A Tale Of Two Bedrooms

Yesterday the delightful blog Emily A. Clark featured two of my bedroom designs. As I read the feature I realized I have never written a post about the first bedroom. Also, Emily's approach to include the two bedrooms in one post made sense, as they are designed using virtually all of the same furnishings and accessories, but with very different results. So thanks, Emily, for giving me something to post about today...as I continue to work on the next projects in the Home Office Redesign!


This is the master bedroom from our previous home, a design I worked on about three years ago. Here I wanted to create a strong contrast between lights and darks, while mixing modern and traditional elements. After the room was complete I posted it on HGTV's Rate My Space. To my great surprise the space ended up receiving well over 300,000 hits, before I took it off the site. It was quite the experience...oh the drama! If you've ever posted a room on Rate My Space or if you spent any time there a few years ago, you know what I am talking about!


Then two years later, with a move to our new home, I was ready to create a new look for our master bedroom. Perhaps some of the criticism actually did get to me!

The natural light in this bedroom is more shaded than the first, inspiring a design using a limited color palette with a bit of subtle shimmer. The same bed frame, bedding, night stands, armoire, mirror and table lamps along with many of the same accessories were used in each room. The major difference is that the George Nelson criss cross pendant from the first room was replaced with a vintage Pagoda Chandelier for the second, a fixture which had hung in the powder bathroom in our previous home. Other new elements brought into the second design are the silk shantung drapes, glass candle holders and the felted shag rug, which bring reflective qualities and light into the space.



One of my favorite aspects of this design is the wall behind the bed. The bed frame is upholstered in a textured linen which inspired the wall treatment, meant to resemble fabric. The effect was achieved by layering subsequently lighter tones of paint in a cross hatch pattern. The result is very subtle but beautiful. While I love this feature of the design, I'll tell you, it was a lot of work. In the future if I want this look I'll probably just find a wallpaper to hang!


To read more about the design of this bedroom you can read Emily's post or my previous posts on this room. And it may be getting an slight update in the near future. If you were to come into the room today and look closely at the bedding, you'd see traces of the silly putty Max had clenched in his little hand in the middle of one night when he crawled into bed. Additionally, one of the lamps has been broken. Recently I knocked over the clock, which hit the lamp causing the glass balls on the base to shatter. Too bad, those lamps were a good find at TJMaxx...

Perhaps that will be one of the projects I get to this year. But in the meantime, tomorrow I'll post about the progress of the Home Office Redesign.