Happy Monday! Today I’m talking about some changes to the master bedroom that we’re planning on tackling in the next few months.
This was one of the first rooms we worked on when we moved in 3.5 years ago, because I knew it would help us feel so much more settled to have a finished bedroom. We painted it a dark blue/gray, and later I built some furniture for the space including a mid-century dresser, a colorful leaning mirror, and a floating vanity.
I’ve been wanting to make some updates for awhile, but I always thought our longer term plan was to move the master upstairs so it didn’t make sense to invest any time and money in changing this space.
However, I’ve finally accepted that we really won’t want to move upstairs unless we build a bathroom up there, and that’s just not in the cards right now — it would require putting in a dormer and running plumbing to the second floor, and that’s just a really big undertaking and expense that we’re not ready to prioritize. Also, I’m no longer convinced that I actually want us to be upstairs, since if we had kids we’d want the nursery to be on the same floor as us and walking up and down our narrow stairs with a newborn sounds unappealing when we have two perfectly good bedrooms on the first floor.
SO, that means I’m going to spend some time this spring updating the master. It doesn’t need a ton of work, but here’s what I’m thinking:
1) New bedding: When we got married right before we bought the house, my mom got started on a wedding quilt for us. She is a prolific and talented quilter, but she also lives on a sailboat for a lot of the year (yeah, she’s pretty cool) so she doesn’t get a ton of time for quilting. However, she just finished the quilt this winter.
It’s a bright patchwork quilt based on our wedding colors (turquoise and coral), and it uses a lot of fabric scraps that I gave her and that are meaningful to me. Here’s a peek at it:
We really love it, but it’s very bright and colorful so we want to keep the rest of the room pretty simple so it doesn’t feel too busy.
2) Paint: I have loved our dark walls, but as we’ve gotten to know our home I’ve realized that I really love our lighter rooms. We get decent sunlight, and the light walls just make even our smaller spaces feel bright and open. Also, I think lighter walls will work best with the quilt.
I am thinking we should go with either white (which is what we have in our kitchen, sunroom, guest room, and Sam’s office), or maybe a light gray or blue (the hallway and living room are light gray, and I love how it contrasts with the white trim).
Here are a few light bedrooms that have been inspiring me:
3) Rearrange and build more closet space: I use the one small closet in our bedroom (which I recently updated to make more efficient), and then Sam uses the closet in his office which is the next room over. However, if that becomes a nursery someday then this arrangement won’t continue working. At the same time, we have this nook that our bed is currently in that I think would actually be perfect for a wall-to-wall built-in wardrobe where we could hang clothes and also have drawers to replace our stand-alone dresser.
It will definitely make the room feel smaller, but I think by limiting the rest of the furniture (ie hiding things like the dresser and jewelry vanity in the wardrobe) it will feel cozy but not cluttered.
Here’s sort of what I have in mind:
To figure out if this might work and where the bed should go, I used my favorite free planning program — floor planner — to mock up some options. The first option I considered was turning the bed 90 degrees to be under the back window:
This could work, but the wardrobe would open up right next to one side of the bed, and the other side is pretty close to the wall. It just felt tight on both sides. Also, the window behind the bed would be really off center, way too much to hide with clever curtain tricks.
The other option I tried was turning the bed to run in the opposite direction than it currently does, so that the wardrobe is at the foot of the bed.
The downside here is that the bed would overlap a bit with our radiator, but the curvature of the headboard actually means that the bed sticks out from the wall regardless (so it wouldn’t be any worse due to the radiator) and I could build a shelf over the radiator to use as a nightstand on one side.
I like that one side of the bed has a lot of space next to it, which would work well if we needed to have a bassinet or something in our room (as you can tell, we’re redesigning this room to work for the next phase of our lives, which we do hope will include kids). The person on the other side is right along the wall, but no more so than in the current layout with the bed in the opposite direction (right now I’m the one along the wall, and it’s fine).
It’s a small room so we don’t have a ton of options, but ultimately I think adding more closet storage is the right move for us and the second layout is the way to go. However, I’d love your feedback. Or, is there another approach we should consider?
Okay that looks identical to our tiny bedroom but I love it. We have a tiny bathroom off the master but no shower. And we have a king size bed. lol fun! not much room for anything else but that’s okay.
Glad I’m not alone with the small bedroom! I wish we had a a bathroom, but we only have one in our house. Fortunately, it’s right next door to the bedroom so that’s easy for now. Probably can’t last that way forever, though!
I’d love a King size bed, and maybe we could swing it with this new arrangement!
I agree that the second arrangement is more effective . I also think pale blue walls would look great with that beautiful quilt.
Thanks Lynn! Very helpful!
Love the colors in the quilt. A friend made me a quilt with some of the very same colors.
I recently moved and this house has small bedrooms. I decided on SW Westhighland white as the main paint color for the house but the living room and three of the bedrooms each have a blue accent wall.
I bought 9 different blue paint samples and picked out 4 blues I really loved and used one each for an accent wall in each room. You still get the openness that white paint will give you but you will have a wall that has a shade of blue from your wonderful quilt.
The blues I used were all Sherwin Williams…. Cay, Raindrop, Meander Blue and Ebbtide.
i am still working out the best way to utilize closet space but for now the hanging rods you can buy for your top bars have doubled my space and were a cheap fix.
Looking forward to your update.
Thanks for sharing! I do love the idea of an accent wall, and I’ll have to check out the colors you liked best. I was also thinking maybe if I painted the wardrobe a slightly different color then that would effectively function as an accent wall. Not sure yet if I like that or if I want it to blend in as much as possible.
That built-in wardrobe looks great, and would put the bed in a better position, IMO. My mother always told me it was unhealthy to have a bed under a window (maybe this was from the olden days, when there was more likely to be drafts), but feng shui also advises against beds under windows, so there’s that.
Thanks Bonnie! We had our bed under a window in our old apartment and we seemed to survive, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite. Add in an off-centered window, and that seems like double bad feng shui!
Have you considered placing the bed diagonally in the corner? Your room layout looks like this could work. You could also build some customized triangular behind the bed storage then 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately if the bed is diagonal, the end of it basically touches the built-in wardrobe — it’s just too tight a fit. If the bed were smaller then it would slide closer into the corner and stick out less, but with a queen size width it ends up sticking pretty far out of the corner. I love the creative thinking, though!
i like the 2nd option. as for the built in wardrobe, the ikea pax wardrobes are great as a base for the project–you’d just have to trim them out. we did this in our last place, and it looked awesome. good luck!!
also, if the baby is in your room in a bassinet or whatever, it’s great to be able to peak into the room and see him/her right away. the 2nd option would allow for that, as the bassinet/crib would be close to the door 🙂
Thanks Wilma! I’m torn between doing the Pax and building something myself like we did with the kitchen pantry. The plus side of building myself is that I can get the exact dimensions I want and it’s about half as expensive, but the downside is that it’s about 500 times the amount of work… decisions decisions 🙂
Good point on being able to peek into the room! I’ve always hated that our bedroom is so visible from the main public space as we always need to tidy it up when we have company, but you’re right that this accessibility could end up being very convenient!
I think the 2nd option is on the money. And to add to your thoughts on being on the same floor as the nursery… remember that they turn in to children that you have to potty train and have stomach bugs… so I think what you are thinking about being on the same floor as the child AND the bathroom is also on the money 😂
You’re so right! That perspective is so helpful, since it’s hard to imagine the daily realities of parenthood when you currently have no children!
Containing dressers, rods and storage in an enclosed closet really appeals to me — when it’s closed up, it seems visually restful (especially if you have a thoughtfully designed closet, which I’m sure you would!).
FWIW, I lived in a small cape (in Beverly) with three small kids. Two large-ish BR upstairs, one bathroom downstairs. Our bedroom and the 3 kids’ bedroom were all upstairs. I had the same misgivings you had, but it really wasn’t a huge deal. It was nice to have a sleeping space that was separate, and I was just always cautious to hold the hand railing. It truly wasn’t a big deal, even with babies and toddlers (and a good gate installed at the top). I know that wasn’t your question, but thought I’d add my experience.
Thanks Susan, super helpful to hear from your experience!
That’s a gorgeous quilt, and it calls for an accent wall to pull the color out. I agree with everybody that the second solution is the best, and wish you happy closet designing!
Thanks Mary Anne! My mom is a true talent!
Once you build a closet in the nook, you could close up the current small closet and open it up on the other side of the wall. Then the room currently in use as Sam’s office (yes?) could potentially have one large closet made up of the two small side by side closets. Compared to other projects you’ve tackled, opening up a wall to combine closets wouldn’t be all that difficult.
Now that is a GREAT idea (combining closets in the other bedroom)! As for the planning, I agree that option 2 makes the most sense. The room will technically get smaller, but there will be no clutter/visual chaos, so I think it will work really well. I wonder if painting the built ins the wall color would make sense to further eliminate visual clutter. Can’t wait to see what you do!
I’ve definitely toyed with this idea and will keep it in mind for the future! Right now I love the idea of having maximum storage space in our room, but down the road we might find that more storage in the room next door would be helpful depending on how we’re using it. Thanks for the brainstorming!
White walls and a pale blue ceiling are so pretty and would look nice with your quilt. Accents of yellow, which I think you like yes? 😊
Ahhhh, I would love to paint the ceiling! Unfortunately we have 7 foot ceilings, so we can’t do anything that draws attention to how low they are. But Im definitely drawn to pale blue walls!
The blue ceiling might actually feel higher – like the sky.
Also, your ceiling looks like a tile dropped ceiling. What’s up with that?
Just a tile ceiling, not dropped tile. No height to be gained, sadly!