For months and months and months, I have promised all of you blog readers a photo dump of my on-going bedroom renovation project known as Operation Vintage Makeover.

Well, I'm pleased to announce that today, I'm delivering on that promise! This post will concentrate on the cleaning process, which occurred between October 2017-February 2019. Photos were taken several months apart to give a semblance of progress - I should note that I didn't constantly work on my room, but tackled it in small pieces.

And now, I will escort my dear reader into the Wayback machine and we will go back to October 20, 2017. It was on this rather ordinary, unremarkable date that Catherine Hawthorn kicked off her room renovation by taking several pictures. Lot of work they were, LOL.

To give you a bit of background, I had just come home the previous week from a failed stint at an out-of-state graduate school. 3 months before, I had come home from a summer internship, which was also out-of-state. And then 3 months before that, I had come home from graduating college (which was again....out-of-state).

Needless to say, there was a lot of luggage...in addition to all the other mess that had been steadily accumulating over the other 12 or so years that I've lived in this room....which you can see in all it's glory in the following 3 photos.

East Wall - taken October 20, 2017

South/West Walls - October 20, 2017

West/North Walls - October 20, 2017

East/South Walls - December 18, 2017

With most of the luggage and "big" items such as the appliances moved into a "permanent" home in the basement, much more of my room was not only visible, but acceptable. In this picture, you can now see the desk and some of the storage containers that I house my craft supplies in.

It was now time to sort out all of the junk. And believe me, that was a task in and of itself. Already, several bags of clothes had been taken out of the closet and clothes drawers, which allowed me to close them properly for the first time in years *ignores dresser drawer hanging open*.

You may notice that at night, the room is extremely dark. There is, in fact, no central light or chandelier in the room. True to the inexplicable style choice of the nineties, there is no central lamp source and the two switches in the room only control half of the outlets. I could write a whole treatise on how nineties lighting really stinks.

West Wall - December 18, 2017

For anyone that is wondering, the three pictures above my bed are The Divine Mercy, Our Lady of the Angels, and a holy card with Mary's picture on it. That latter holy card is extremely precious to me, as a priest friend of ours gave me it in receipt of a picture that I gave him as a child. 


By the time March 2018 rolled around, I had figured out how to fit most of the room into one panoramic picture instead of three. I simply had to stand in my doorway....figures that it would be a simple solution to a seemingly daunting problem.The only wall that isn't visible is the one with my closet.

East-West Walls - March 10, 2018

*gasp* There is indeed a floor!

During this time, I had packed up a lot of the extra craft supplies and clearing out all of the broken trash that was littering the place. I told you, the packrat gene is strong with this one.

About six months later, I finally was able to clear most everything off the floor and vacuum it for the first time in ages. Of course, I had to document it with a picture - my family wouldn't believe it otherwise. Literally, they didn't. I may or may not have a reputation....

East-West Walls - October 20, 2018

And there is the peach carpet in all it's disgustedness. Actually, to be quite honest, that's not the worst of it. The furniture is hiding a lot of the stains. When we do the carpet reveal, you'll see what I mean. 

I didn't realize this until I was adding in the captions, but this above photo was taken ONE YEAR TO THE DATE of the first photos being taken. Talk about freaky?!

But does it surprise anyone that it took a full year to clear out all the junk on the floor, considering what I started with?? 



This next picture may seem out of place, as there are items on the floor again. But, I assure you, it is indeed a later picture.

East-West Walls - February 9, 2019

Had I decided to take this picture in the daylight, the differences would have been far more noticeable. Because of this operator error, I'll spoil what's different.

All of the art was stripped from the walls, so that the latter could be spackled. Ugh, there were so many holes in those walls, I wish I could joke about it. 

In the far corner next to the bookcase, there is an empty space where the desk was. Within a few days of that picture being taken, the desk had been moved out into the family office to house my desktop. Believe me, it was a heap more useful that that silly record cabinet....

Also, the bed has been raised about 5 inches in this photo. In order to have the under-bed storage actually *hem* go under the bed, I had to raise it up. Besides, I was used to having my bed raised in college and missed the height.

Oh, and in this picture is a sneak peak of the black lace veil that I am in the middle of making at this moment (it's the white board with the black flowers on it). 



This last picture was taken on the morning of the 16th of February - again, a rather unimportant date. Between February 9 and February 16, a lot of things happened. All of the the loose items got packed away, the storage cabinets and the closet door (among other things) were shoved into my brother's room (which was unoccupied, at the time), furniture was moved....so much work!

East-West Walls - February 16, 2019

You can get a foretaste of what is about to happen from the paint samples on the wall. These had been added days previously, but that is for another time.

(is it just me, or does the room seem a lot smaller because of the lack of...stuff? Weird how the eye tricks things, doesn't it? 

Soon after this picture was taken, there was another moving of furniture, which will be much more apparent when you see the post detailing the actual painting process, which will be in a couple of weeks!

And now it's your turn! What's the longest time you've taken to clean your room? Are you also a packrat? What is something that you've left in your room from when you were a child? Any mystery items that you found in my room that you want to know the story of? Chat with me in the comments! 

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine