Goodbye Bland Bedroom: Quick Character-Building Projects
If the cold weather has you spending a little extra time in your bedroom, and all that time in the bedroom has you looking at your space with a more critical eye, we’ve got a few ideas. Some rooms just start out beautiful, with lovely hardwood floors and high ceilings and intricate moldings. But if you’re like most people, your bedroom probably falls a bit short of an Italian Palazzo, or even an Anthropologie catalog shoot. The good news is that there are plenty of improvements you can make — some of them quite simple — to add a little character and enhance the look of pretty much anything you put in there. Here, ranked in order of difficultly, are seven projects that will dramatically improve the look of your bedroom.
1. Add a ceiling medallion
If you want to add a little architectural interest to a room, nothing will give you as much bang for your buck as a ceiling medallion. There are lots of inexpensive options out there, and they’re fairly easy to install. For just a little bit of money and a little bit of work, you’ll have a beautiful focal point for your room.
2. Add some character to your closet doors
These double doors from The Finished Space only look fancy — they’re just standard doors with squares of panel molding applied, then painted white.
3. Beef up your baseboard
If your bedroom doesn’t already have one, consider adding baseboard, the trim profile that runs along the bottom of the wall. If you do already have one, consider beefing up the profile. You may not think of this as a very sexy or important detail, but it actually makes a big difference to the look of a room — the same way shoes do for an outfit. In this example from St Etienne, a double profile at the base of the room adds definition to the space.
4. Dress up your windows
A little trim, carefully applied, turn even the most unremarkable of windows into an architectural feature. This tutorial from Love Grows Wild uses standard-sized lumber to add a little traditional style to an ordinary window. They also installed that rustic beam to hide the ceiling curtain rod, but it also adds an additional shot of texture and interest.
5. Add some faux paneling
Even if you don’t live in a beautiful old Paris apartment (like this one by A + B Kasha), you can fake the look of intricate wood paneling by adding molding squares to the wall. This tutorial from eHow walks you through the steps.
6. Construct a (faux) fireplace
The next best thing to having a fireplace in your bedroom is having the look of a fireplace in your bedroom. There are lots of ways to do this — one is to start with a vintage mantel and affix it to the wall, and another is to build your own faux fireplace surround using lumber and molding. This post will give you all kinds of ideas.
7. Build in some bookcases
Nothing dresses up a space (and cozies up a bedroom) quite like bookshelves. There are plenty of tutorials out there for giving store-bought bookcases a built-in look, but this IKEA Billy bookcase hack, which includes a trendy library ladder, is one of my favorites.
Re-edited from a post originally published 2.7.17