Our master bedroom is the perfect display of what it means to be indecisive, something that has plagued me my entire life. Dramatic, yes. True, yes.
I remember waiting in line at the grocery store when I was little and my mom let my sisters and I each choose a candy bar. Well, I couldn’t decide on what to get, so I ended up getting nothing. That’s scarring for a small child, folks. Scarring!
Anyway, back to our bedroom. We wanted to paint most of the rooms in our house before we moved in three years ago (this march, holy smokes!). I don’t think I’m ever as indecisive in life as when I have to choose a paint color for something. There are sooooo many choices. The master bedroom started off beige, and that was never going to work. The folks who updated our house before we bought it painted everything terrible, boring beige. It all had to go.
First, I bought teal. And I love teal. But it was sooooo bright for a bedroom, so that got nixed before I got farther than a sample coat. I ended up using the color in my craft room, which is in the basement with no windows and needed something super bright and cheery.
Second, gothic amethyst. I should have known from the start that a color with “gothic” in the name wasn’t going to work in my bedroom. It’s a gorgeous purple, and since we are Ravens fans I thought it was a color B could get behind. He liked it. I didn’t. I ended up using the color in my bathroom. I get so many compliments on this color in my bathroom, too! And my stepmom actually just took the remaining paint for the bottom half of her chair rail in my parents’ new house. It looks great, but I’m still glad it isn’t my bedroom color.
That’s the funny thing about me and color. It’s not that I don’t like the colors I choose. I do. It’s just that they don’t seem right for the space.
On to color three: darkish, bluish-gray. Ugh. This was the only color B and I seemed to agree on (he wanted hunter green….) for the bedroom. So I took it as a win that we painted another room in the house a shade of blue and we actually painted the room this time.
Well, this should come as no surprise…. I wasn’t ever super happy with this color. It was just. so. dark. and. gloomy. And I’m not a dark and gloomy kind of person. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. I love the brightness of white, but cannot stand the lack of color. So most every room in my house is a light, bright color of some sort.
So yeah, the blue/gray color didn’t work.
I finally persuaded/annoyed Brian that I’d we’d be happier with a more cheery color, and after years of badgering he acquiesced.
So I wasted no time. I sampled five colors, thinking I wanted a bright neutral. But like I said before, the neutrals lack color (duh) and I seem to always end up not choosing a neutral no matter how hard I try.
So we ended up with Sherwin Williams Sea Salt, a beautiful, super light green that sometimes looks gray.
Here’s the room in progress. Don’t you love my style of painting? No tape, no drop cloth, no furniture removed? Hey, it works for me.
The other exciting thing I did in our room while doors were off closets and clothes were out – I painted our closets a bright white. Check this out:
Before
After
SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN! Minus the dirt in the corners… I painted the doors, the trim and the insides of both closets white and it made such a world of a difference. The whole space felt bright and airy. And clean. So very clean.
Once the paint was dry and everything was put back together, I happily shopped at Target for a new duvet cover. I actually ended up keeping the old, dirty-looking duvet we had and simply buying a beautiful knit blanket for the top of the bed. I threw some matching pillows on the pull in the green and blue, added a pop of pink. And voila! Love it.
The final step that I’ve done so far is to treat myself to a new bed. I looked for months on Craigslist and at Habitat Restore for a bed I liked, but I couldn’t find one. So I bought us a brand new bed online. It is so pretty 🙂
There is still quite a few things I’d like to do in our room:
- Iron the curtain I put up for Brian’s closet door. So doable, probably won’t ever happen since I hate ironing. Hey, just keepin’ it real.
- Get taller night stands for next to the bed. The ones we have a so short it drives me a little nuts. But I haven’t found the right thing yet. Plus, I’d really like to redo these myself.
- Get B a new dresser. His is old and clunky. And while I actually like the color against the Sea Salt walls, it is time for something a bit larger and more in-line with our style. I’m waiting to find something I can paint in the same color gray as my dresser.
- Art for behind the bed. I’ve tossed up the idea of doing several gold mirrors or framing some botanical prints. I think this will have a huge visual impact when you walk into the room.
- New duvet? I still might change up the bedding. I like the knit blanket a lot, but knit doesn’t hold up great. The problem is the dog gets on the bed, so we don’t want to splurge and buy really nice bedding on the off chance it gets dirty. Because it will get dirty.
- Build a long, skinny console table for under our painting. It is lonely on that wall. Or do something completely different on that wall altogether. Only time will tell.
On the whole, I am loving the update to our room. B doesn’t seem to miss the blue, that’s a win in my book.
P.S. This is actually what our room looks like. Notice the stick of deodorant on B’s nightstand and Remmy’s oh-so-dirty doggy bed. And his sweet stick bone. You can also see the basket by my dresser to hold dirty towels to wipe Rem’s paws. The only thing I changed in here for a nicer photo was not adding our duvet under the blue blanket so it laid flat. Arguably I should have added it since the banket hangs over so long, but whatevs. Perfection is overrated.
Proof: Here is our duvet stuffed nicely into the hamper for this photo shoot hehe. Back on the bed it goes!
Other than that, this is it, baby. Far from perfect. Not even close to matchy matchy. But it’s ours and we love it.
OK, OK…. this is really what it looks like 😉
I couldn’t write a post about our bedroom without including Rem. It is his favorite room in the house, after all.
What do you think? Are you a fan or darker walls or do you like the light and brighter colors?
A Smith of All Trades 