Master Bedroom Plans

One of my 19 for 2019 was to redo our master bedroom and bathroom. The bathroom is still in disarray but we’ve started making progress on the bedroom.

I don’t have any before photos of the room because frankly, it was pretty messy. The furniture was very nice and of great quality, but aside from dropping it in the room, we never did ANYTHING to make it look better. Nothing hung on the walls. Stuff piled on the dressers. We moved in to this house one week before I had our son, so the initial goal was to make the room functional. Nothing more. 

One of my husband’s few house-related requests was that we upgrade to a king-size bed at the first possible opportunity. I resisted for awhile because the bedroom set and mattress weren’t that old, but the mattress didn’t hold up well over time. We were both having aches and pains as it became lumpier and bumpier. Finally, we decided to see if we could sell the bedroom furniture to jump-start this makeover.

We got super lucky. I listed it on my company’s internal bulletin board (like Craigslist for employees) and within a few hours, someone had agreed to purchase the entire suite. She picked it up that weekend. We were left with a mattress on the floor and clothes stacked in piles around the perimeter of the room. It felt real classy. 

As an underbuyer, I could’ve spent the next six months pinning inspiration photos, creating moodboards, searching for the best price, and annoying T with my indecision. However, he didn’t enjoy sleeping 10 inches off the ground. (Fair enough!) This is probably a good thing because it forced me to make some decisions.

Here’s what we’ve purchased for our master bedroom so far!

We found the Granger Upholstered Bed on Birch Lane. It’s a beautiful pale grey with silver nailhead trim. We have a vaulted ceiling in our room and the slight arch in the headboard mimics the slope. Our boxspring comes from Birch Lane/Wayfair too.

We researched mattresses since our last one was a dud and purchased a king-size mattress from Nectar. I’m hesitant to proclaim my love for it after only sleeping on it for a few weeks, but GOSH I really think I do love this mattress. The order and delivery process was simple, you get a full year to decide if you like it, the price was fair, and it’s oh-so-comfortable. Usually if I’m sleeping on an unfamiliar mattress (like in a hotel) it takes me a long time to get comfortable and a number of nights to start sleeping soundly. That was not the case this time; I slept better than ever on the very first night!

For the chest and nightstands, we opted for the Sidney collection at Ballard Designs. So far we have the chest and one nightstand (more on that in a second). They are beautiful, well-constructed pieces of furniture. I’d consider them workhorses in the room; they’re not flashy but they hold a ton and will last a long time.

Now about the second nightstand… we received it a couple of weeks after the other. My sweet husband dragged the whole thing upstairs and unpacked it, only to learn that one of the legs was completely broken off. It took a few emails back and forth, but another nightstand was finally shipped to replace it. And… the replacement was broken too. The nightstand is packaged really well except around the legs. Once again, one was broken off. Hopefully the next one will be better (although I won’t hold my breath at this point).

Finally, the pièce de résistance

This is it. I’ve cyberstalked his dresser for at least two years.

I saw this West Elm dresser on their Instagram at some point in 2016 and liked it so much, I immediately showed it to my husband. He agreed that it was nice, but noted that we had no need for it. (And he was totally right.)

I never forgot about this dresser though. From time to time, I’d check the West Elm site to see if it was still available. Once we got moving on the redesign, T suggested we consider the dresser. I hemmed and hawed like always, not wanting to spend the money. T kept reminding me that we had to buy SOMETHING because our clothes couldn’t live in piles on the floor forever. So we bought it.

It arrived last weekend and it’s beautiful! I really like how it looks with the more traditional white furniture and think once we put the finishing touches on the room, it will really come together.

Master Bedroom Inspiration

It’s hard to imagine decorating a space without the help of Instagram and Pinterest anymore! These are the spaces I’m using to guide this redesign.

I expect this room will end up mostly neutral with some pops of navy, pale pink (of course) and some green.

It may be a few more months before I call this finished. We spent more than we planned on the furniture so I’m going to press pause on the details for now. I want to make sure I’m thoughtful about finishing this off because once it’s done, I intend for this master bedroom to remain done for a long, long time.