ROOM LUDington daily news SATURDAY, March 14, 2015
A look at the
Reveal ROOM Watch the paper to find out who wins a room renovation worth up to $2,000!
It’s the Safe Harbor Credit Union & Ludington Daily News
ROOM PATTI KLEVORN | Daily News
Julie Ann McDonald, homeowners Kelli and Tim Smith (front and center) and Stephen and Keri Sipes show off the room they renovated together.
A lucky local homethe owner will winabout a room make-over Homeowners ‘over moon’ redesignon
March 6 and 7, with the help of Safe Harbor Credit Union, the sponsors shown below and our professional designer and contractor!
ROOM
By PATTI KLEVORN News Editor
T
im and Kelli Smith asked for a “beachy” feel for their upstairs bedroom. What they received — and helped work for — surpassed their expectations. The two said they are “over the moon” about the outcome of the Ludington Daily News Room Redo. Julie Ann McDonald of Old McDonald’s Farm Finds provided the design (and several 12-hour days of physical labor) and Stephen and Keri Sipes of Benchmark Homes (with help from employee Chris Bevier) provided the construction work. Together with the help of the Smiths, the room was transformed from a 1960s/’70sera lime green-walled, brownsculptured carpeting room into a fresh, calming-blue/white/ tan “lake house retreat,” as Tim calls it now. Everything was removed from the room and the Smiths took it upon themselves to re-
Our Designer Julie Ann McDona
OK? It was amazing. The outcome was stunning, and McDonald decided that with all their hard work — and with more coats of polyurethane to come — she would help get the walls and ceiling primed and painted early so that when the furniture was moved in, it could stay in place and not have to be moved back out and then in again. So, while the project originally was intended to last only two days, March 6 and 7, Julie, Kelli and Tim’s father, Gary, started at the room first thing Monday morning, March 2. They worked 12-plus-hour days to prime and paint. “Because it was lime green, we had to prime everything,” Julie said. It took two coats of ceiling paint to cover the bright color, even with the initial coat of primer. “The lime green was just hideous,” she said. They worked into Tuesday night, then Tim’s brother, Scott, came over and added coats of finish to the floor, meaning the
Our Contractor
Stephen Sipes and his wife, Tim and Kelli Smith shared this “before” picture with their application for Keri the Room Redo. They were selected as one of four finalists for a home
ROOM
visit in the project, which drew more than 75 applications. After visiting the homes, the designer and builders decided the Smiths’ room was best for the project.
Old McDonald’s finish the floor before the renovations began. In one 13-hour work marathon, Tim and Kelli pulled up the rubber-backed carpeting, scraped the hard, dry glue from the floor and sanded it to reveal the natural
BENCHMARK HOMES
red oak the way it was intended to look when the home was built in the 1940s. “We love it,” Tim said. “We just didn’t want to hold anyone up,” Kelli said. “We hoped it would be OK.”
Farm Finds
work crew had to leave the room alone for two full days. The project included lots of learning experiences, from the floor to the decor. “It gave us the confidence to do it ourselves,” Tim said. Julie taught Tim and Kelli how to repurpose the furniture for the room, the original bed and dresser, and the extra pieces she’d brought in the for the project. They sanded, painted, sanded and stained. Here’s the process for a side table she had purchased from a second-hand store: • sand with rough sandpaper to get the polyurethane off • paint with spray paint •sand again to give that shabby chic look • use a rag to put stain over the white, giving it more vintage look • apply wax over the top of it and buff it off to give the furniture a water barrier without changing the look “By about Day 2 I had to realize I just had to shut up and trust her,” Kelli said.
of West Michigan L.L.C.
Videos and more content at www.ludingtondailynews.com. Click on Room Redo in the black bar at the top of the website.
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