Bedroom Redesign

One of the reasons I love interior design and home décor so much is that spaces continually evolve.  This is the story of the evolution of our bedroom from 2007 to now.  It has grown and changed just as we have.  When we first moved which I’ll title Phase 0 we were fresh out of college.  We did not even have a bed frame and used two twin mattresses pushed together.  Due to the lack of a bed frame we frequently experienced a phenomenon we named the bed butt crack.  I think subconsciously I knew this had to be a temporary phase because I do not even have a photograph that I can find from that stage of this room.  Our design tactic for our bedroom at this time in 2007 was that we had just bought our first house and we needed almost all new furniture.  We were able to afford enough to get through the common area of the house but ran out of funds for furniture for the bedroom. 

Phase 1: In 2008 after our wedding we saved up and bought a canopy bed frame from Overstock and a new duvet cover from IKEA.  In looking back this room still looked like it needed some serious TLC but at the time we felt so accomplished and grown up with our new bed frame. 

Phase 2: We left the room in that state for quite a while.  In 2011 we finally thought about the room in a new way.  When we bought the house the previous owners had the bed along the long wall so naturally that’s the only way we could imagine it when we first moved in.  It made the dresser/bookshelf feel cramped on the tiny accent wall but the previous owners had lived there for 5 years before of course we felt like they knew the best layout for the room.  One day we were reflecting on our overgrown dresser on the baby wall and how our bed looked disproportionate on the long wall even though it’s a king sized bed.  We were hesitant at first but we rationalized that we didn’t like how it looked at that time and that it wouldn’t take but a few hours to try moving things around.  After some intense maneuvering we had the switch in place and eureka!  Also in this timeframe we painted the small accent wall a bluish gray color and finally framed some letter art of our last name that we had purchased in Savannah. 

Phase 3: Now that the room finally had the right layout for the major pieces of furniture we decided to play with some details.  In 2012 we added accent curtains which I made myself.  The hardware came from IKEA and so did the fabric which I cut to the appropriate length and then used fray stop on the edges to keep them crisp.  I really should have sewn the edges since a couple of the panels were not perfectly even from my scissor handiwork.  This is ultimately probably why they got upgraded again in Phase 4 but at the time we were really proud of them.  We also refinished two accent chairs that we found at a local salvage and antique store.  I really wanted a chaise in that reading nook area but I scored the two accent chairs for less than $70 including paint for updating the legs.  The cheapest chaise I could find that I liked was a few hundred dollars and definitely did not fit the budget.  I also had concerns about such a large piece of furniture overwhelming that smaller area.  One day once we have a larger house I will finally have my chaise.

Phase 4: I love a DIY blog called Young House Love.  It is like a vacation for my brain when I read about all their projects and drool over their well put together design choices.  I am always impressed at the impact they get from the money spent on a particular space.  One of my favorite spaces in their second home wall their photo wall in their hallway.  I loved how it was well balanced but also quirky and seemed to reflect their personal style so well.  I knew I would struggle with creating the same look in our house because I have always defaulted to perfectly matching and even wall décor.  As I’ve matured I’ve come to long things with more character and thought my husband and I would really enjoy pulling some pieces out of storage to go up on the walls.  In order to clean up the space we really needed to finally invest in real dressers.  For the first step we scoured the internet and stores for dressers we liked.  We found ones that took my breath away but then also felt like a kick to the stomach when I saw the price.  We decided that IKEA has the best balance of form, function, and price for us.  We bought three of the 3 drawer MALM dressers in black-brown for $79.99 each.  We “splurged” on the glass tops at $14.99 each.  The total cost was $307 which was half the price of smaller options we had found elsewhere.  It took Kyle about 4 hours to build all three dressers. 

Anyone who has been to IKEA knows it’s a trap so we also left with new curtains which are gorgeous and much more polished than my home spun creation.  We paid $24.99 for the curtains and used our existing hardware. 

While he worked on assembling the dressers I took on the photo wall planning.  We bought almost all the frames at Michael’s.  They had a buy one get one free sale on frames plus an extra 20% coupon including sale purchases.  We came home with 14 frames for $106.  We spent an additional $24 at Hobby Lobby on other accent piece for the wall, all either on sale or using a coupon.  I also spent an additional $5.41 printing extra pictures to use for some of the frames. 

Phase 4 Project Total:
Dressers - $307
Frames - $106
Wall Accents - $24
Curtains - $24.99
Photo Prints - $5.41
Grant Total – $467.40

It was not our cheapest project by any means but after five and a half years I can honestly say that we both finally love the look of our bedroom.  It feels great to finally have enough storage space since that is a constant challenge for us in our loft.  For anyone looking to do something similar the photo wall portion of the project came in for less than $150 so our biggest expense by far was the new dressers. 

Here are the photos from each phase including our favorite the final after photos.