Master bedroom redecorating reveal

If you're just tuning in, my husband and I are doing some redecorating in our home in preparation for some guests who will be staying with us this month.

As described in my 1 room nearly done...at least 1 more to go blog post, we already gave the guest bedroom a makeover after which we turned our focus onto the master bedroom.

Master bedroom BEFORE (1)

As you can seeing in the Master bedroom BEFORE (1) picture, we had a HUMONGOUS TV that took up 1 entire corner. The tape on the wall to the right of that huuugggeee TV  is marking where I'd like a nice, new flat panel or LCD TV which will take up much less space. (Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)

Master bedroom BEFORE (2)

As you can see from the Master bedroom (2) picture, our bedroom furniture was a maple (?) colored sleigh bed, and we also had matching night stands. They were nice...but in a room that size, bulky furniture just did NOT work. That furniture and the aforementioned TV really made the room look full.

As for those paper-based lamps (shown in the corner of the room), they were good on paper but terrible in real use. What I mean is, they looked cute in the store but didn't actually put out a lot of light. In the night (without natural lighting), the room always felt like a cave. The curtains were also stuck on the rod so tightly that they couldn't be opened easily, which meant we lived like I would imagine Edward and his clan live (like vampires).




So before we started redecorating, we identified several areas we wanted to improve in the master bedroom:

• paint the walls
• get new (low profile) furniture
• fix the curtains

As I've mentioned before, choosing paint is HARD work! At the time when I was sampling colors, I initially wanted to go with blue in the master bedroom and a very pale (actually hardly noticeable) green in the guest bedroom. After my husband saw the color samples on the wall, we had to flip the room colors.  I initially tried 2 greens that both ended badly, so I tried a couple more, and then...well, a couple more(!). We ended up liking the last 3 greens (out of 8 greens). I'm slightly embarrassed to say that for the 2 rooms, my total paint sample count is 15...but I was happy to hear that others have gone through the same issue with similar results.

We got a late start to the master bedroom painting one weekend which ended up fine since we took less time to paint the master than we had done in the guest room. We didn't do primer and the walls are textured the same as in the guest bedroom (orange peel texture). After painting 2 coats, there were still a few spots where the tan color showed through the green, so I had to touch up some areas again (as I did in the guest bedroom).  The green paints that we used in the master bedroom were both Valspar (Canopy Stripe and Bamboo Shoot) from Lowe's. I don't know if it was just my imagination, but the Valspar paint didn't seem to be as thin as the Olympic that we used in the guest bedroom. There definitely were less spots that needed touching up than there were in the guest bedroom after painting 2 coats.

Master bedroom AFTER (1)

When we finished painting, we put the furniture back as it was before. It looked okay with the green walls, but we already had our hearts set on an insanely expensive high-end black bed at Crate & Barrel. I also wanted to get a dresser for storing all my shalwar kameez, but we couldn't justify the even more insanely high cost of the matching dresser from C&B (too expensive for what it was). I'm not cheap (frugal is a more appropriate word)...I was just trying to stay on budget!

Master bedroom AFTER (2)

Here's the results of our efforts. The new bed from Crate & Barrel was delivered a couple of weeks ago. (We love it!) Then I picked up some small floating shelves from Lowe's to use in place of side tables. Instead of going broke on getting the matching dresser from Crate & Barrel, we got smart: If the other furniture (dresser and mirror) looks familiar, it's because we ended up deciding that the furniture we bought for the guest bedroom worked much better in the master bedroom, so we moved it over.  It matches and looks nice (and also kept us under budget). (This left us without a dresser in the guest bedroom, but more about that later.)

Master bedroom AFTER (3)

For the bedding, I got the same sheets from Macy's and an all-season duvet from Overstock.com (both are 500 thread count). The duvet I bought for the guest bedroom seems to be working out fine, but the duvet I bought for the master bedroom seems to be even better. I also got the pillows from Macy's.

In case you've noticed that there's no tv where I previously marked it on the wall, I'm still hoping to get it...just not yet.

For anyone doubting whether we made the right decision to change the bed from the maple sleigh bed to the black low-profile one, check out this picture of the room BEFORE the new bed was delivered.   The maple color looked ok with the walls, but it just didn't...pop. Changing the wall color and removing the night stands improved the situation but didn't solve all of the room's problems. I think you'll agree (with us) that the black furniture really made the room look dramatically different and so much better.

New wall colors, old furniture

Like the guest bedroom, the look we were going for was simple (yet elegant), peaceful and calming, not too full, and with posh bedding.   So what do you think...how'd we do?