Displaying posts labeled "Bedroom"

A Flickr contact and fellow Ottawan Liz has been VERY busy over the last couple days. She has completely redone her bedroom and I had to post about it here because she did a fantastic job. I am also completely jealous because all I have done to my pale yellow (barf) bedroom is rip out the closet, leaving a gaping hole in the floor and chunks of drywall missing, and it is really starting to get on my last freaking nerve. Anyway, here is what Liz had to say about her bedroom makeover:

“I can’t tell you how much I love our new bedroom decor. Thomas and I have been planning this room since we moved in over a year ago and now that it’s done, I can’t even imagine how we put up with the bland walls for so long! It took us 2.5 days of painting and building IKEA furniture. We still want to replace the outlet covers but that will have to wait until one of our dads can help us because that involves electrical work. The closet doors in the photos need to also be replaced but we need to save up more dough for that because it’s going to be pricey! Also we will eventually do new base moulding and some crown moulding in white. The pictures in the white frames are going to be changed, we just haven’t found the right ones yet. We just couldn’t pass up the deal we got on the frames so we decided we’d just ditch the ugly pictures inside :)”

I love everything she has done to her bedroom – the colours, the symmetry, the use of white furniture that stands out so beautifully against the walls, the painted headboard….YUMMY! Liz has gotten the decorating part of my brain going (more than usual) and I am so going to get my ass in gear and start planning my bedroom.

Here are some details of her sources: “The paint we used was Aura by Benjamin Moore. The headboard is painted on the wall using a matte and a semi-gloss finish in the same colour (Bittersweet Chocolate). The accent wall blue is Caribbean Blue Water and the rest of the room is Sea Star. White furniture is from IKEA except for the white ottoman which is from Bouclair Home. Accent pieces are mostly from Homesense and Winners.”

Ashley of the blog Free Form emailed with a bedroom decor problem: “I am moving to a new apartment and thought I should really concentrate on decorating my bedroom. I kind of have my room in black and white right now but I didn’t do a great job if it. So I am wondering, do you think I should try and revamp the Black and White theme or scratch it for colours?” She posted on her blog some inspiration she found for black and white and also did one with colour. I say if you’ve got black and white going on and you like it (except the execution of it) then work with what you have. Since I don’t know what Ashley’s working with, I went through my photo stash and found photos of predominantly black and white bedrooms. I do like the idea of introducing a colour (pale pink, pale blue, acid yellow…), or even just some timber pieces added in to soften the look.

I think my favourite inspiration would have to be Erin of Design for Mankind‘s bedroom below. The wall colour tones down the harshness of the black and white and is perfect for a bedroom.

Apartment Therapy	Fox Nahem Design
House and Home	Living Etc.
BoConcept	House Beautiful
Denby Dowling	Tommaso Ziffer
Western Interiors	Boris Breuer
Charles Allem	Design28
Jay Jeffers	Jen Fong
Omniarte	Remi Tessier
Omniarte	Sköna hem

Brocky Proxmire wrote us about the bedroom his mother, interior designer Kelley Proxmire, designed for the DC Design House. It’s stunning, so elegant and sophisticated, and had a special feature: “The big hit of the room was the now you watch it (#7) now you don’t (#8) TV. The TV is mounted on a swing arm behind the drapery panels. There is a slit in the drapery panel on the end so that swing arm may be extended several inches into the room. The size of TV (19″) is correct size for this distance of TV viewing from the bed.” Brilliant! Thanks Brocky (and Kelley!)

Tessa wrote us with a design dilemma hoping we could offer some help: “I am writing to you now with a problem of my own. We live in a beautiful 19th century mansion in Washington, DC. It is gorgeous and wonderful, but we rent it and are not allowed to paint any of the rooms. I am about to move into a different bedroom that is gorgeous, but painted one of my least favorite colors- burgundy. I hate burgundy! I tend to lean toward super bright hues (oranges, yellows, apple greens, etc.) when I decorate, and I am wondering (and hoping) that you guys might have some suggestions of what could possibly look good with this awful dark mess. Anything I have tried makes the room look like either a men’s smoking lounge or a cheesy Victorian salon. I haven’t seen you post many pics of burgundy rooms, so I thought you might have some cool ones hiding somewhere. Please help me out.”

I went through my photo stash and just as I suspected, no one paints a bedroom burgundy. 🙂 And I hate burgundy too!!! First, here are a few bedrooms that have dark walls (a couple burgundy-ish) that might inspire you to work with what you’ve got.

For alternatives, if you’re allowed to put holes in the walls, maybe you should consider finding some not-too-sheer sheers and hanging them from those wire systems (Ikea I think has it) around the room (if it’s not too big). Also, how about painting some really large pieces of foam core (if you can paint that stuff)/thin MDF and leaning it behind your bed, dressers etc. to hide as much of the burgundy as you can, or you can make a screen, like the one below.

Domino

And the following photo I thought was very inspiring and SO gorgeous. Now the walls are not burgundy, but imagine they were, and maybe the light shade of bluey-green that are used in the large upholstered pieces were a light pink. Sounds crazy but it could work to tone down the darkness, as they do in this photo.

Nicholas Haslam

The following photos are of some of the most memorable (to me anyhoo) bedrooms I’ve posted this year.

Angus McRitchie	Celerie Kemble
Julian Wass	Lucas Allen
Jason Loucas	Shelly Riehl David

Kendall Wilkinson