Before and After: A Bare Bedroom on Martha’s Vineyard Is Now Perfectly Cottagecore
There’s no better way to be inspired than by the environment around you. Landscapes, cities, small towns, nature — these can all be creative fuel, especially for interior design. When Steffy Degreff (@steffy) decided she wanted to redesign her bedroom, she took inspiration from her surroundings.
“I wanted the room to have more character, some vintage touches, and a feeling of cottagecore vibes,” Steffy says. “The home is located on Martha’s Vineyard, and the island is filled with artistic people and lovely older homes filled with style.”
Steffy’s task was to fill the inexpressive room with character while embracing the natural light that came in through the huge window. “The before of the space was very much a blank slate,” she says. “The room had grayish-blue walls, and a very basic style bed. I liked the bright light within the room, but I didn’t like how white it was.” Steffy’s color, texture, and pattern choices warmed things up.
Pasted wallpaper ups the cottagecore vibes.
Steffy and her dad, a contractor, took on the DIY project together. The first step, and perhaps one of the most important, was to apply the floral wallpaper using wallpaper glue.
“Hanging fabric wallpaper ended up being much easier than I expected,” she says. “I’ve only worked with peel-and-stick, but found the paste-on wallpaper to be just as easy.”
Steffy’s wallpaper pick is a green leafy print on a white background from Wallpaper Direct. “The wallpaper really brings the room to life,” Steffy says.
Green paint on a board-and-batten wall adds nature-inspired colors.
The wallpaper’s cozy green tones set the nature-inspired tone for the room and match the green Benjamin Moore’s Dill Weed paint Steffy chose for the bottom half of the walls.
But before painting, Steffy and her dad hung a chair rail followed by placing evenly spaced out battens below it to create board-and-batten paneling.
“It’s such a great beginner DIY and makes such a big difference,” Steffy writes on Instagram. Steffy says using a level to make sure everything was even was important for wallpaper, too, but especially for lining up the battens.
Vintage (and vintage-inspired) finds cozy up the space.
After the wall details were complete, Steffy turned to furniture and accessories. She installed two plug-in sconces and hung artwork that she purchased secondhand, which she says was a big money-saver. (Her total revamp cost about $1,000.)
And with the revived walls, the metal bed from before (a Wayfair find) looks meant-to-be in the space. The new bedding is from Urban Outfitters, the linen curtains are from Amazon, and the dresser is from Wayfair. Once the room was filled with snug, quaint decor, it flawlessly fit the energy she was going for.
“I love everything about it,” Steffy says. “The space feels so warm and cozy, like a cottage home in the woods.” Or, as Instagram commenter @my_breschious put it, “Literally would never stop reading books with big cozy socks on in this room.”
For more cozy, cottage-y spaces to dream about, check out these five homes.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.