Friday, May 13, 2011

Master Bedroom Re-Do

We had quite the lengthy list of things that we wanted to get done before Little Dude's arrival.  On the top of the list was figuring out a plan for our master bedroom.

We live in an 80's ranch, which is to say, we have small bedrooms and small closets.  It makes planning any sort of decor difficult, because so much of the space is taken up by dressers/nightstands/beds.

When we got married, MacGyver's parents gave us a beautiful bedroom set.  Dark cherry wood, a sleigh bed....perfect.  It had two nightstands, a dresser, and a chest of drawers.  Just one problem:  it really didn't fit in our room.  With the headboard, footboard, and the rest of the matching pieces, we could barely walk in our room.  Not good.

Then we started the whole "Less is More" philosophy, and committed to loving every single thing in our home.  If we both didn't love it (or use it!), it was gone.   While we loved the idea of our bedroom furniture, it just wasn't working in a house our size.  And since we don't have plans to move in the immediate future, that left us with one choice:  get rid of the furniture.

This actually worked out well.  MacGyver's parents wanted to use it for their master bedroom.  That made me happy.  So here's a 'before' picture of our room.  It's not totally accurate, because we'd already removed the headboard and footboard.  Also, we are not pigs.  It's trashed because we didn't think the snap a picture until we'd already starting taking all of our clothes out of the dressers.


We really didn't have a design scheme going on.  We prefer modern decor, and our bedroom set was a little more traditional.  We were stumped trying to come up with a good balance between the two.

Then I saw the bedroom renovation that these cute people did.  It sounded perfect for our needs, so off to Ikea we went for some stand-alone wardrobes.  Rather than using any type of dresser, we planned to use the wardrobes for all of our clothes.  Instead of getting the pricey doors, we opted for some curtains (also from Ikea).  Behold, the finished product:


MacGyver added a header at the top of the wardrobes to make them appear to be 'built-in', rather than big ol' white boxes (I trust him, but I'm not gonna lie.  I took Tylenol PM for a solid week before I believed the header wasn't going to come crashing down on me in the night).  We love the paint color in our kitchen so much that we just brought it into the bedroom.  We already owned the bedding and artwork, so that was easy.

One big change was adding the crown moulding.  This is the first room we've done that to, and I love it.  I can't wait to continue it through the house.  I thought it would make the ceiling look short, but we love to paint our ceilings a color other than white, so I don't think it shortened it at all.

Here's a view from the foot of the bed:

I love how soft and romantic it feels.  I made the headboard out of some MDF and canvas.  Super simple and it cost less than 10 bucks.  Every single piece of clothing we own is in our wardrobes.  We have some drawers and shelves, as well as hanging space, so everything fits well.  We do have a closet in the room (to the left in the picture above), and we keep longer items (dresses, tunic, etc), shoes, bags, and our laundry basket in there.

Here's a shot of the other side of the room:

We'll have to come up with another plan for that corner after Little Dude starts sleeping in his crib.  Maybe a parson's chair or a large mirror?  Or some type of plant?  For now our (homemade) bassinet fills the space nicely.  I DIYed the art on that wall with Photoshop, personal mementos, and family pictures.

We really love our new room.  It is really easy to keep clean with the wardrobes containing all of our clothing, and it just feels light and airy.  With the floorplan of our house, just about everyone that comes over sees our bedroom, and now I'm proud to show it off!

4 comments:

emily said...

huge difference!!!
love it!

Unknown said...

It looks great. Like the stuff in magazines.

Racheal Steppe said...

I'm so in love!! I honestly thought that your room was a picture from a magazine that you wanted to mimic!! Way to go, looks great!!! PS, you're lucky to have such a handy husband!!! Totally love mine, but handy is one thing he is NOT ;oP Best of luck with your upcoming entrance of little dude too!!

Abbey said...

thanks, guys! those are some serious compliments!