I was a little weary of posting my bedroom pictures because they're just so.... awful. My taste has changed so much in the last two years, so combine that with an only partially finished bedroom, and you have a grumpy pants on your hands. It is funny that the master is usually the last room to get decorated. I understand, of course, because it's the room people see the least often, but it is also such an important room. I mean, you fall asleep and wake up in there. You might do other things in there too that don't involve sleeping. Whatever that may be. But I think what ties us to our bedrooms so emotionally, is that for a good chunk of our lives, probably at least 18 years of it, our bedroom was all we had. The bedroom in your childhood home was YOUR space. It was the only part of your home that belonged to you in some sorts, and I think that carries over into adulthood. Even now that I have a whole home to decorate and call my own, the cornerstone of this home is our bedroom.
The long and short of our bedroom story is that we moved into our townhouse mid-Feb of 2010. Mid-April I hosted our housewarming party. We had two months to move our stuff, unpack and get decorated. Two months is not a lot of time to start decorating a home, let alone finish it. When I look back at photos from that time, our house was BARELY done. Not a wall painted. Not a curtain hung. Barely any wall art (most of it laid on the floor in our guest room). But, I was so excited just to have a home, and I knew if I waited for it to be "finished" that I would never have the chance to host a housewarming party, and I was really really excited about it. So, I let go of my undecorated fears and threw it all to the wind. I figured I would try to get as much done as I could, but what I couldn't do, well, I couldn't do.
For some reason, the only rooms I actually did do were the master bedroom and ensuite. Must have had something to do with those nostalgic emotions I talked about earlier. Must be. Anyways, the day before our housewarming I decided it was a good plan to wallpaper. By myself. With unpasted wallpaper. For the first time. Not so smart. I scored this lovely teal and gold damask wallpaper on ebay for $7 a roll. Incredible, I know. I figured since I had this gorgeous stuff in my house, it needed to go somewhere, so feature wall it was! The task was tedious and since I was wallpapering by myself until 4:30 in the morning, it's also not a very well done job. It looks okay from afar, but it is HORRENDOUS up close.
It's not just the poorly hung wallpaper that is the problem. We also left the builders bege paint on the other walls of the room which I absolutely hate. My bedframe does not match the headboard. My craigslist free dresser which I painted (and subsequently ended up breaking my puppy's leg with a drawer that fell over during the painting process which cost $500 in vet bills making this dresser the FURTHEST thing from free) is not nearly as pretty as I had imagined. My mirrored side tables are too dinky and lack storage. My side lamps are not to scale with the room. We don't have window treatments. My ottoman at the foot of the bed is mocha and espresso (the worst- for me).
About the only things I love about our room are: our incredible comfy mattress (wedding gift from in-laws) and my painted chandelier. The chandelier belonged to my great grandmother, which then ended up in the hands of my grandparents. A year before he died, my incredible, wonderful, most amazing in the world grandfather gifted it to me for a housewarming gift. He even took it out of its' box, installed it and hung all the crystals on it in his home in Ontario to see if it worked and to take photographs to send to me to see if I would like it. Well, I loved it and he boxed it up and shipped it across the country. It was a combo of brass and silver, so I sprayed her white, and I will never, ever let go of this thing. If we ever get transferred to some remote island in Indonesia without electricity, I will still bring this chandy with me.
So now that you've seen the photos, and heard my vent on everything I do not love about this room, perhaps you can see where I am going. This baby is getting a makeover, and she's getting it fast. What do I have in store? Well, Mrs. Listy Listerson will start a list, of course!
- Strip wallpaper and prep walls for painting.
- Paint bedroom walls a light shade of grey.
- Paint ottoman legs white and reupholster.
- Decide which headboard/bedframe to use (either guest room set or master set). If I go with the current one, I must paint and makeover both headboard and frame. Possibly a fun colour?
- Move painted danish modern side tables from guest room to master. Switch out for mirrored side tables.
- Hang plain white Ikea curtains on either sides of windows.
- Paint mirror above bed (white perhaps).
- Repaint $500* dresser (*see above explanation) a brighter white or bright colour
- Rearrange dressers. Maybe add in a chair.
- New side lamps? Move ones from guest room after covering the shades?
- NEW bedding. Most likely white again, with some more interesting pillows.
I have yet to settle on a fully finished mood board for this room. I think it may end up being a lot of trial and error. I do have these photos in mind for my inspiration. Yes, they are definitely different from one another but they both have the same kind of set up as our bedroom, so I can see how they would both work.
As much as I love the colourful eclecticism of the photo above, I do think something along the lines of Centsational Girl's bedroom will be the way I go. I guess we'll just wait and see!
