My Bedroom Planning Exercise

Please bear with me while I work through my bedroom :)  Writing about the this stuff helps me arrive at decisions & though I probably could have written this whole post and not hit "publish," at the end, I figured some people might want a little glimpse into my thought process.  (As all over the place as it is ;) ;)

We moved into our house in September and immediately started construction on it so we weren't able to actually move into our bedroom until around the holidays last year.  Because we were living through the construction and there was just so much mayhem around us, I kept the bedroom really empty.  Like, weirdly empty.  No bedside lamps (We used vintage-style globe lights in the tree in our courtyard garden to light the room at night and little book lights) no art, no accessories... just a bed and a dresser and two little tables flanking the bed.  Something about the bedroom in its "blank slate" state excited me and made me feel like there was so much potential.  It made the house and the whole experience feel new and exciting.

{Our bedroom before we moved in...}

I also like to go to bed at night and feel like there's not a lot of "stuff" around me.  The typical decorator thing to say is that "I work with color all day long and need a break" so I keep my bedroom white... but I'm not sure I if like a white bedroom because I'm a decorator or because, like most people, I'm busy and feel like I'm surrounded by so much STUFF all of the time that I like to keep my bedroom simple and spare so that it's a relaxing place to retreat to at night...  So I can look around and really not see anything at all except my garden.  And exhale.

We reworked our bedroom and replaced the wall that overlooked a small courtyard between our house and garage with a large sliding door:

{During construction...  a large metal wall blocking the driveway has been added to completely enclose our little garden and we have floors and walls now too}

We've been living without much in the bedroom for a while now but the book lights are finally starting to get a little old and I'm ready to have it feel a bit more "finished."   I have my furniture already but still need to really pull the room together.

But I'm having some issues!!   I am so on the fence about how much I want going on in there!!  I have a serious love for textiles and patterns and a little bit of Boho on one hand,  but on the other, I love a quiet mix of solid textures.  I've decided that I'm doing Fern Star in Sepia on the bed mixed with some Squid flower pillows ...

{Fern Star & Squid Flower}

... And it's coming down to curtains and walls.  Up until a couple of days ago I would have said "no way" to anything going on my walls because I love the calm of my bedroom so much and really do want the focus to be on our garden, but I'm having trouble getting some of the pretty pictures I see all of the time with bedrooms completely wrapped in wallpaper out of my head.  They're so charming!!  Especially with angled ceilings:

{Gil Schafer's Guest Bedroom}

My bed is on a high wall (approx 16 feet high) and it's the perfect wall to really load up with art.  I have so many pieces I've collected over the years and the wall would hold so much, but it would completely de-Zen my room :/

{How gorgeous is this?!!!!  One of my favorite rooms ever...  by Nanette Brown}

This week, I'm pulling up the wool rug in the bedroom for the Summer because we're in and out to the garden so much that we're tracking water and little leaves in all of the time... cleaning the rug is becoming a pain. Again, this excites me because it's making my room emptier and less finished.  (What is up with this??!!!)

Anyway, it is TIME for me to buckle down and make some decisions.  (Gotta love my hubby who doesn't have an opinion on any of this btw!!)  So... final decisions for me to make are:

1.  I need to finalize my curtains, which I've always just envisioned would be simple ivory. Now, I'm reconsidering.  (I have a feeling everything will go ivory/ white as planned and that I need this little bit of last-minute second guessing before I go through with it.)  

2.  Walls... anything???  It's more in keeping with the rest of the house to leave them as painted ivory but those pictures are tempting me!!! :/  So is the idea of horizontal wood paneling painted ivory.  I just did this in  a client's home and loooooved it.

{loooooove!!! House Beautiful}

3.  Artwork... I'm leaning towards hanging some of my old black & white prints & lithographs on either side of the bed above our nightstands and leaving the rest of the wall empty.  I have a tapestry that I'd like to try to overdye and hang above our dresser on another wall if possible.  BUT the jam-packed wall of art appeals to me too!

{This has so much more going on that I feel like I want but I honestly feel like I could move right in it's so perfect!!!  I'm torn!!!  Image via House Beautiful}

In all design decisions, I find it helpful to think of the overall mood and feeling I want the space to have.  If I had to nail down what I'm after in my room I'd say:  Relaxed, calming, light, airy, natural, a little rustic, charming, modern in feeling yet made up of more traditional pieces, collected, a tad Boho, and a little cool/edgy (vs. pretty/ sweet if that makes sense.)

With that in mind... I'm leaning towards doing curtains in either an ivory or other light neutral that has some sort of a "raw" feeling texture... like a linen with a very loose weave or rough fibers.  Or maybe a natural-colored barely there sort of tribal pattern.... We'll see.

For the walls... I think I need to stick with painted for now.  I can always add more down the road.  But I am so tempted by the paneling.  My biggest reason for not doing it because I'm not sure how much more construction I can handle in my life right now.  (They're working on the upstairs family room loft right now and as much as I love the guys, I'm just feeling like I need to be done.)

And for the art...  I'm going to play with what I've got and see what I can come up with on either side of the bed.  If it feels like it's not enough, I'll add more.

I'm off for the day but I'll keep you posted!!!  Thanks for coming along with me & if you didn't (Mom!! ;) ;)  I understand.




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