The Truth Behind the Photo: Bedroom Edition

Here at Plaster & Disaster, we strive for honesty – including honesty about the fact that we lie to you pretty much all the time.  Paradoxical?  Yes.  An over-philosophical way to start a blog post?  Obviously.  However, also true.  We don’t lie about huge, malicioius things, but we do lie in the way we present our projects.

Like all bloggers, we style our shots and homes and try to make them as good as possible, in hopes that you will find us clever, talented, and put-together.  Today, we’re going to reveal the disorganized truth behind that facade in a pretty intimate space: our bedrooms.  (And if you like this post, check out the others in our “truth behind the photo” series here, here, here, and here.)

Naomi: There’s no box in my bedroom (right this second)

Last week, I was so thrilled to share a project I’ve been working on for a long-time – a custom chest that I made for the foot of my bed!

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t super proud of this project.  I’m not only really happy with the final result, but it totally stretched my (rudimentary) DIY skills and allowed me to try out some new tools and techniques.  The storage is also going to make a big difference in the room’s day-to-day tidiness.   So you do want to see what my bedroom looks like now?

Womp womp.

Truth is, this project took me way too long to complete.  I finished all of the “fun part” and then I let it sit around for a while before I got up the motivation to sand, stain, and poly.  I procrastinated so bad that I was putting on the poly at like 11 p.m. the night before I had to shoot the photos to share on the blog.

And then what happened?  I ran out of poly.

I had finished the outside and just had the inner-lid and inside left to do, so I decided it was accurate enough to the final look to take the photos and share it on schedule.  Then, we took it back down to the basement and this past weekend we bought more poly and finished it up.

I’ll let it dry and off-gas outside of my living space for about another week (eek! toxins!) before I bring it back upstairs to actually put to use.

Sage: There’s a bar in my bedroom

This is one that I forgot about until recently when I was scrolling through old photos. As you may recall, to celebrate our one year blog anniversary we made over a pair of old cabinets that we pillaged from a local school right before it was torn down.

I made mine into a bar, because bars are hot right now and I am obviously super hip.

But those of you who know my house well probably recognized that wall color as belonging to my bedroom…I really don’t have many spaces in my house with a long open stretch of wall, so I had to move Sam’s dresser and stage the bar along the bedroom wall. The photo above is strategically cropped — the uncropped original photo is this one:

Yeah.

Here’s another shot of my amazing bar:

And the original shot before I realized that my bathrobe and gym clothes were not adding to the scene. There are some things even bokeh can’t hide.

And lastly, the truth behind my props for styling the bar. We have some glass decanters that I love that were perfect for the shot alongside some nice tequila that was a gift.

But we didn’t actually have any liquor on hand besides the tequila, so I had to fake it. And how else do you get brown liquid than by filling your decanters with water and then adding some soy sauce?

I am sure Emily Henderson styles her shots using the exact same tricks.

Hopefully this hasn’t totally ruined our mystique – which we know is why you keep coming back to read Plaster & Disaster.

And to the other bloggers, have you ever staged a piece in totally the wrong room, or shown a project before it was really done?