Some bedroom ideas

I've been thinking a lot lately about my bedroom.  I'm kinda tired of it being a cluttered and unfinished space.  It really should have been the first room that we finished, rather than the last, as it seems like it will be.  The upstairs guest room is done.  The dining room is awfully close to complete.  The living room's right there with it.  Our kitchen is looking pretty good.  Now that the family room is painted, it won't be long till it's decorated just like we want it to be.  MOST of the rooms in Casa PV are looking good or on their way to being complete.  What's missing here?  Our bedroom.  (and three bathrooms, a garage, utility room, and another bedroom...but who's counting????)

I finally gave Husband Mine an ultimatum over Christmas (please excuse the tardiness of this post...):  Bed must be finished by our anniversary, or I buy one.

You see, he decided several years ago that he wanted to take up furniture making as a hobby.  As in, "I want to build bookcases and beds and end tables and coffee tables."  He has been saying since the day we bought our mattress (which was delivered the week we moved into the house 2+ years ago) that he wants to build the bed.  Which he started last spring.  And then abandoned because he didn't like how heavy it was.  So, he decided to start anew.  Two years after we moved in, I still find myself sleeping on a mattress on the floor.  Which really doesn't help with the whole "look how finished our bedroom is" thing.  Hence the ultimatum.

And let me tell you, folks.  I've been saving my pennies.  It's not that I don't have faith in him.  I really want to.  It's more that I'm a realist when I come to that man.  He is a perfectionist, so he has a tendancy to stop doing something if it's not perfect.  Like our bed in round 1 for example.

Since I'm a visual person, and I just believe everyone is exactly like me, here are some pics to give you a sense of what the general idea of the bed is.  Our "inspiration pieces" if you will.

We started with this great bed from West Elm:

We loved everything about it but the price.  Oucheroo.  So, we took the idea of the storage bed (note the drawers on the bottom), and kind of combined it with this great headboard from Ikea:

I know, the headboard looks a little goofy, but you have to imagine it behind a solid headboard.  Those shelves are pull-out.  They stay hidden in a box-like headboard...kinda like this one, also from Ikea:



It's okay to ooohhh and aaahhh over my fancy photo-editing skilz (note red arrow).

SO, combine the two pictures, and you have a basic idea of what the finished product is rumored to supposed look like.  I see that bed in my mind's eye, and imagine the sweet lamps we just got (hello, Home Goods score!) perched on top of the headboard, a slim bench in the same color at the foot of the bed...then come the bookshelves in the corner and the small chair in front of them...the floating shelf on the wall to the left of the bed...I've got it all planned out.

All I need is a bed to get it started...

One down, two to go...

That's painting projects.  Okay, wait.  Let me be more specific.  That's ROOM painting projects.  We got the dining/living/hall/entry done this weekend.  Thanks to my AWESOME in laws, it was a breeze.  A five-hour, hot-because-we-took-down-the-shades breeze.

So, without further ado, here's a before (as in, WAY before - when we first looked at the house before we bought it!) shot into the dining room, from the living room:

Sorry, it's a little dark.  But, it shows off the lovely monochromatic look of the joint quite perfectly.

NOW, here's the after, from a different angle into the dining room, with a snippet of the kitchen beyond:

You'll have to excuse both the mess and the blurriness of the pic.  Painting is messy business, and my cell was the only camera I had on me.  :)  You can see how the new walls go with the feature wall (blue) and the orange (hmmm...it looks kinda salmon-y in this shot...) of the kitchen.  I also like that you can't see any of the golden oak trim that I'm dying to get rid of.  It makes the room look even nicer.

Here's a close-up of the three colors together:

I love them together!  Just a little cleanup of the lines, and we'll be good to go!

Up next:

Painting my Nana's dresser a lacquered black and moving it to the dining room to act as a kind of buffet table.  It'll go under those floating shelves on the blue wall.  My "nice" china (read:  the stuff that NEVER gets used...), table linens, and candle paraphernalia will make their home there.

Currently in the works, I need to finish painting a side table (a groovy 70s number with a built-in magazine rack) and an old coffee table a shiny white.  Our small jungle of houseplants will be living on the coffee table, and I'm not exactly sure where the side table will go - probably between this great set of old chairs I bought from my friend Erin (one is in the pic above - under the floating shelves!), which will be migrating to the living room until I twist my husband's arm enough to buy a new couch.  :)

Up next in room painting:

Another bedroom and the family room.  How many coats of paint and primer do you think it'll take to cover up this red??

Especially if we go with a lighter color. We're currently thinking a lighter celery green up and a darker moss green down, using the ledge that runs around about half the room as a dividing point. All that wood will be going white. Or, in the case of the fireplace, stone.

Long post short - it was a good weekend.