A while back I got a call from a college friend asking if I could help give her master bedroom a makeover. She had recently undergone knee surgery, and after spending a long period of time largely confined to bed {i.e., a lot of time staring at the four walls of her bedroom}, she had a long list of things about the room that weren't working for her.
More than once her husband even came home to discover that she'd ripped down drapes or removed some other element of the room that she just couldn't stand looking at any longer {all against doctor's orders, of course}! She was ready for a new, more sophisticated look, but she needed help coming up with a plan to refresh the space without starting over.
The day that I met with her to see the bedroom, she was apologetic that the room was a bit of a mess, but I assured her there was no need to be sorry! In fact, I find it helpful to see how someone really lives in a space in order to ensure that we create a design plan that is realistic and livable for the family.
There were several items in the room that the couple was ready to remove. Their toddler son was quickly outgrowing the changing table in the corner. And since her knee rehab {and therefore her confinement to bed} was finally coming to an end, she no longer wanted the television on the dresser and no longer needed the stationery bike right next to the bed.
The couple doesn't particularly like the yellow-ish color of the wood on their fireplace mantle or on the baseboards throughout the room. However, since this wood matches the rest of the house, and the couple had plans to move in a few years, we quickly made the decision that painting the wood wouldn't be the right choice from a resale perspective. {This quickly turned out to be an especially good choice since an out of town job offer caused them to put the house on the market right after this room makeover was complete!}
Instead, we needed to find a way to make the yellow-tone of the wood, as well as the golden-brown of the fireplace tile make sense within the design plan.
Some of the furniture in the room was working well, and some was not. The couple liked their black dresser and chest of drawers, and they are in good shape, so there was no need to replace them. At the foot of the bed was a large, brown leather bench {covered in a blanket in this photo}. The bench was very deep - causing it to crowd the dresser a bit, and because the bench was solid all the way to the ground, it was taking up a lot of visual space in the room.
On the other side of the room, the black headboard and nightstands were a good match to the dresser, but they just weren't right for the space. The nightstands were too tall for the bed, and too narrow to be of much use. There was nothing wrong with the headboard, but the couple was ready for a new look - something a bit softer, like upholstery.
The homeowners loved the color of their red lamps, and wanted to possibly bring that color in somewhere else in the room, but the lamps themselves were much too large for the current nightstands and the owners were interested in swapping the lamps out for wall sconces.
The homeowners were open to keeping or changing the art in the room. The prints above the bed were neutral and nicely framed, but the pieces were hung a bit too far apart making them feel awkward. The wedding photos above the chest of drawers have obvious importance to the couple, making them perfect for the bedroom, but they were hung in inexpensive floating frames that weren't doing them justice.
After seeing the room, I asked the couple to spend a little time browsing bedroom photos on Houzz to find some images that captured the look and feel they were hoping to achieve in their redesigned space. Here are a few of the photos they sent me that served as my inspiration when coming up with a plan to transform their master bedroom from chaotic to a relaxing...
As you can see in these inspiration photos, the couple prefers minimal pops of color and a sophisticated style. Their style has elements of modern mixed with more traditional lines, and white and grey are dominant themes. Their preferences differ a bit from the more contemporary choices I make in my own home, often with vibrant pops of color, so I immediately knew this was going to be a fun opportunity for me to explore a different design style!
Next week, I'll show you the design options that I presented to the homeowners, and talk about how we worked with what they already had in the room and shopped their house to keep the budget for the redesign in check. Then the following week, I'll reveal the completed space and show you the before and after comparisons.
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Labels: bedroom, client, decor, decorating, interior design
