I took some time yesterday to flesh out my plan for the bedroom. I’ve had a general roadmap for the direction I wanted to take for some time, but I kept getting stuck on the details. In yesterday’s post I revealed a few of the details that puzzled me.
I read your feedback, but then I realized that all I had to do was decide what worked for me and what didn’t. I know we all have different styles, different tastes, and different preferences, but Matt and I are the only ones who actually have to live in this bedroom. And out of the two of us, I’m the only one who really cares about what it looks like. If it was up to Matt, he would paint the walls all white, put the bed and TV in there, and that’s it. He doesn’t care what the room actually looks like.
So I just had to figure out what exactly about this general idea, this roadmap, this model wasn’t quite working for me.
Since so many of you have said over the years that you enjoy reading my musings, I’ll try to share with you what I thought and how I figured it out.
At first there was so much dark, rich teal on the walls and curtains, but then the entire middle section was light – the headboard, the carpet. It’s almost like it divides the room in half.
Plus, the bright, vibrant bird fabric on the headboard left me confused about the actual bed. I was thinking about building a wooden base for our bed, but I don’t like matching furniture sets and I don’t have too much wooden furniture in one room, especially lined up next to each other. Therefore, two wooden nightstands with a wooden frame on the bed did not work for me. Even though the wooden base didn’t match the nightstands (avoiding the look of a “matching furniture set”), I didn’t like the idea of three pieces of wood lined up next to each other.
I really wanted fabric for the base of the bed, and it could be either an upholstered base or a bed skirt. For me, a bed skirt is perfectly fine as long as it’s tailored/pleated. I don’t do ruffles. But with the bright, vibrant bird fabric on the headboard, I was really limited as to what fabric I could put on the base of the bed. It would have to be either the bird fabric or a color from that fabric, and preferably the dominant color from the fabric, which would simply be the cream/off-white background color. Anything else would attract far too much attention and take the focus away from the bird material. And I just don’t want a cream/off-white bed frame.
I also thought the bed needed to be more “grounded.” I don’t even know if I can explain what I mean by that. But in my opinion the bed itself (the headboard and base) needed to be darker and more grounded and then act as a backdrop and base for the light bird fabric.
And finally I realized I wanted more patterns. I know I like a mix of patterns and textures more than many people, but I need to stay true to my own preferences, taste and style and I just needed that more. The bird fabric alone wasn’t enough for me. I love it, but this fabric alone wouldn’t have been able to hold up the entire wall for my taste.
After all this, I remembered that I had just ordered ten fabric samples for the foyer bench. They were all supposed to arrive today, so I don’t have them in my hand yet. But I was looking at these online pictures again because I remembered that there was a particular picture that I thought might work as a headboard and also as a bed frame/bed skirt.
So I made a model of this fabric on the bed and then placed the bird fabric on the pillows in front of it. Ignore the chair with the cushion. Obviously the chair won’t be right next to the bed. I just focus on the things that are actually hanging on the bed wall. I also used the fabric as I copied and pasted it from the Spoonflower website. I don’t think the color is exactly right, and if it needs a little tweaking, I hope the particular shop owner does custom colors like many of them offer.
But that’s definitely more me. It’s more exciting and interesting. It gives me the mix of patterns that I love. It gives me the feeling that the bed is grounded, which I thought I needed. And this grounded bed provides a beautiful backdrop for the bird fabric. What I didn’t add to the model is that I would also use the bird fabric as a throw or duvet cover and fold that throw or duvet at the foot of the bed so I can have more birds. And since I have extra curtain fabric, I would also use it to make two pillows to fit behind the bird pillows and tie everything together.
So that’s the new direction and it’s helping me solve all the issues I’ve been putting off addressing and deciding on for months. I’ll have to wait until I have the swatches in hand to see if any of them actually work the way I imagined.
I want the actual fabric I’m using to be slightly darker (just a touch darker than what’s shown above, and just a touch lighter than the grasscloth wallpaper and curtain fabric) and slightly less green than it looks in the mockup above. If it was just a little darker and a little bluer it would be perfect. So I really hope that the actual fabric will work perfectly once I have it in hand or that this particular seller will be willing to do custom colors. Or maybe one of the other examples works perfectly.
And in a perfect world, I would also have my recliner here so I can compare the fabrics to the actual recliner instead of having to work with a tiny sample of that recliner fabric, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to work. The recliner still hasn’t shipped and I really don’t want to wait to make the final decision. But I’m also not going to worry about this room being finished by the end of the year. I’d like to get it done, but I also want it to be just right. So if I have to wait for some decisions, I’m okay with that, but I want to keep the forward momentum.
Speaking of which, I went to Home Depot yesterday and picked up some paint samples for the dresser. I chose a neutral color. I know this is completely out of character for me, but I really want the headboard wall to remain the main wall in the room. So these are the samples I took with me. I’m going to try these out today. My favorites are the two on the right. The top one is Behr Casual Khaki and the bottom one is Sandstone Cliff. But I’m going to try all five and see which one looks best in the room light and with the carpet and bird fabric.
Note: We are sorry if you received an email regarding a “cabinet addition” in this post. I have decided not to report on this because I am still making this decision, but I want to make this decision without any outside influence. I already know some will love it and others will hate it, but I have to make the decision based on what I want before sharing it.
