The Bedroom is often the most neglected room of the house. While we make sure to clean up every other room of the house, this private sanctuary often gets everything dumped in it and then has the door shut so no one checks inside. Time to take back the bedroom!
This month is dedicated to reclaiming the bedroom - the one room where you spend MOST of your time (albeit asleep - mainly).
We believe that bedrooms are the most important room in your home and that they should be clean, peaceful, calming and beautiful. They should be great for a long night's sleep as well as a sexy romp at midnight.
This month we're blogging bedroom resources and inviting you to submit your own bedrooms to either show off or ask for help. Send in good pics and we'll post them. This is your chance to reclaim your bedroom.
(Pic: Jefferson's alcove bed at Monticello)
Not my own pic but something that I like the look of and may do myself:
http://images.scrippsweb.com/HGTV/2005/12/05/2Charalambous_duplexadamsmo_e.jpg
Main link is here:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/designers_portfolio/portfolio/0,2159,HGTV_16257_1012,00.html?searchType=Portfolio&Room=DP+BEDROOMS&Style=Modern&Designer=&SearchPositionIndex=4
That bed looks very similar to ours (Cappellini padded platform bed in white leather - I know - but it does look good - honest) with Cappellini Wenge low profile night stands with a similar platform design for the lower leg section, plus we have dark hardwood floors and recently installed floor to ceiling 124" silk espresso curtains from potterybarn (thank you Maxwell for an old post recommending PB because we were about to order from the silk trading co).
Our bed is similarly positioned in relation to the windows to the one in this pic and I wanted to paint the wall behind the headboard in a similar shade of brown to the curtains but like the look of the drywall "extension" and cut out shelves. Of course I like the cut outs having done something similar before so this should not be too hard to emulate.
Anyone else like this bedroom?
How about something about the reality of bedrooms in the non-glamorous lives of some New Yorkers?
My bedroom faces Second Ave. so between the sound of drunk tourists and students (who knew I'd miss the nice, quiet junkies?) at all hours and the constant rumble/vibration of traffic I was living in the fugue state of insomnia for way too long. Just moved into a closet... I mean bedroom. More like a rectangle with a high ceiling, a window facing west, closet the length of the south wall and 21" of space around two sides of the double bed which is on the floor because the frame takes up too much space.
Like sleeping in a well and thankfully quieter. That's it. Too depressing to send a photo - just think of an Edward Hopper painting at his most depressed. What to do? Monochrome floors and wall? Deep colors? Light? Build a platform to get the mattress of the floor? Haven't a clue. Would really appreciate some help!
Hopefully,
ogma
I had a similar situation years ago and solved it by painting everything (including ceiling and trim) a beautiful deep blue, somewhere between royal and navy. I used flat paint on walls and ceiling, semigloss on trim. Then I made a coverlet for the bed and a curtain for the entryway, both in rich colors with metallic threads. Sorry I don't have photos.
Also, have you considered just a plain metal bed frame plus a tailored bedskirt? This wouldn't take up any more space than the bed itself. And you can store stuff underneath.
Hey ogma, we get a lot of that type of room here on AT already.
How wide is your bedroom? Is the length 21' up to the closet on one end? I guess your bed length is perpendicular to the length of the room. Is your problem that the room is very long and narrow? too dark?
If it is too long then how about constructing hanging a curtain or sheer to divide up the room?
You could even move the bed with the head board up against where the curtain is (so that the length of the bed is the same direction as the length of the room) to create more space on the sides and also enable you to use your bed frame again - assuming that you can not use the frame because it makes the bed too long for the width of the room.
Apologies if I have misunderstood the layout and the issues.
jamie pup--
LOVE That bedroom pic. Thanks for posting it.
ogma -
I sounds like you were saying 21 INCHES of space between the bed and the wall on the 2 sides of the bed that aren't smack up against the wall, right?
Since you, yourself, mentioned the monochrome idea and something about "dark", I think you're onto something, and Lesley's idea sounds perfect to me.
But I say take it further! I think I would take the doors off the closet, and maybe instead of curtain just for the entryway, get such a HUGE amount of fabric (maybe even velvet) that you can maybe just have the whole room enveloped in curtains, including the window of course and including the front of the closet (to take the place of its door).
And yes, build a big old platform for the bed, and make the bed skirt out of that same fabric that you do everywhere else, so it hides the clear rolling storage bins that you can use as drawers underneath the bed. In fact, I would build out that platform to go ahead and fill out that extra space on the side of it.
In fact, maybe go ahead and get a wider bed and fill the room on the side, instead of having such a narrow space next to it.
ALSO... I think you might as well do sort of a pleated starburst kind of thing on the ceiling with that curtain thing, so that most of the whole room is kind of like one big old teester bed!
One reason for so much curtain-ish treatment in my suggestion is because maybe it would soften the sound from the street that you were referring to.