Slow Design: A Bedroom A Year In The Making

If you follow on Instagram, then you know I don’t share a lot about our bedroom. The truth is, until recently I haven’t been able to figure out how to pull things together in here.  This room has hung out half done for months, and it wasn’t until just recently that they started to fall into place. Sometimes l feel like I’m so immersed in my own home that I can’t see it objectively–do you ever feel this way?

Let’s talk about the bones of the space. The footprint is tiny (13′ x 10′)–gotta love 1930’s homes! The carpet has to stay (ugh) as the previous owner laid asbestos tile OVER the beautiful hardwoods making them toxic to remove. Especially since our home is a duplex, legally as the owner, we can’t make changes that could have negative health impacts for our tenant upstairs, nor would we want to (horrible flooring, no matter!).

Also, there are two closets in this room, which is great and pretty unusual for this era home, but in a small room, 3 doorways + a double window really tends to shake things up in terms of bed/furniture placement. Last June, I scored this metal bedframe on Craigslist for $50. It’s from Ikea, which the fact that I bought it on Craigslist makes me sound like a total cheapskate, but it’s a discontinued model that I’d actually been on the hunt for for a few months.

Because of the size of the room, having the bed along the long wall is really the only workable spot if we want lamps/nighstands flanking the bed. The closet door at the foot of the bed BARELY clears the footboard, but the important thing here is that it does. Lol.

On a whim last Fall, we painted the long headboard wall a deep, moody green (Behr, Brooklyn). I loved the color, but the problem was, I didn’t really have a plan for pulling the rest of the room together, and I just couldn’t get inspired to finish the room. For the next 4 months, the room was always hanging out in the back of my head, though I could never come to any actionable conclusions–so I just let it be.

In February this year, I came across the prettiest Hydrangea bedding from Hygge & West, and the room finally started making sense. The bedding’s teal green tones were in the EXACT color family as our wall color, and the feminine botanical pattern beautifully counter-balanced the dark and somewhat masculine paint color. Anywho, things started falling into place: thrifted lace pillow shams, a sisal area rug to cover up the carpet, and Matisse prints above the bed. I’m finally in a good place in here.

I guess this room’s journey (for lack of a better term) is a testament to “slow design”–Giving the space time to ruminate, instead of filling it up with stuff you aren’t in love with or necessarily need. Clearly, I’d prefer if I’m inspired off the bat, and I can pull the room together and move on (who doesn’t!), but in this case I just had to let it be and that’s okay!

Read more about our bedroom and home over on Hygge & West’s Blog, Picnics Under the Moon.