our bedroom makeover part 3: the new dressers.

in case youre a new reader/missed it/forgot i was doing this series because its been so long since ive mentioned it: were in the middle of our first big home improvement project here at the meyers house: a complete bedroom makeover. if youd like to catch up, you can see our "before" pictures and read about our goals/plans in part one and check out our awesome new bed (which i am still absolutely in love with) in part two. but enough about that, its time to move on to part three: the new dressers. 
now, if you read the the post about the bed, you might remember how at the end of that project i was all "that was surprisingly easy! everything is going great! i love redecorating!". and well... that should have served as a warning for how things were going to start going once we got to the dressers. 
see, it was mid-late april when we finished up everything with the bed, and after giving ourselves (ok mostly just me) a little time to recover/get things put back together, we figured that we could get the dressers all done by the end of may (we knew they would take a bit longer since we had to sell/get rid of the old ones) and the nursery done at some point in june and everything would be all set long before it was time before baby arrives. ha. ha, ha, HA. 
heres how things actually happened: may turned out to be a crazy month with james working out of town, me having finals, james having school week, and then james working out of town some more (actually, into the first couple weeks of june), so i didnt have much help with the remaining de-cluttering we had left. which, of course, had gotten down to just jamess stuff so i couldnt do it by myself anyway. at the same time, we learned that it is surprisingly difficult to get rid of an old bedroom set. i tried for weeks to sell it as a set because that was easiest for me, but nobody wanted the whole set. so then i listed the pieces individually, and heres where things get weird: the totally trashed nightstand? that goes immediately for almost the entire asking price no problem. the dressers we eventually sold to a family who offered to take both at a slightly lower price. the mirror, the nicest, least dated, most practical piece of the whole set? crickets. (dont worry we did eventually find it a home). 
also, because things got delayed for so long, ikea apparently discontinued the dressers we had planned on buying. BUT (finally some good news here) we did pick an alternative we were happy with, AND by time the old dressers were out and we could go buy the new ones, they were on sale. 
getting everything set up and put back together ended up taking for. freaking. ever. (ok like a week) because of course james got sent out of town (then to a far-away job that made him come home really late) RIGHT when we got the new dressers home, but eventually we got everything taken care of, even if it was like, a whole month behind my original schedule. 
so how do things look now? pretty dang great if you ask me, heres the before: 

and heres the after: 

now, obviously everythings a lot tidier and more attractive and thats great and all, but heres the really mind-blowingly amazing part: EVERYTHING that was in those two huge dressers that took up the whole wall (plus all of the babys things) comfortable fit into the two dressers that take up just slightly more space than jamess dresser alone. well, actually, the footprint of the new dressers is only slightly wider than jamess old dresser, theyre actually shallower (but taller) and i have even more floor space for pattern making and fabric cutting.

one concern i did have about moving our dresser situation into something more compact was that we were going to lose a fair amount of surface area (especially considering that one of the dressers would also be babys changing table area), but that turned out to not be a problem at all since 1. the dressers were kind of just collecting clutter/messes that really belonged elsewhere, 2. my new nightstand has three drawers and actually gave a bunch of things an actual home, and 3. there was totally a bunch of junk up there that needed getting rid of (but since it was out of the way, we never bothered). 

anyway, i love the new arrangement. i love how clean and sleek and not hideous the new dressers are, how all our things take up WAY less space, and especially how i finally, for the first time ever in my entire life (that i can remember) have a little tiny part of my home that looks absolutely just the way i want it to: 

maybe this seems really silly and dramatic, but decorating doesnt come naturally to me, and over the years ive really struggled to find my personal style when it comes to homemaking, and trying to reconcile that with the fact that i hated most of the things we owned and we didnt have money to replace them made things really difficult. paralyzingly difficult. like, ive never actually felt at home anywhere weve lived up until now because so little of what we had was something i liked or chose, it was all just there. 
but now, i do know what i like: i like things mostly plain and neutral with some small personal touches. i like things to be functional and i do not like having every single available space occupied. i like empty wall space but i also like having a few special pieces of art on display. and i really, really like the way things are going in our home so far. 

our bedroom makeover. part one: the "before"

ok, so this post is totally new, uncharted territory for me. not only is this whole buying/changing furniture business something totally stressful and scary (especially since were making BIG changes), i also have never really felt all that comfortable sharing pictures of the inside of our apartment. you know, because it was always so cluttered and ugly and embarrassing. but now as we make our way through this journey to a sleek, minimal household, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable not only changing it, but also documenting and sharing those changes. i told you that this minimalism business has been life changing. 

while things in general are shifting all over the house (things getting cleaned out, moved, replaced, sold), those changes have all been on a smaller scale (typically only one small thing at a time). but our bedroom... well, over the next few months (i really, really hope we can get everything done before the baby comes in july...), its getting a complete overhaul. and honestly, it really needs it. see, with the exception of our bedding, clothes, and personal affects, there is not one. single. thing. in our bedroom that we picked or even actually like. most of it is hand-me-downs from jamess family, and im pretty sure everything else weve pulled out of the trash. im not joking. 

so here are a few "before" shots (which i kind of hesitate to call an actual "before" because weve already purged so much junk that it looks like a completely different room). while we are mostly done with our big house purge, we still havent gotten to jamess side of the closet/his dresser area, largely because previously they had been physically blocked by other piles of crap. i cant believe i just admitted that on the internet. 

now before we get into actually changing things, lets take a minute to go over the problems that need addressed here and what our goals are: 

1. the bed. i hate this bed. its a king-sized pillow top mattress that jamess mom had in storage for who knows how long before giving it to us... almost five years ago. i guess its nice if you like absurdly soft, completely unsupportive mattresses that are so tall your feet dont touch the floor when you sit on them, paying literally $100 on sheets and not having any usable floor space in your entire bedroom. unfortunately, i do not like any of those things. also take note that its just on a basic wire frame with the hideous box springs totally exposed. ive wanted a cute bed frame and a smaller, firmer mattress for years, so, a new bed and mattress are the #1 priority. 

2. the dressers. objectively, i cant really say anything bad about these dressers. theyre super solid actual wood and theyre a matching set and im sure they were very expensive new. but like the mattress they were in storage for years and not looking so hot. also, theyre totally not our style, which was something i was totally willing to overlook until i realized just how HUGE they are for how pathetically little they hold. we werent even looking for dressers the last time we went to ikea but we literally found some that could comfortably hold all of our clothes (i feel its worth noting that neither of the existing dressers is full) in about 1/2 the space. im not exaggerating. so after the beds all done, those are up next. 

3. a place to put the new baby. honestly, i wasnt in a rush to get a full blown crib because of how long alice co-slept with us/how long it was before we used ANY of her nursery furniture. BUT once we realized just how much space the new furniture was going to free up, we realized that for just a tad more money than we were going to spend on a bassinette, baby #2 could have its own mini-crib to last it to toddlerhood. unfortunately/fortunately, bedding options for mini-cribs are severely limited, so ill also need to make baby's nursery from scratch (though this is a challenge that i am totally up for/not freaking out about).

as of right now, were still working out the bed situation. but over the next few weeks i promise to keep you updated on our progress!