what it use to look like?

When last used this room it had the dollhouse  as well as the pastoral murals

I had painted on the walls giving the room a feminine romantic artistic effect.

It was very pretty, but wouldn't work for a college guy.

So, before I began my wallpapering I painted 

 over the lilac stripe at the top of the room as well as the murals so 

they wouldn't show any trace of pattern through the wallpaper mural.

And two hours later I had a whole new wall of brick!!!

Everyone loves the new look! 

I was able to reuse many of the things we already had in our home, 

including lamps with burlap shades, some Ralph Lauren beige linen pillow covers

my modern office desk chair, and the grey and white checked curtains from Ballards.

Piper gives it a thumbs up too!

Use  Photowall if you want to create a dramatic new look with ease.

All my readers can get 25% off any order of Photowall products

 until the end of August 2020 by using the promo code

amymaisondecor25 for your discount. 

With everyone at home more than ever now because of the coronavirus,

this is an awesome way to improve everyday spaces in your home.

I am already planning my next mural!

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Pretty Swedish Style Wallpaper for my Staircase

I am excited to share my recent wallpaper project.

The layout of  our house has the entryway and staircase

practically in our living room.  Its always been a design challenge,

how to separate but not ignore the staircase.

 Adding a pretty wallpaper to the stair wall that faces the living room made a 

world of difference. It goes to show that these often overlooked spaces

really can add instead of detract from the overall decor of a room.

 Inches away from the bland and boring stair case,

 our living room is a pretty mix of blue, grey and white.

A sheer curtain helps to create a privacy shield.  

And as soon as the paper went up, I felt like why had I waited so long?

I selected a paper that had a Swedish Country look, and has my favorite colors. 

The paper is made by Wallpops.  NuWallpaper is the type that is peel and stick.

 It is self adhesive and can be repositioned, making it practically foolproof. 

 The Wallpops people sent me three rolls of the pattern I selected, Mirable Medallion.

A tool kit for cutting and smoothing, also from Wallpops, 

was one of the only tools I needed,

besides a level and a tape measure and a pair of scissors. 

Even though I have had experience putting up wallpaper, 

I can tell you that this is so much easier and no mess.

I got started right away, using my dining room table 

to roll out the paper and cut the first piece.

 Working left to right you must make sure your first strip is put on straight.

Make a pencil line on the wall using a level, so when you hang the first piece,

the right hand edge of the paper butts up to the pencil line.  Smooth it into position.

Then trim off the edges with the razor knife.  That is it. Super easy. Super fast.

After the first strip is in position, you can do the next strips by lining them 

up to the edge of the first strip, matching the pattern.

If you mismatch, just peel it away and try again. 

As many times as you need to...

This paper is great for people in apartments that aren't allowed to do things to their walls.

And its great for serial decorators like me, that like to change things more often than not.

Because when you are done, you simply peel it off, without damaging the walls.

Feature walls, backs of bookcases and hutches and stair risers are some other ideas that you

can tackle with NuWallpaper by Wallpops.  

My friend Cheryl used it for the interior of a china cabinet. 

 Isn't that a pretty idea?

This is a fast and fairly easy DIY project. 

I started after lunch on a rainy day, and finished the next morning.

(Its best to wallpaper in bright natural lighting so you can see if 

any air bubbles need to be smoothed out with the wide smoother thingy.)

I chose to do only the wall that faces the living room, and it took

a bit less than the three rolls.  I also liked that the repeat of the pattern 

in this paper was about 5" which means there was not much waste 

when matching the pattern.  

It has added so much appeal to our entry space.

The view from the living room shows how it has finished off the space.

Its all in the details, as they say!  

Note:  This is a sponsored post.

Wallpops provided the product, but all opinions are my own. 

I loved this paper so much, I am already looking around for another place

to freshen up with another pretty pattern from NuWallpaper. 

To view more beautiful wallpaper patterns visit Wallpops.com here 

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