January 20, 2010

house tour REDO: master bedroom

as you may recall from this post I have been less than thrilled with my bedroom decor. well, no longer. I officially love it. thanks to home goods, IKEA and some craftiness of my own it looks 100 times better - in my opinion anyway and that's all that matters cause I'm the one who sleeps in here.
first off, jenny from little green notebook is a rockstar. she read my post and graciously offered to give me tips on redecorating. her ideas were so helpful - I definitely plan to hire her for real someday and pay her lots of money.

here were a few of her tips:

1. switch out the smaller side tables for larger ones to balance out the proportions. before the redo, I had two small hemnes nightstands from IKEA that we purchased when we first got married. now, I love the hemnes line a lot but the tiny size of the nightstands next to our large california king size bed were certainly off but I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like it. she also suggested larger lamps to offset the size of the bed. what a difference! there was an immediate positive change in the room. jenny also posted a link a while back about a redo of the IKEA rast table which clever Penny People did. hers turned out very nice with a mostly stained body and painted white drawers but I went white all the way since I'm vanilla like that. I like it though. plus the added drawer space comes in handy for all our junk (and junk it is).
2. the headboard is an ongoing process. no, it's not finished yet but I did just buy some fabric for a whopping $1/yard when I was in arizona last week. I plan to try to create a copy of this headboard from crate & barrell. the fabric I bought is pretty well a match and I am going to try to follow the steps on design sponge for making your own headboard. I'll keep you all updated on that progression.
3. while I did like my pottery barn bedding (that I scored for a steal on ebay) it just wasn't my style. I love white bedding and I always will. however, I was trying to save some money and I already happened to have two sets of white sheets. so, by following a trick my mom taught me, I just used two flat sheets to create my own duvet. david especially likes it because he hates having sheets tucked in to the bed since he's a major kicker. here's how you do it: take one flat sheet and pull it all the way to the top of the bed (leaving a small overhang at the bottom). lay your down comforter on top. fold down the overhang on the top over the comforter. take another flat sheet and spread on top leaving a longer overhang at the bottom. tuck the top sheet under the comforter to make a seamless fold. and that's it. it makes washing so much simpler too. as for the rest of the linens and pillows, I scored this throw from home goods for $10 and bought the two pillows for $15 each. they weren't especially cheap but I loved them a lot.
4. I knew that starburst mirrors were fashionable but didn't think I could afford one. enter: home goods (again - I love that store!). I bought this large mirror for $60. it was the most expensive thing I bought but it was worth it. I also picked up a few frames from IKEA and filled them with scrapbook paper I already had that had a cool pattern.
5. I painted this painting (below) right before we moved to san diego and ended up putting it in our bedroom on a wall that doesn't get seen much (except by me every morning when I wake up - ahem). I really hated it with my old decor and now I really like it. it's weird and totally imperfect and not at all what I envisioned when I started this huge oil painting project, but it's grown on me.
I know it's silly but having a bedroom that you like really does put you in a better mood. I actually like spending time in here now. I still have to finish some things (like the headboard and the AT&T dresser conundrum) but it's a work in progress.

12 comments:

  1. I love it!!!! :0)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This reminds me of us always trying to re-do and better our college apartment room! Looks great, love the improvements and YES, it does make a big difference to have a room you love.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I saw the ikea dresser re-do on Jenny's blog as well...have been waiting to do it but I love yours!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very cute. I love the frames with the fabric. I would have never thought of that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Everything looks great, Liz!

    And thanks for the links to some great new sites. Our son may be moving into an apartment with college friends next year and inexpensive, nice furniture options will be a big plus! There is an IKEA across the street from the Mall of America--a few minutes from our home. Perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  6. it looks lovely! the rast dressers look really great, i want to do something like that.

    the only thing that makes me worried (and i only say this because as someone who grew up in California it is a knee jerk reaction), is the mirror hanging over the bed. Growing up in the earthquake state we were always taught not to hang anything heavy over the headboard (earthquakes can have amazing power, one of the big LA ones literally emptied my grandparents 5 foot deep pool by throwing the water out, I still don't understand how that is possible).

    ReplyDelete
  7. Super cute! I want that starbust mirror!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love your room! Where did you get the mirror?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your side tables turned out really cute.

    And don't you love HomeGoods?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Looks GREAT, Elizabeth!! I love the changes you made! So beautiful. I especially love the rast side tables! Perfect...

    hugs,
    jenny

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh, the larger lamps make all the difference! Love it!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated to eliminate spammers and internet bullies.