Before and After: An Awkward Upstairs Bedroom Goes ‘Cabin Chic’
Cat and her boyfriend, Brian, seriously lucked out: His family’s hunting lodge in southern Utah is the perfect weekend retreat. But over time, the cabin has transformed from a yearly hunting haven for the boys to a family vacation home. “Naturally, it was in need of some decor and interior design,” Cat says.
Cat and Brian’s upstairs bedroom had an awkward slanted ceiling and standard white wall. It was “very sparse, with just the essentials, like a bed and a dresser,” she says. “After a couple years, I asked if his parents would be okay with us decorating the room.” It’s no surprise they said yes: Her blog, The Suite Life, is filled with gorgeous design inspo.
“The room was bare and begging for a makeover,” Cat says. To create her “modern retreat in the middle of the woods”—a style she also calls, fittingly, “cabin chic”—she started by painting the slanted back wall dark sapphire. The awkward wall was their “biggest focal point,” and also their biggest challenge. But the jewel tone anchors the room and contrasts beautifully with the lighter shades used elsewhere in the room.
How’d she pick the color? Cat writes: “In winter, the cabin is covered in nothing but an icy white glaze with little pops of wood peeking through the snow from the naked tree limbs. I also thought about what colors were absent in our environment and thought that a dark blue and stark white would be the perfect juxtaposition against the mostly cocoa-colored backdrop of Utah.”
Since Brian is a woodworker, he was able to hand-make a rustic headboard to break up the dark wall and add some texture. A complementary white dresser and a rustic wicker chair pull Cat’s “cabin chic” motif through the room. And Cat didn’t let the sapphire shade get lost: It’s echoed in the curtains and in the triptych above the dresser.
While Cat and Brian couldn’t rip out the chocolate-colored wall-to-wall carpeting, they broke up the uniform effect with a subtle cowhide geometric rug.
“Now, when we walk into our room, it feels like us,” Cat says. “It feels like home—very comfortable and inviting.”
Thanks for sharing, Cat!