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mygroovyhouse

Suggestions for decorating my master bedroom

mygroovyhouse
13 years ago

Okay, so I’m getting ready to work on our master bedroom and decorating bedrooms is particularly difficult for me. So here’s my house. It’s kind of a rustic, cabin-y, lakeside home. I don’t want it too rustic on the inside, or have lodge or moose décor or anything like that.

This is the basic plan for the kitchen and living area:

So, I will be showing you the room shortly, but I feel the need to say a few things first. We have done nothing with it, except put in the essentials. It was important that the items in the room be cheap or free or something we already owned, so the don’t go together or look good. I totally realize that my college bedding, the hideous rug, and the chair in desperate need of upholstery, do not in anyway go together or capture the look I am trying to achieve. And the window treatments don’t match. I know that there is probably a better place to put the air filter. And if you begin to suspect that I don’t own a vacuum, the stuff on the floor is actually pieces of foamy stuff from the carpet pad that wouldn’t come up when I ripped out the green and brown swirl shag carpet.

So it just had to be functional while I was dealing with more pressing issues such as large amounts of urine-soaked carpet, glitter-enhanced popcorn ceilings, window treatments that appeared to have been constructed from the clothing worn by Jeannie in "I dream of Jeannie", and other disasters such as these:



(My kitchen)



(My upstairs bathroom)



(The carpet in the basement)



(Please don't be jealous)

So here is the room:



(West wall)



(North wall)



(East wall)



(South wall)

Generally I like simple, clean, uncluttered, well-built, old, and I usually like things in Coastal Living mag, Country Living mag, This Old House mag, and the Pottery Barn catalog, except for the “shabby-chic” type stuff. I don’t like modern, fru-fru, Victorian, or fancy. I can’t stand glitter. Anyway, I want my bedroom to be a peaceful, cozy, relaxing place to unwind and sleep, but not like a French “boudoir”, if that makes sense.

So, if you’ve got suggestions for furniture arrangements, what needs to go/stay, finish carpentry, light fixtures, paint color, carpet, window treatments, furniture, things to put on the wall (and where to put them), bedding, or any inspiration photos, please feel free to lay them on me!

Comments (21)

  • deco822
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Don't have any suggestions for you, but the "please don't be jealous" light really made me laugh. Thanks

  • abundantblessings
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Lovely bed. Also, I actually like the lines of your other pieces (chair, table and dresser) and would refinish them. What are your thoughts for the doors: painted or not? I certainly like the grain, but the contrast with the white walls is too much to me so I'd paint the walls for sure. I'm guessing you like blue, so would you want to paint the walls some shade of blue? If you don't want blue, what color makes you happy? What are your plans for flooring: wood or carpet or ...?

    The only other option for bed placement would be angled in the corner. It's not bad where it is, but I'd move the small prints over the bed, perhaps to over the tall dresser. Those are preliminary thoughts, but you might look at the gallery here, Houzz.com, and other posts for looks you like. Then show us some examples of what appeals to you for further input.

    Most of all, enjoy turning your '60's warp into your lovely vision.

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  • oceanna
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Loved your post and your sense of humor! Yes, your POs had a serious case of tacky fever, but now you are there to rescue that great house. Congrats!

    Decorating on a budget can be fun and full of triumphant moments. Instead of reupholstering furniture, why not sew your own slip covers from painters canvas drop cloths that you bleach first? Then when kids/pets/guests/drunks soil them, just pop them in the washer. The look is divine -- quite like linen, but at a fraction of the cost.

    Think Craigslist, thrift stores, and elbow grease. One thing I've noticed in photo after photo is that a lot of white in a room with one color thrown in looks fabulous, and since you wanted to keep it simple, I would imagine each room done entirely in white, furniture and all, then start adding one or two colors in your mind, and see what you can conjure up. The white can easily be pale beige -- you said you wanted a simple look, right?

    My first thought is if you want to/have to keep the avocado fixtures in the bathroom, go for white walls and floor and shower curtain, with maybe a fern leaf or two stenciled on the wall and the curtain? KISS principle. If you can change them out, look in CL to save $.

    Two places I would send you for inspiration. One is to this blog: http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com/

    The other is to the Show Me Your Cottage Decor thread in the Gallery.

    Save all your favorite pictures to a folder on your desk top, then narrow them down. If the Cottage thread doesn't do it for you, there are threads there for every room, each with hundreds of pictures in it, covering every sort of decor style and all the colors in the rainbow.

    In our Gallery, you will also find color paint threads. So if you are looking for a blue for a bedroom, type "blue" in the search engine there (bottom of page) and the thread should come up called "Blues" (or similar). It will be filled with members' photos of their blue rooms, telling you the exact paint they used. Cool, huh?

    I think you're going to have a LOT of fun with this (albeit huge) project and we will so enjoy commiserating with you and encouraging you with suggestions along the way. Hope to be hearing a lot from you here!

    Once you've picked an inspiration pic (if you want to approach it that way), post it here and ask for comments/ideas?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Main Gallery Link

  • mygroovyhouse
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like the bed, too. It also has a foot and sideboards and is old enough that all the fasteners are handmade metal and wood pegs. The bed, however, is sized about 1" smaller than a standard full-sized mattress so The Husband and I haven't decided whether to have a custom mattress made or get a standard sized bed.

    Refinish as in make them the same color or freshen the look?

    I haven't decided on the doors. We have LOTS of those doors in our house. Here is the hall leading up to the bedroom. (Please excuse the construction debris. I wasn't planning to do a hallway photo shoot today.)

    The bedroom is at the end on the right.

    I do like blue, especially the grayish, slate blue. I like earth colors - red, burnt orange, yellow, green, blue, and tans. Here is the colors that I'm drawn to for my living area:
    http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Apple-Blossom-Red-Green-Tablecloth-71-in.-x-71-in./3168338/product.html

    Here are some pictures that appealed to me. Some are too modern, but I like the look and it could be adjusted. I didn't see (and haven't seen) anything that just made scream YES!! This is it!!

    I do notice that I'm drawn to both slate blues with cool, serene feels, and warm browns with nubby textures. I don't think they would mix, and how much I need to keep my living area in mind which is at the other end of the hall above.

    Oooh, I hadn't though of angling the bed. I'm going to try that and see how it looks. Obviously if it is moved anywhere else in the room it will be blocking one of my many doors.

    >>Most of all, enjoy turning your '60's warp into your lovely vision.Thanks and I am! And I was also thinking '60's time warp when I first looked at the house, only to learn that it was built and DECORATED in 1976. Notice the second bathroom picture above. The original owners were commemorating the bicentennial with the tub surround mural. Mindboggling, eh?

  • teacats
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    First -- IF you take down the silver super-groovy chandelier -- make sure that you sell it on eBay! It is very "mid-century modern" -- and may just do well! LOL! :)

    Paint the doors to make them "disappear" in the white trim and the whole room will look more co-hesive. This trick would work in the hallway too!

    White paint can change furniture too -- and help it to work together -- a fresh simple farmhouse look.

    Then add color with bedding, artworks, rugs. For simple artworks -- just take family/friends photos -- re-do them in black-and-white, mat them in a color and frame alike. You can find all kinds of frames at thrift stores and paint them to match.


  • palimpsest
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I thought you were serious about the "don't be jealous" comment under the light fixture as one of the only interesting things the previous owners had:

    Here it is listed at Las Venus, on the 1st dibs website for $1450. This is a pricey retail site but you may garner a few hundred bucks on it on eBay
    {{gwi:1560703}}

    Maybe you should contact Las Venus and see if they want another so they can sell them as a pair :)

    Here is a link that might be useful: We should be jealous :)

  • abundantblessings
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Too funny!

    Slate blue would be lovely in a MBR and probably have enough depth to keep the doors unpainted. I'm with Oceana in enjoying all white/light rooms (although she makes splendid use of color and murals in her home), but that wouldn't work with your furniture and the antiques are too nice to ruin with paint IMO. I have kept my main quarters neutral for years, but have always indulged in color in bedrooms. Other love color everywhere, so you need to go with what feels best to you. I can easily see creams, neutrals or even earth tones in the main area playing nicely with other colors in bedrooms. Look at betterathelake's recent post on bedroom linen. She's drawn to textured browns and blues in her bedroom and posted some pix of various linen sets which may not be your style but show some color possibilities.

    I don't care for matchy-matchy furnishings, or all wood pieces in the same tone or finish, or painting wood that has a lovely grain but YMMV. However, I do think the highboy could be lovely in a lighter stain more toward the bed color. Its likely a different species -- mahogany, perhaps, although I've seen similar styles in cherry. I'd also consider staining the table just a tad darker, not to match. but to give it a little more weight, but that might not be necessary or desirable once the room has some color.

    I'd be tempted to go with a queen or king mattress for comfort and explore whether the footboard could be modified to add to each side of the headboard. I've seen some wonderful adaptations doing so with expensive Art Deco furniture so it's not a totally wacky idea.

  • mygroovyhouse
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Oh WOW!!!

    I had no idea! And to think I was going to trash that thing. Not donate it to the Habitat store, but send it straight to the landfill.

    Thanks for the tip!

    I'm now getting a really sick feeling about all the other "odd" light fixtures I've trashed...

  • mygroovyhouse
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Here's the link to some bedrooms I like:
    http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/228265/list/Master-Bedroom
    Some additional info:

    - The flooring will need to be carpet due to some poor choices made by the PO. As much as I want wood floors, I've accepted my reality that there is an issue in nearly every room that will not allow for wood floors throughout the house. I just have to pick and choose where they go.

    - I love the link to the cottages that oceanna posted. I like the cottage look, but struggle with how to make it not look too romantic or girly. I'm a farmgirl during evenings and weekends with farm animals and a big garden. Which is also why, despite how I like those white/beige rooms with just a little color, I don't think it would work with my lifestyle and orange cat. I sometimes unknowingly have...ahem...unsavory things on my boot or pants. And I spill food. And The Husband just gets stuff dirty.

    - I've been sifting through the Country Farmhouse blog that someone just posted and there's a lot I like about it, but the flowers and some of the decor are just too elegant and girly for me. I'm a "heels on Friday night, hands in chicken guts Saturday morning" kind of gal and I just haven't found an inspiration that captures what I want to be surrounded by.

    - The bedroom is just used for traditional bedroom purposes. It's not an escape from the kids room, a sanctuary, and our only tv is in the living room.

    - I like the slip covers from drop cloths idea...

    - When I say nubby, that doesn't include tassels or those garlands of puffy balls from the 50's, Genie costumes, or flying carpets.

    I also want to clarify that the bedroom project is not on a tight budget anymore. It was when we first moved in and our house money was being directed toward a functioning hvac system, an oven where you can open the door without the door pulling completely away from the oven*, and a new roof. While we're not made of money and I would like to spend as little as possible, we do have funds to spend on this room.

    *Yes, this actually happened while baking my sister-in-law's wedding cake. Fun times!

  • teacats
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Pal:

    Wild Price!!!! :)

    The moment I saw it - I had one of my "feelings" that it might be a winner for the Cool-and-Groovy-Midcentury-Mod Decor folks! :)

  • mahatmacat1
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    LOL palimpsest, I thought she was serious about that too :)

    But I was just about to offer to take it off her hands for postage and a nice gift certificate...rats...

  • mygroovyhouse
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Even more LOL, flyleft. This light has been the family joke for years. The joke was that it was worth "millions" and it was an eyesore in our basement. I just haven't had the time to deal with the funk that is our basement.

    Still...just wow. The light almost got itself given away as a joke gift to an equally unsuspecting recipient. Wow.

    I had no idea.

    Out of curiosity (and the fact that I still have several undisturbed areas of my funky and groovy home) how did you all identify it? What should I be looking for??

  • teacats
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    in my case I've just been noticing the strong trend in decorating toward a mid-century modern groove ... and in fashion too ...

  • palimpsest
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I knew that I had seen it, and I am a 1st dibs junkie. They have good stuff, the pictures are great, (and the prices are astronomical).

  • palimpsest
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    In your house, I would paint the stained doors, because the rest of the woodwork is painted, the doors are slab, and they are irregularly placed.

    In your bedroom, you could consider painting the doors and trim a satin version of the wallcolor or a shade lighter or darker, which is a subtle contemporary look. Also because there are a number of irregularly placed and sized openings.

    You could consider keeping two different styles of window treatments in a room like this because of the size discrepancy and placement: Both could get a blind or shutter, but the large picture window could have floor length panels that coordinated with the bedding, while the smaller off center window stays plain.

    I like the chair (worth reupholstering) the dresser, and the trunk. The bed is ok but I am not sold on it, since it needs a custom mattress. I would get bedside chests with drawers in them rather than tables with no storage and paired lamps.
    Try the bed on an angle, but this makes bedside tables and lighting problematic...I would just pull the bed over a bit to get a bedside chest on both sides. One would sit partly in the window, or it could sit Under the window (another reason for no full window treatment).

  • franksmom_2010
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Oh my! Well, we might just be twins! 1976 house? Check! Orange cat? Check! Funkadelic fixtures and groovy details? Check! Poor choices and bad repairs by the POs? Check! Messy DH? Check! And...the chicken farm gets under way this spring!! I have those very same doors, trim, and hardware in a lot of our house, and that wall of the bedroom with the two closets and a sliver of wall between? We've got that, too.

    Very, very cool about the light fixture! I wouldn't trash anything until you at least check it out on ebay or post a pic here for the MCM folks to ID. The old and groovy may help pay for some new and wonderful!

    I'm too tired to have any kind of helpful bedroom suggestions, but you have some nice pieces, so making it all work into something fabulous should be fun. Good luck!!

  • kswl2
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I. Have just skimmed the thread but wanted to suggest new doors throughout asap. Trying to paint doors like that will suck up more paint (and $$) than new doors, I have a friend who tried it.

    If you have a few ocean-y watery colors picked out I would paint the whole house in two, or at the most, three, of them. Someone mentioned gray blue . . . If that was the OP I would say do the whole house in one gorgeous color like that. Then I would paint every bit of that furniture a bone white, and slipcover everything else with white duck cloth or blue and white striped covers.

    The exterior of hour house is fabulous and the floor plan looks very livable!

  • whitdobe
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like your bed headboard a lot but, since it needs a custom mattress, I'd vote for replacing it. You might consider replacing it with a queen size bed, it looks like you've got room for one. In my area there are a lot of very good quality beds being sold on CL fairly inexpensivly.

    As far as colors go, if I were you I'd pick out bedding first and pull a color from there.

    Yes, your comment on the light made me smile....and then finding out how much it would sell for made me think of ones I've tossed too!

  • kswl2
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I did not read the OP word for word, just skimmed by on the way to the pictures and assumed this was a recent purchase / second home and you were overhauling the entire house------sorry!!

  • mygroovyhouse
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I tried the bed with two side tables at an angle, but it didn't really work. Something about the distance between the large window and wall, and the width of the bed just didn't work. I could never get the angle to where it felt comfortable to look at. It also left a huge gap in the triangular area between the headboard and walls. It caused the trunk to be just a few feet from the entrance and the pathway from the entrance into the bathroom seemed cramped and awkward.

    So, it will have to be near where it is now. But I'm intrigued with the suggestion that I could move the bed over to where it was partially under the window. I have been diligently trying to keep it perfectly centered between the small window and the wall, even though that means I don't get a table. Because I thought that was what one should do. I would love to have a bedside table on my side. What you don't see is a foot stool providing storage for my chapstick, water, reading material, and extra pair of socks in case my feet get cold.

    And shutters??!!

    For the love of cabbage, people, I absolutely adore shutters, but didn't think they would work in that room. Shutters!!

    I also found a rug in Pottery barn that combines a version of the warm reds and yellows with the cooler blues and greens. I think this color mix will work, but it needs to be the right shades.

    http://www.potterybarn.com/products/brant-rug/?pkey=cpersian-style-rug-shop

    Also, if you will turn with me to p.152 of your January 2011 Pottery Barn catalog that offers Comfortable Style and a whites sale, you will see a photo of pillows at the bottom left of the page.

    I'm liking these colors and thinking of them with lots of neutrals. I'm warming up to the idea of the cottage look with lots of whites/neutrals, but still not sure about white slipcovers and all the white. It seems like it could look like a bunch of ghosts live here and left their outfits laying around the house. Maybe I need to look at more pictures. Also, on the all white with one color thing...is it one color for the whole house or does each room get a different color? And how would you avoid people from referring to different rooms as the "Red" room or the "Yellow" room or the "Blue" room?

    Two other questions...

    Given all the doors, which I am beginning to accept must be painted or replaced (Painting furniture made from hardwoods makes me sad, but I now see that I can't leave them as they are) would some type of wainscoting be too much action for this room?

    This is my grandmother's iron bed that is in an upstairs guest room.

    Would it be a candidate for our room, or do I need wood? Or possibly something upholstered? The iron bed does accept a standard mattress, you just have to beat and shoehorn it in there. The footboard is the same, but, of course shorter. It's brass-colored with the paint flaking off and will need to be repainted.

    Upholstered like this:
    http://www.potterybarn.com/shop/furniture-upholstery/bedroom-ideas/?cm_type=lnav
    The third room idea which is also found on p.18-19 in the January PB catalog.

  • palimpsest
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like the brass bed better than the wooden one.

    I think wainscotting would be too much action for your bedroom. Its not really appropriate for a bedroom in most house styles, and particularly not one that is still scaled as an MCM house (even one with not much identity as such, like yours).

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