While Adam was out...

While Mom, Mandy, and I were bashing around, and the boys were either working or watching the college boys' basketball playoffs, Mandy came up with the brilliant idea to re-do their roommate's room in a way reminiscent of the TLC show "While You Were Out." For those of you unfamiliar with this show, one person solicites the help of the show to surprise their spouse/friend/family member with a make-over of one of the rooms of their home as a surprise while they are away.

Adam, Mandy and Scott's long-time friend, groomsman in their wedding, fellow army doctor, and all-around great guy, was away on the Big Island the whole time we were there, doing military training, leaving us complete access to his suite! Adam is very busy, so his poor little room, maybe not so little, hasn't even been unpacked yet, and as a thrifty bachelor, he doesn't necessarily go out of his way to beautify his space, so we thought we'd do a few things, leave all tags attached to the things we bought in case he hated it, and have some fun sister-mom-sister bonding time in the process. Mandy didn't even hint to him that she might've been thinking about this, so this was a total surprise to him!

Here are the before pictures, hopefully Adam doesn't mind me sending these out into cyber space, but really, not horrible, just needing some tender, loving care, and again, imagine the life of an army doctor/resident: little if any time to eat and sleep, busy with patients, rounds, long nights on-call, in addition to all his responsibilities in the army, no time to unpack silly boxes and decorate your room. Bedroom, little hallway with ginormous walk-in closet on the left, ending in full bath...





































And now, ta-dah! The after pictures... There were a few things we had to keep as-is: the curtains were not a bad color, and because there were so many of them, we figured we'd save the money to replace them, and just work them into the color scheme. And because the house is rented, we couldn't really do much painting. In keeping the sort of creamy yellow curtains and the black couch, we needed to find a way to blend to darker cooler colored couch with the softer warmer toned curtains. Mandy kind of thought that going with a tropical, Asian-influenced motif would be a safe and a nice bet for Adam so away we went! We moved the bed at an angle into the room so that it is one of the first things you see when you come in; it faces the hallway to the bath and his entertainment set, while placed nicely between sliding doors which open out onto the lanai and to the pool area which when they are open, catch the best breeze. We also bought him a new bedspread in a delicious chocolate brown velvet with just a couple beads hanging off the corners to give interest, and accented with greens and golds. On his beloved couch (which Mandy said he might be sad if we covered it), we added the golds, greens, and browns with a throw blanket and a few pillows to tie the rest of the room together and give comfort and warmth in color to the black couch. We moved the couch to the far wall between the wall-mounted lamps, bought/made a couple of end tables and a faux-leather ottoman to make a sitting area. And we moved his taller entertainment center to a wider wall, away from the main doorway, to open up the room. To bring everything together, and keeping with the luxury of the bed and the tones of the room, I snapped some pictures of some greenery around their yard, and we framed pictures of palms, aloe vera, croatin plants, and other nicely colored and textured greenery. We added some slik plants (in his busy-ness, Adam may not have time to keep live ones healthy), some candles to add atmosphere and yummy smells, a few items of interest including an interesting mirrored piece that hangs over the couch, a cool drum-shaped something-or-other that stood nicely on his entertainment stand and gave height and depth, and a feline figurine, stretched out on its back and slumbering, reminiscent of Kili and Hobbes, who Adam is quite fond of! You can see from a few of these pictures that they love his new room; we tried to keep them out as we were working to keep them from shedding on his new bedspread and such, but they literally waited by the doors to come in and relax in the new setting! Down the hall in the bathroom, we hung a few more framed palms and a palm tree from their yard; the shower curtain already had little palm trees on it and fit well into our scheme. Mandy and Mom were going to try and pick up a couple of other items to fill his little shelves above his comode, but even with out, it's amazing what a couple of pictures can do! So that's that. Mandy called the other day and said that Adam really liked his new room, so I think I can count this as success #2 in my "while you were out"ing escapades (ask Sarah and Kim Knuth about our first, got before pics of that one, but not after...) Thanks for being a gentleman, Adam, and letting the gals play! Hope we didn't invade your space to harshly!