Do you guys want to see the finished room?
This is it! I'd picked blue for the walls a long time ago when I saw a picture from an old Martha Stewart paint advertisement with blue colored walls and some black & white framed pictures. The paint color was called "Cake Stand Blue" and even though it was discontinued, I still wanted it. My grandmother is convinced that a blue room can make you feel 10 degrees colder, and that it should have some warmed color mixed so that it's not so cold, so I MEANT to go with a color a bit on the aqua-greenish side of the spectrum, but it turned out very sky bluish - not much green. I really really like it. No reports as to the cold factor yet.
Painting was the biggest project that had to be done. First we painted the ceiling a crisp white, then the blue walls, then white trim and final touch-ups. My grandmother says a ceiling fan should be white so that it recedes into the ceiling and you don't notice it. She also says that the window curtains should be hung high - almost to the ceiling - so that your eye is drawn upward making your walls look taller and the room look bigger, but we didn't move the curtain rod. Mian installed some wooden blinds inside the window and there are flow-y white curtains on the sides. After that, Mian installed a lovely ceiling fan and changed all the electrical outlets and light switched to a matching white (which meant he had to re-wire every outlet!)
On the left of the bed is a small table for Chachoo's wife. I filled the drawer with all kinds of beauty items, face wash and moisturizer, nail clippers and tweezers. Some hair bands & clips and some hair straightening cream. Lotion, nail polish remover, cotton balls, q-tips, baby oil, talcum powder, kleenex, baby wipes & makeup remover cloths. I think that's all. I hung some hooks on the side of the table next to the wall and hung a hair dryer and straightening iron from them. There's a mirror and lamp, and under the window is a small bench that she can pull up to the table to sit down and put on her makeup. I'd hoped to have an actual dressing table - the kind you can properly sit at and put your knees under. But we ran out of time to find or build one, and we had this extra table so hopefully it will work fine until we can find something better.
The bed was my favorite part - I loooove bed linens. Crisp white bed linens are pure heaven. I have been known to iron bed sheets, but I ran out of time and the duvet wasn't too wrinkly so I didn't. I did, however, iron the pillowcases so they would have nice crisp borders and look pretty standing up. When we were leaving Pakistan in December, we had some extra space in one of our suitcases so we offered it to Chachoo's wife. Since she was coming to America soon, and it's so hard to stuff your entire life and everything you might need in only two suitcases when you're leaving to go start a new life on a new continent - any extra space helps. The light blue blanket that is folded up & sitting on the end of the bed is one of her things that we brought with us - it was a wedding gift from someone and she wanted to bring it, so I made sure it was prominently displayed.
This is it! I'd picked blue for the walls a long time ago when I saw a picture from an old Martha Stewart paint advertisement with blue colored walls and some black & white framed pictures. The paint color was called "Cake Stand Blue" and even though it was discontinued, I still wanted it. My grandmother is convinced that a blue room can make you feel 10 degrees colder, and that it should have some warmed color mixed so that it's not so cold, so I MEANT to go with a color a bit on the aqua-greenish side of the spectrum, but it turned out very sky bluish - not much green. I really really like it. No reports as to the cold factor yet.
Painting was the biggest project that had to be done. First we painted the ceiling a crisp white, then the blue walls, then white trim and final touch-ups. My grandmother says a ceiling fan should be white so that it recedes into the ceiling and you don't notice it. She also says that the window curtains should be hung high - almost to the ceiling - so that your eye is drawn upward making your walls look taller and the room look bigger, but we didn't move the curtain rod. Mian installed some wooden blinds inside the window and there are flow-y white curtains on the sides. After that, Mian installed a lovely ceiling fan and changed all the electrical outlets and light switched to a matching white (which meant he had to re-wire every outlet!)
On the left of the bed is a small table for Chachoo's wife. I filled the drawer with all kinds of beauty items, face wash and moisturizer, nail clippers and tweezers. Some hair bands & clips and some hair straightening cream. Lotion, nail polish remover, cotton balls, q-tips, baby oil, talcum powder, kleenex, baby wipes & makeup remover cloths. I think that's all. I hung some hooks on the side of the table next to the wall and hung a hair dryer and straightening iron from them. There's a mirror and lamp, and under the window is a small bench that she can pull up to the table to sit down and put on her makeup. I'd hoped to have an actual dressing table - the kind you can properly sit at and put your knees under. But we ran out of time to find or build one, and we had this extra table so hopefully it will work fine until we can find something better.
The bed was my favorite part - I loooove bed linens. Crisp white bed linens are pure heaven. I have been known to iron bed sheets, but I ran out of time and the duvet wasn't too wrinkly so I didn't. I did, however, iron the pillowcases so they would have nice crisp borders and look pretty standing up. When we were leaving Pakistan in December, we had some extra space in one of our suitcases so we offered it to Chachoo's wife. Since she was coming to America soon, and it's so hard to stuff your entire life and everything you might need in only two suitcases when you're leaving to go start a new life on a new continent - any extra space helps. The light blue blanket that is folded up & sitting on the end of the bed is one of her things that we brought with us - it was a wedding gift from someone and she wanted to bring it, so I made sure it was prominently displayed.
This is the dresser for clothes storage. I begged Chachoo to fold and arrange his clothes so that she would have plenty of space, but he still took three drawers for himself. He used the TOP ones too. (I always used to make M use the bottom drawers - leave all the bending to him!) Along with the blanket, we also brought a few of her outfits with us and I arranged them in the dresser drawers for her as well. Next to the dresser is a small basket containing extra towels and his & hers prayer rugs. On top of the dresser are a few decorative items, a Qu'ran, and a picture frame.
I had wanted to have his & hers bedroom slippers as well, so I sent Mian & Chachoo for some last minute shopping just four hours before her arrival. I had a list of five items and they returned with only two of them. Well, they had more than that, but they'd made a lot of mistakes. They brought the wrong kind of lotion and they brought these slippers that were the wrong size. Chachoo apparently didn't know his wife's shoe size and even though I DID know it, they didn't think to call and ask. So I have to return the slippers and get new ones, but I still put these in the room for appearance sake anyway.
This is the desk area, which also serves as a bedside table for Chachoo. I love the furniture - the bed and desk were gifts from my parents after our wedding. (Well, the money was, with the intention to buy furniture, but we picked them out.) We've since moved into a house with smaller rooms though, so these only fit in the largest bedroom downstairs which is Chachoo's room. It was a struggle to get Chachoo to clean up the desk area. In the end I just told him I was going to do it - giving him enough warning to remove anything he didn't want me looking at. On the top shelf of the desk is a pitcher of water and glasses that we bought so they don't have to come upstairs in the middle of the night if they're thirsty.
One of the things I was really excited about was printing out and framing some pictures of her family. I wanted to have those black & white photos from the original inspiration for the blue room. I also thought it would feel very nice after leaving your home, flying to another country and moving into a stranger's house to see the smiling faces of your closest family members on your bedroom walls. Because everything I do is absolutely last-minute, I was up until 2 o'clock in the morning picking out and editing pictures for this project. Luckily, we have a website for sharing pictures with family where we all have a folder and upload a few pictures every week or more for special events. After their engagement, I made a folder for Chachoo's wife and she used it a few times to share pictures with us of her family's special events. Between that and the photos from the wedding, I was able to get a picture of almost everyone in her nuclear family - I got her mother and two brothers, and 2 out of 3 of her sisters and all but 2 nieces and nephews. I was pretty proud of those numbers!
I was a little afraid that the pictures might make her SADDER instead of their intended effect of making her happy, but she seemed pleased with them, so thank God for that!
