Remember the sneak peek we showed you back in November? The result was an unexpected melange of ranch rustic, Manhattan hip, and homeschool functional. And by "unexpected melange" I mean "I totally would want that room if I was a teenager".
The room itself, although quite large, was certainly a challenging space to deal with. Ree calls it "the long room", and indeed it's a narrow attic space complete with a funky sloped ceiling. But as soon as Bob uttered the words "hanging beds", the design gears were turning.
More about the beds in a minute, but let's back up and talk about the flooring. The Drummond girls asked for girly, and Cortney responded with blue striped carpet tiles. What? But it worked! Like pairing blue jeans with a pretty top and strappy heels, the blue floor created a perfect foundation to build on, and the stripes broke up the rectangularity of the long room.
So back to those beds. Holy cow! What kid wouldn't love those? The Novos had a local craftsman build them with rustic wood and iron, and I know what you're thinking. A kid would launch those through the wall like wrecking balls. Maybe some kids would, but you can tell right away that Ree's daughters are Southern young ladies. I mean, come on, they knit! And they herd cattle!
Another risky design choice that worked was the desk. Bob and Cortney had it made (locally!) to span the length of the long wall, which seems like it would just accentuate the whole long room problem, but that desk functions. It's an expansive teenage girl headquarters for reading, writing, knitting, and brooding, and yet it doesn't feel like it takes up much room.
The Pioneer Woman gave the Novogratzs a taste of Oklahoma with simmering peaches and cattle herding, and, in return, the Novos gave the Drummond girls a taste of New York City with spray paint. Are Alex and Paige leaving pink tags all over Pawhuska, Oklahoma? I don't know, but I do know that this room captures what it's like to be a teenage girl. It says "I can conquer the world, but I'm going to take my stuffed animals with me". There's nothing stereotypically girly or faux country about it. Instead it blends rustic with feminine with edgy. And that's really nice for two young, modern cowgirls.
(Images: Shane Bevel)
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Oklahoma isn't really Southern, not in the way you're using it.
These girls must simply love their room. I know I would. I'm a grown woman, and I want this bedroom.
I want those bed to retract. That would be awesome - like a vertical Murphy Bed.
It's definitely an improvement over the "bonus room" look of the before photo, but it's a bit of a jumble, no? I like the long desk and crafting area, but those floor tiles make me seasick. Too much movement and SCREAMING color.
And just try finding a dropped earring back or contact lense on those stripes.
They may want to put a stabilizing anchor on the beds for times of illness. Imagine having the stomach flu and sleeping in a bed that moves.
@Rural and Rueful,
Great point about the swinging beds. I think it would be hard to get in and out of without falling on the floor.
My daughter and I are in the process of decorating her bedroom and we found this post inspiring and beautiful! The beds are awesome and I'm sure won't be a problem get in and out of. She particularly liked the carpet and the long desk. The the craft area with the yarn displayed on the wall is a great idea.
"Rustic" is really stretching it.
I think the room still looks very long and narrow. And yeah, all those stripes! A very simple rule in a room like this is to define areas with rugs; in this case, break up the stripes with areas of solid color. Or just do random squares of strips in an allover solid (or much smaller pattern). Fortunately, this family is wealthy and can afford to make the changes if and when the girls get tired of all that stripeyness.
I have no idea who any of these people are, as we don't get HGTV in the UK. What I do know is the teenage me would have HATED those beds, as under the bed was where I shoved everything when "cleaning" my room lol. The room is much better than the before but in my opinon doesnt feel very cohesive. Much better but not really my style...also, does anyone know what those beds would be like in real life? They look great but strike me as something thats not really practical in real life.
Beds = OMG YES. Love.
Desk = not necessarily the most functional, but the wood is absolutely gorgeous. and highlighting the length of the room is actually pretty nice.
Carpet = WTF?? Why would you DO that?
This is a cute look, and I think the carpet goes a long way toward de-emphasizing the room's length. But where is all the girls' stuff? I have teens myself, and cannot picture them paring down to this look. Where are all the books, jewelry, makeup, clothes? And my kids both still have some toy-type items they want in their rooms.
I LOVE the Novogratzes!!! (see? plural! easy-peasy)
And this room is one of my favourites, ever.
My 8 year old, who has a very cool bed herself (a carved bed made in India -- looks like a mini-Taj Mahal) LOVES these beds, and LOVES this room!
Their use of colour is genius -- unselfconscious, playful, and inspired. That about sums up their decorating style -- very Boho-chic, very Cool Britannia.
I think the love/hate divide on the Novogratz design aesthetic comes down to whether or not one appreciates that looser Euro aesthetic or not -- think Marie Claire Maison and Living Etc. versus DWELL or (what magazines are left?!) Veranda or House Beautiful.
It is stretching it to say the room is rustic. While I LOVE the beds, a few bits of iron, does not make a rustic room. I like the idea of nothing shoved under the beds. That is just a home for dust bunnies & forgotten possessions. I am happy the girls like their room.
Those FLOR tiles really worked in the House Tour from last week, but I'm not so sure about the long, narrow space.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/bert-davids-lego-infused-mid-century-apartment-house-tour-174456
You know what? I just realized you can't sit up and read in those beds. And there's no reading light anyhow. I could not live in that room and neither could my kids. Won't the pillows always end up on the floor? And those beds look really hard to make, too.
I am neither here nor there on most of the room, but where the heck are their clothes? No dressers? Is there a closet off camera we can't see?
I like the individual parts but nothing seems to go together. It isn't even cool-clashy. The beds are great, I love the desk and the Flor tiles are nice (just not in this room, they looked way better in the post Earthy Cruncher linked), I especially love the Fatboy beanbags. Maybe it is one of those rooms that is better in person because it isn't translating well in the photos.
Though the photos look well let, I have a hard time believing that all that light is coming from a couple recessed downlights. What gives AT?
@Earthy Cruncher, I agree the stripes look much better as an area rug. Perhaps if the designers had done virtual rugs under the beds (framing the stripes with solid Flor tiles) the room might feel more cohesive and still.
Question for the designers here: in principle, shouldn't there be some hint of blue (or its opposite) in the beds or bedding, so the beds relate to the overwhelming blues in the rest of the room? Floating a noncommittal range of pinks on a swath of blues seems wrong to me, even though the pinks are brought across the room to the desk.
Something just occurred to me. There's only one door to this room, and it's at the end of a hallway. The desk closest the door is right across from the foot of the bed, so if someone had the chair pulled out, anyone trapped on the other side would have to be an Olympic hurdler to get to the door.
@RURAL AND RUEFUL, that is precisely why I said earlier the room doesn't feel cohesive. Personally, as a designer, I would have added a small amount of blue elsewhere, perhaps a navy cushion on the bed, just to tie it all together. That being said, maybe thats not what the client wanted.
I admit I'm surprised at how many people didn't like this. I wasn't expecting everyone to like it, but the result seemed so eye-pleasing to me that I was taken aback at all the criticism.
It just seems so fun and happy and bright! I love the carpet, the beds, and the desk!
I am curious how heavy those beds are, as it could potentially be easy enough to unhook them and rest them on the floor for times of illness etc. But only assuming they didn't weight a ton.
@whitty - I caught the end of the show and they showed that there was a closet at one end of the room (just off the front). I think the designers added some shelving to it to make it more practical for the girls.
@PI - The photo (above) taken near the end of the long desk is taken by the closet. The photos on the Pioneer Woman's blog (http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeandgarden/2011/11/the-girls-room/) show that the bedroom door opens into a short hallway and then you would enter the room proper...and there's room behind the desk chair even pulled out - and room for walking between the chair and the bed.
I loved the reveal (I saw the show) and would have been thrilled with a bedroom like this as a teen. The beds were my favorite part; I found the linens and pillows to be so very pretty. The carpet tiles were a surprising touch but not bad. I was happy to see on the show that Bob and Cortney found many accessories at a local antique/resale shop...which has me inspired to find accessories around me in my small town vs. finding trending things online.
Unless one is a very still sleeper, it seems like every toss or turn would set your bed a-rockin'. Makes me a bit nauseous to think of it. Cool in concept, but maybe not for real life, every day use.
Love the Novogratzes--miss you on HGTV. I can't bare to watch house hunters--it seems like it has taken over. Looking forward to seeing more designing and less of the irritating house searches, so I will have to give HGTV another shot.
I think because the actual chain section is very short, it wouldn't move around that much?
That riot of color and pattern really works imho. Definitely an improvement. Desk area is a logical solution given what they had to work with. But those beds.Nice try, but I have a problem with anything "suspended." Pass the dramamine.
I think on the whole I like the room - the beds, the desk, very neat, the teenage-me approves. But I really, really hate the primary blue with that carnation pink. Not working for me at all. There was a post not too long ago about making blue and pink work together, and I'm thinking that maybe the designers should have checked that out before committing themselves to that...
Although I'm NOT a Novogratz fan, I do like the room - other than the carpet. My sons and daughter would love those beds. I think I could love the entire room with different carpet and bedding - just my opinion!
I loved the room but while I was watching the show imagined the chains were lengthened so the beds would be sitting on the floor instead. The swinging beds look cool but no one wants to be swaying every time you roll over in bed!
I'm very impressed this family have two daughters who can share. If it had been me and my sister, I would have asked them to blow the budget building me a partition wall.
Not sure about the appropriateness of the beds. The beds look somewhat BSDM to me, but perhaps those connotations are in the eye of the beholder. Sorry!
lots and lots of girly pin touches, very nice but I always loved reading in (a safe solid stable) bed as a kid.
pink--- pink touches, not pin :)
The girls have a great place to read -- on the fatboys, under the chandelier.
I think those who don't like the blue flooring should check out the post about the room on Pioneer Woman -- http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeandgarden/
She explains a lot of things that don't seem to have come out on this post --
-- the beds sway only a little, they don't move a lot;
-- the carpeting looks GREAT -- looks like different shades of jeans, and serves as a beautiful neutral to the other brights, like the yellow and red of the coverlets, the grey of the walls, and the bits of pink (personally, the chandelier reminds me of the beautiful sparkly earrings you'd finish the outfit off with);
-- you'll see a close-up of the bedding, which is really very nice;
-- and you'll see that there is indeed a closet.
I would like to say though that personally, I am getting to the point where I quite dislike how accent colours are "woven" into a room. To me, such rooms look stilted and artificial, like they were designed by designers (which they usually are) and are not an authentic reflection of the owner. They did not come to be naturally over the course of time, but were carefully planned and contrived into being. And that is what I love so much about what the Novogratzes do -- they put together rooms in a less controlled and more natural way.
Much of the world sleeps in hammocks - same idea just more room.
I LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! THIS ROOM! Love the Novogratz style and love that they think outside the box!
Yes, the girls *could* read in the beanbag chairs. But personally I like being able to read in bed. In fact, I have a little reading area in my bedroom that includes a beanbag chair (placeholder for when I find just the right "grownup" chair for the space) but I don't use that spot at bedtime. I want to read just before I drop off to sleep, and I think this is pretty common, actually.
I am thinking the same beds could have been made with a low headboard that would solve the reading problem AND the pillows-falling-to-the-floor issue. Given that it is a shared space, perhaps not having reading lights for the beds is a good idea -- book lights would work about as well as lamps and give the girls freedom to have different bedtimes. Headboards could even be retrofitted on if Pioneer Woman's family finds they agree with me on this!
(Oh, and I am glad it turns out they have a closet. But I predict sometime in the future they will buy some little wheeled drawer units to stow under the desk, unless the girls keep lots of their stuff elsewhere in the house. In my experience few teens do well with the uncluttered life and it is good to plan spots where they can put things away after a suitable bout of nagging.) (And another "oh" -- I like the colors and the carpet!)
@ANGELINETHEBAKER --
It doesn't show up well in the pictures, but if you go to the Pioneer Woman post about this room, you will read that there are several purple shelf/drawer units with different configurations the length of the desk. (As well, they have a lot of stuff stored on the desk on the shelf above).
I agree with you though that a low headboard would make the beds even better.
A lot of things seem off about this. Not feeling it.
The dealbreakers for me are the lack of bedside tables and the grooves in the desktop. To me those are two essentials for everyday utility. Personally, I'd hate a swinging bed and the lack of a headboard, but the girls might not.