Bedroom finished at last!

I started on our bedroom quite some time ago, but haven't blogged about it as I never quite felt it was ready for it. But I think I'm finally there. As you may know we moved into a new build about 1.5 years ago now and I've been desperately trying to inject some character into it. One of these projects was our room. I LOVE our bedroom - built in wardrobes and an over the stairs cupboard has set us up for success in keeping it as reasonably clutter free as we can for everyday living. It's also light and airy - and even though it's North facing it always seems to be bathed in (sun)light. 

So - my challenge was to see how to add character without losing the lightness and clarity of the room. Also - how could I integrate the black frames from our last (period) property without them looking out of place? (We spent a fair bit on the custom sized one signed by everyone at our wedding so I didn't want to mess with it, well, not yet anyway!).

I love our head and footboard on the bed and because they are white slatted I thought some kind of muted colour behind them would work well. But I didn't want to do the whole wall because it would become too dominant and be too flat. I didn't really want to introduce a pattern either. So I bought some wood edging stops from Homebase (I also used these downstairs in the lounge/living room), and cut them at 45 degree angles to form a three sided frame to go around our bedhead and nailed/glued in place. I then painted the frame and the interior of it in a lilac/grey colour.

For me this really:
1. Made the bedhead pop
2. Didn't dominate the room too much
3. Added character (And I hadn't seen this anywhere else - although I doubt I'm the first to think of it)
4. Gave me a frame to work in some other bits
5. Looked good despite the fact the bed is off centre on the wall


I then hung three cardboard lids of bird shaped boxes (I'll replace with ceramic white ones if I can ever find the perfect ones) I already had once I'd painted them up in an off white.

I added two frames I'd bought on sale in M&S and put black and white baby pictures of my step-daughter and daughter in them (not sure what I'll do for bump when he arrives, but I'll cross that bridge later).

Then time passed, life got busy - until I finished off a few other big projects. In that time we were faced with exploring little fingers of my 20 month old, who loves to pick up ANYTHING on the side tables, books, phones (not so bad), academic papers of my husband's, cuff links, pens, you name it. When she picked up the house phone and dialled 666, which could easily have been 999, I knew I needed to take action. (Eek!)

In our dumping ground, sorry, I mean study, I've had these wooden shelving boxes without a back, they were originally part of an IKEA set, but I thought I could just pop them on the wall and paint them all the same colour as the frame I'd done earlier. The effect would be similar to palette shelves. So that's what I did…  They are just perfect for the purpose, dead chuffed! I just used two small L shaped metal brackets (literally 1.5 cm wide and each side of the L was about 2cms) per box. They won't take a tonne of weight but certainly good enough for what I wanted. 

Finally, I bought a Jones clock in Waitrose I'd been resisting for at least 6 months, and rediscovered (in the process of sorting out the dumping ground/study) some flower lights, one set went in the lounge, the other around the grey/lilac frame on the wall. 

A spring clean later and hubby and I both feel like it's a hotel holiday room, finally a place we can chill out. And another room ticked off in my nesting list of things to sort before bubs comes! You may be able to see the three hearts on the right of the top image - one for each child. :) Speaking of which, check out my baby room update to follow soon...