Making a House a Home: Master Bedroom Refresh
ONE MONTH! We have been in our new home for one month and it has certainly been a whirlwind. In addition to working, moving my family to town, getting ready to send our nephew to college, and unpacking, we have been trying to make each space our own. I have painted more walls than I care to do again, and my husband probably cannot look at all the new furniture without suffering from assembly trauma. After the enclosed porch, we decided to tackle the master bedroom. It was very dark and out-of-date. We wanted a light and airy master retreat where we could relax from our super busy days.
The Project.
For this room, we had a punch list of items we knew we wanted (we should say needed–>look below) to address. The room needed new carpet, new paint, and a new light fixture. Aside from those more permanent changes, we also wanted new furniture, accessories, and window treatments. We decided to keep our bedding (at least for now ?).
The Paint.
As you can see in past blog posts and photos, we had a striped accent wall in our last master bedroom. I favor neutral wall colors [thanks to my mom for raising me in a home with 20 shades of tan haha], so I knew I wanted to recreate the striped accent wall to liven up the design. Now that I have done it twice, I definitely have a method that works for clean lines. I plan to write a blog post on that in the next few weeks in case any of you want to take on a similar project.
When we paint, we only use Behr paint and primer in one from The Home Depot. For this striped wall, I chose slightly different colors than in our last home in order to lighten up the darker stripe. I used maison blanche and trusty tan colors from Sherwin-Williams, but I had them mixed with Behr paint. We wrote the colors on a piece of tape and placed it on the back of a switch plate in case we ever need more in the future. I saw this hack online and I think it is genius!
The Carpet.
We needed carpet in several bedrooms, as well as up the stairs, so we chose to have the carpet professionally removed and installed versus doing it ourselves. The carpet we chose is very cozy with shades of brown and tan. If you have kids and/or pets and are getting new carpet, make sure to ask about the waterproof pad for under the carpet. This stops liquid from seeping into the carpet pad, so it is easier to clean up messes and more likely that you can address any associated scents.
Light Fixture.
In our previous home we had a chandelier in our master bedroom, which was my choice (guilty). My husband did not mind, except that he gets very warm when he sleeps and I knew he missed having an overhead fan. For this room, we compromised with our “fandelier”! It has the gleam of a chandelier, but my husband loves that he has a fan and it comes with a remote so he can control the fixture from bed. We snagged this one from Amazon and it was very affordable compared to similar fixtures we found online. I also like this one, this one, and this one!
Furniture.
We have not had a bed set for several years, as we cannot use a footboard because it prevents our dogs from being able to jump on the bed so we opted to not have a set at all. After many years like this, I knew I wanted a headboard to be part of any bedroom update.
I ordered this headboard from Wayfair several months ago when I saw it a great price and left it in the box in the garage and hoped we would be able to use it soon! I love the color and the rivets add some personality. It is great quality and a good height, even with euro pillows against it. It looks like it is currently out of stock, but Wayfair restocks fairly often. You can sign up for an e-mail alert if you want to keep your eye on it. It comes in four different colors and three different sizes.
We had no idea what type of furniture we wanted, other than something simple. Neither of us love ornate or antique pieces. We stumbled across furniture at IKEA while looking for some other odds and ends. I thought we were probably done with IKEA furniture, but sure enough…we found these pieces with clean, pretty lines (we love the curved legs) and the perfect color to coordinate with our bedroom. We purchased a tall dresser, a short dresser, and two nightstands for under $1,000.00. This is a steal for this much furniture and it is surprisingly good quality. The drawers are soft close and the directions were straightforward. There is a bed frame that goes with the set, but we did not need it. I highly recommend these pieces if you are looking for something timeless and affordable. They also come in black-brown.
Accessories.
We have purchased several accessories for the bedroom, though we still have much more to do. We have discovered some really fun and functional amazon finds, and I plan to round those up later. For now, I want to highlight the curtains and lamps we purchased. It was really difficult finding affordable lamps that matched the design of the room. I snagged these from Kirklands and they were super affordable. The colors are perfect, and I love that the base has some crystal to tie them to the fandelier.
For the most part, we leave the windows open so we can wake up to natural light and see the beauty of the surrounding trees. However, there are some times we want some privacy or want it to be darker so we can sleep in. We had room darkening curtains before, but they were plain and heavy. I found these from Salvage & Co. (amazing deals if you can get to the Indianapolis, Indiana area) so we purchased them at a discount, but they are available through Wayfair. They feature the room darkening panels, but with a tulle layer that adds an ethereal element. I LOVE them. They work well and are so pretty! The tulle layer really softens the look of the panels. They are a good price and come in many different colors.
We still have lots of decorating to do on the walls and on/above our dressers, but we love the progress so far. Changing the light fixture and wall colors made such a big difference. You can easily freshen up a space in your home the same way.
What room in your house would you love to freshen up?
Katie G.