Welcome to my home: Vignette 5
Welcome to my bedroom.
This room has been through it the past several years. When I moved in, my closet was the length of the wall that my bed currently sits on. During one of my restless nights (which I experienced often as a small business owner), I had thought it would be nice to be able to put my bed somewhere else in the room (it lived under my window and my tall headboard used to block half of the window, but there really was nowhere else to put it). So sometime around 2am, I had the genius idea to remove my closet, put my bed on the closet wall and frame in a new closet directly across from it. By 10am the next day, my closet was gone and my bed was in its new home.
Like I said in my earlier post, I’m unafraid and impulsive: when I get an idea, I roll with it. That’s how design should be. The things that speak to you the loudest, the prints that make you feel some sort of way…bring them into your home! That’s the whole point: surround yourself with things you love.
When I first moved into this house, I had a fairly masculine palette in my master bedroom: I’ll post pics of the before and after here). The walls were painted ivory, and my main colors were (shocking): ivory, black, and gray/neutrals. The room felt fairly calming and sterile, and I didn’t mind it for the most part. But one day, after I decided to take my closet out, I decided to really change it up.
Boho and eclectic design is definitely my vibe and I really wanted to bring it into my bedroom. This was a place, as a single mom, that was just for me, and I wanted to reflect my intimate mind and carefree side. I remember making the decision to paint my walls pink (a decision I made based solely on the fact that there was no one to tell me no). It was supposed to be more coral but the lighting makes it look fairly pink, and I’m ok with that.
The next thing I did was fall in love with a peel-and-stick wallpaper I found at Target. The dark navy blue and gold splatters made my heart sing. I threw that on the back accent wall and never looked back.
The deco gold sconces are one of my favorite things in my room. I love the way they cast the light on the wall and on the ceiling when they’re turned on. Clearly, as you’ve seen throughout my house, I love gold and metal. I couldn’t let these babies out of my sight when I first saw them on the wall of a living room of one of my renovations (when I was a general contractor). The homeowners were *gasp* dying to get rid of them and couldn’t express how much they hated these! What?!?!? I had to have them and they said sure, get them the hell out of here! Later I showed them the picture of my room above and they were shocked at how good they looked in the space. I love giving new life to old things!
The rug underneath my bed is nothing special, other than it has all the bold colors I wanted in my room. My walls are pink, my wallpaper blue, and my curtains teal. This rug fit the bill! It was inexpensive and bold, and I love how it grounds the room and ties the whole thing together.
The bench at the foot of my bed was another shopping score at HomeGoods. I found that puppy on clearance and loved the mixed metallic fabric. It was a perfect addition to the foot of my bed and serves a function too: it opens and houses some of my sweaters.
With all the colors going on in my room, I wanted the bedding to be a little more chill. I found this white and gold duvet set at Target. It’s fun and more interesting than solid white, and it carries the gold from the sconces. The blue pillows on my bed I picked up on Etsy. They’re from Turkey and I adore them. I was looking for something multi-colored, primarily navy, to tie in the wallpaper. And of course I have a white and gold leopard print pillow because seriously, you can never have enough leopard in your life.
To the right of my bed is an old vintage lingerie chest. Funny story about this one: I picked it up at a garage sale and the owner of the house it came from was a high school classmate’s parent’s house. Small world. I’ll show you the before and after pic here, but when I picked it up, it was a dark wood color. I ended up removing the metal plates and painting it an ivory color chalk paint. I love chalk paint because it dries fast and it’s thick so you don’t have to worry much about brush strokes and stuff like that. It’s meant to look a little rustic, and that’s just fine for me! The knobs are the original knobs which I think are pretty.
On top of my lingerie chest is where I keep my antique mirrored tray (that belonged to my mom’s mom), my perfumes, a jewelry box that was gifted to me by my sister-in-law on their wedding day and a blue, white and gold Japanese vase given to me by my uncle. There’s also a massive glass vase with a huge tree branch in it which has a silly story. That tree branch is from my Magnolia tree in my front yard. I planted that tree a few years ago and I love it more than anything else in my yard: Magnolias are my favorite flower: they smell heavenly and this species is evergreen. It blooms in the summer and you can smell the blooms from yards away. I first started loving Magnolias when I lived in South Carolina, and I wanted to be reminded of my time there so I planted this tree as a memorial. My boys call it , “ mommy’s prized tree.” A couple years ago, we had a huge snow storm blow through and there was so much snow frozen on the branch that it broke the branch right off. I was devastated…at that point it hadn’t bloomed yet and I thought I’d have to wait another few years to see a bloom! So I took that branch and stuck it in water and put it in my room. The water dried out a long time ago, so the branch is now kind of petrified, but I still have it there. It gives that corner of the room “a little something” anyway…
The large antique mirror to the left of my bed belonged to my grandma. It’s very baroque in style, intricate and ornate. I believe it was hers as a young girl. I recall she had it in her home in Florida, in her guest room, along with her dressers and night stands that matched, all in excellent condition. We still have her tall dresser that goes with this mirror in the family and one day, I hope to get it back (but I’m going to need a bigger house first).
The gold framed painting to the left of my bed is a watercolor painted by my grandma. She was a hair stylist and a watercolor artist, very creative and had a unique sense of style. This painting is of a door from the houses in the Middle East, which she painted several of. I just love the frame this one is in (of course I do…looks like everything else in my house)! On my little nightstand under it, you’ll notice a stack of books, a candle and a small alarm clock. I draw attention to these items because it’s telling as to who I am. The candle I never burn, but it was a gift from my mom from Scotland and I love the smell of it. When I go to sleep at night I can catch whiffs of the scent and it makes me happy. The stack of books is telling because I’m always into something. I have a bad habit of starting several books at once and rarely finishing anything. This is where my books sit, just waiting to be read. And my little, battery operated alarm clock. I don’t wake up to an alarm (I have two little human alarms that wake me up every day). It’s this thing I adopted when I left the corporate world. I can’t use an alarm because it reminds me of feeling imprisioned in a corporate job, a slave to the man. I have the clock there just to check the time if I wake up in the night. I don’t sleep with my phone in my room because I don’t believe in technology in bedrooms. I also don’t have a tv in my bedroom and haven’t since I was in high school, when that was the cool thing! Bedrooms should be calming and free of distractions, at least that’s my goal and my opinion.
The Magnolia painting that hangs on the wall directly in front of you when you enter my room is another water color painting by my grandma. This painting has to be at least 30 years old, I remember seeing it hanging in “my” bathroom in her house. I’ve always loved it, and I still remember the smell of that bathroom. She had a sachet or incense that smelled of a Moroccan amber or jasmine, all smells I’m incredibly drawn to today. It’s funny how smells come back to me with images of things I love.
The light fixture I have hanging over the center of my room is a capiz shell globe from World Market. These have been around for years, something they’ve stocked and sold forever. I love the ambient light this lets out and the shadows it casts on the ceiling and walls. It’s a nice alternative to the blaring light of my can lights too; thank God they’re on separate switches so I can have one without the other!
The last few photos are so interesting and unusual to me. They are from Egypt, another one of my grandma’s finds. I love them because they’re painted papyrus, super intricate and detailed. My grandma must have bought them in Egypt and had them framed in Saudi Arabia in the gold frames (there’s a Saudi inscription on the back). I don’t know anything about what these paintings represent or the story behind them, but I hope to one day do some research to better understand them. I know Egyptian art, as with most art, tells a story and I would love to know the story of these. I love the navy and gold (of course) and the colorful depictions.
As you can tell, there is a lot to see in my bedroom (which is true of me, as well). There is a lot going on, a telling reflection of my life. But the pieces work together, as bold and seemingly different as they appear. There is structure in the chaos, beauty in the busy-ness. And it is me.