This Designer’s Big Bedroom Mistake!

A while back I wrote the original blog post about my big mistake when I redid my own bedroom. Here it is months later and I finally finished every detail in that room and had it photographed. So I thought I’d update you here too.

At the beginning of the stay at home order in Western Massachusetts, many people were super into home projects. We were quarantined, stuck at home and going stir crazy. Home renovation projects were just the thing to keep us busy. I wanted to share my own personal quarantine interior design project, the mistake I made, how I fixed it and how you can avoid making the same design mistake when designing your own home.

Contrary to popular belief, I very rarely work on my own home, but I felt the need to change things up while quarantined. If I’m being honest, our master bedroom was in need of a full makeover but it was quarantine and we were all unsure of what was going to happen with the world, with the economy, with it all. So I decided that I would paint it. Our master bedroom was a pretty aqua color that you can see in the picture above but I wanted a much more soothing palette. I chose my very own Signature Color, Warm Welcome. It’s kind of the color of plaster, a pretty off-white with a touch of a green undertone, the perfect off white.

I knew that I wanted a tropical vibe. BUT, I live in Western Mass. nowhere near the beach. So it needed a tropical beach FEEL, without being too beachy, that fit into New England. How did I do that? I chose neutral (sand) colors with hints of green and blue. I added tons of texture that felt a bit like a beach palapa or hut. I chose fabric that had big tropical leaves on it. But the leaves could be any leaves, fitting into the woods of Monson, Massachusetts. I chose light wood tones that feel beachy. And what I ended up with was a warm, cozy tropical bedroom that fits into these New England woods

At the beginning I thought that I was just going to paint. Haha I should know myself better!
Once the room was painted I wanted more!

We had wanted a king size bed for a while. Let’s be honest, the king size bed was for our dog, Ozzy, who sleeps with us (hold back your judgment please). Because I like to read in bed and we like to sit and watch tv in bed, I knew that I wanted an upholstered bed, but I couldn’t find the one I had in mind. It was time to go custom! So I contacted my favorite custom upholstery guy, told him what I wanted and he was all in. I chose a great, bleach cleanable performance fabric, perfect for dog drool!
See the benefits of being an interior designer, or working with an interior designer? We just have the bed that’s in our brain made!

So I painted the room and got a king size bed.
That should be good, right?

But what happens when you get a bigger bed? You need to get new bedding. Most of our clients love our custom bedding lines with beautiful fabrics and plush pillows. But custom bedding is not for everybody. I can’t see spending on custom when our 14-year-old dog sleeps on it. I mean let’s be practical here, right? So I opted for washable bedding. And you know what happens when an interior designer has to settle for inexpensive bedding? We add gorgeous custom pillows to up the ante! That’s exactly what I did. I designed custom pillows. Ozzy doesn’t sleep on those!

So here we are with the newly painted room, a new bed and new bedding…

Good, right?

Truth be told we had crappy draperies hanging on all of the windows. I had hung them when we moved in 15 years ago. And like most of you, I hadn’t thought about them since.
You know the whole cobbler’s kids have no shoes thing???

Was I planning on getting new custom draperies? No. But, there was this beautiful drapery fabric that I had fallen in love with! Yes! That DOES happen to me all the time! As a designer I see thousands of fabrics. And yes, I do fall in love with some and just HAVE to use them somewhere! So I decided to bite the bullet and order the new draperies and roman shades. They MADE the whole room!

Custom window treatments are not cheap. But they ARE worth it. And once you have some you’ll never look at cheap draperies the same again. They hang so nicely. They glide smoothly across the heavy duty track. They’re beautiful! They make the whole room!

So here we are with a beautiful bed, new bedding, gorgeous custom window treatments and our old dresser and our old matchy matchy nightstands!
What do you think happened next?

Yup, I ordered a new dresser. I was still thinking that we could use our old nightstands, thinking that they would coordinate with the new dresser. We like to watch TV in bed at night so I needed a longer dresser that was in better scale with the bed and in better scale with the TV.

So I got a new dresser. But then guess what happened? I didn’t think my night stands really went with the style of the dresser so I was going to get new nightstands. Instead, I saved by swapping out the hardware and they were ok. But here’s the thing. After doing all of this, I wasn’t just going for OK. And if you’re a client of ours, then you know I always say “We’re not going for OK, we’re going for I love it!” It was time for me to take my own advice. I ordered coordinating, NOT matching nightstands! You know I always say not to buy a set of furniture. Choose things that coordinate.

And, going along with the whole “If we’re going to do it we’re going to do it right” thing, it was time for accessories.

We added plants to go with the hint of tropical vibe that we were going for. We added hanging lanterns with candles for a little romance. We added oversized art behind the tv to fill up that wall. We chose an abstract piece so that we could hang it partially behind the tv. And we added bedside lamps with a hint of blue, think water…

You would think that it would end there wouldn’t you? But no! We had bookshelves on one wall and they went with our current nightstands. After ordering the other furniture the bookshelves did not coordinate with anything in the room. But, I did save here. We had some bookshelves in our guestroom that would go perfectly with our new furniture. So I swapped the bookshelves in our bedroom with the bookshelves in the guestroom. I added some new accessories and VOILA, a brand new look.

This led me to our ceiling, which needed some repair. At this point I had completely redone the room except the ceiling. Why would I not do the ceiling repair when I had designed the entire room, right? For the ceiling I considered putting black wood on the cathedral tray ceiling. But in the end I went with a grasscloth wallpaper! I love it!

See the problem? The mistake that I made is that I did not have a plan! I tell my clients all the time that if you are going to redo a room, the number one thing that you need is a PLAN! If I had a plan done ahead of time, then I would have saved myself so much time and aggravation. Instead of an overwhelming project that just got bigger and bigger over time, it would have been organized, streamlined, budgeted and more digestible. Come back here next month for a full breakdown of what the investment ended up at for this room. I’m sharing it all!

So here is my advice to you, come up with a plan, a full on plan, BEFORE you start doing any type of renovation, re-decorating or anything! Because if you haven’t, it’s like getting in the car with no destination. You’re just driving all around and it’s going to take you forever to get there. However, if you have a plan, a road map, you can just do the steps in the plan! Simple and easy.

I was meeting with a client recently, who just moved into a new home that was already furnished and painted. She just hired me to do window treatments and accessories. To pull everything together. We looked at some fabrics for her window treatments and I could have ordered those window treatments right then and there. But I didn’t. I waited until we had a cohesive plan because if I go and order those roman shades then we are locked in and if we happen to find some other accessories that we love even more than those roman shades, we don’t have the fluidity or freedom to change and pivot. So, I finished the cohesive plan for her whole house before I ordered those roman shades.

Planning is key and while it may seem restricting to lock yourself into a plan, it actually provides the structure to have the freedom to change based on specific items you may fall in love with down the road. For example, if you see some bedding that you like that’s on sale and you have a plan for your bedroom you could look at that plan and see if that bedding fits into it, instead of buying the bedding and then trying to work around it.

We do a ton of just interior design consultations with clients. Many are not going to hire us, they just hire us for a consultation. Which is the perfect way to start any project.

So that’s the mistake: NOT HAVING A PLAN. It’s really hard to design and decorate when you just find one thing here and one thing there. It’s hard to pull it all together into a cohesive room. Even if I had said to you OK so these are your window treatments, now you need navy blue and white bedding. I’m just telling you it’s navy blue and white, not what exactly to buy, but the plan keeps you focused. I didn’t take my own advice and in the middle of my bedroom project I said to myself, “You tell people all the time to come up with a plan first and you didn’t do it!”

My bedroom has come together, but it’s been months! I got one thing here and I got one thing there. Yup, even a designer needs help sometimes. So if you need a plan for any room in your home, book an interior design consultation HERE! Or, if you don’t know if you need a consultation, click HERE to schedule a FREE interior design phone call.

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