A few weeks back I shared some pictures from the mostly unpacked portions of our new house. Most of the photos took place in the dining room, which looks like this:
Green walls, white trim, hard wood floors in great condition, and a lot of natural light. The photos I shared give the impression that that’s how the entire house looks. The rest of the house is great! But the upstairs has some features that aren’t really my favorite.
For instance, here’ a quick shot of the corner of my bedroom.
Still has the great floors and natural light, but almost all of the upstairs has this dark, dated wood panelling–and as you can see, most of our furniture is all wood-colored. We collected our furniture (and registered for the Cherry crib) all when we were living in spaces with white walls, so there was some contrast. Now our bedroom feels like one big brown blah except for our quilt–and since we rent, painting is out of the question.
The other thing to note about the bedroom, is that it is huge. I haven’t measured the square footage, but what you see really is a corner of it. There is the other half of the king bed and a couple of dressers out of the picture, plus room for more. When we moved in, and told Athrun the baby would be staying in our room, he said there was room for his (double) bed as well as all our stuff and stuff for the baby. He was right, we could make it a family bedroom if we wanted. (We don’t, for the record.) There is just a lot of wall space to cover in there–so it’s no small task to brighten this room up.
I want to start on this wall, where the baby’s stuff will be. (This isn’t the final arrangement. The crib is sort of just sitting there for now, but it will be in this general vicinity.) The small dresser on the left is for the baby too.
I have a few thoughts about how to add some color and brightness to the room, as well as make it look a little bit more up-to-date. First, linens for the crib will probably be white with some sort of brightly colored pattern on them–including a crib skirt. The dresser needs to be painted, though I haven’t decided on a color yet, and the drawer pulls updated. I would also like to find a way to raise it a little bit, because it could also double as a changing table in the room.
I know curtains would be a big help, but I really don’t want to put up the only ones I have that will fit these windows, because they’re, you guessed it, brown. They were purchased when I lived in a tiny apartment with no blinds and needed dark curtains to keep the light out in the mornings, and they’ve followed me ever since–and chocolate brown curtains look pretty nice on a white wall, I think. All that to say that I don’t want chose curtains until I know what I’m doing to the walls.
I have been thinking about something like what I found on this blog
Fabric Wallpaper DIY from The Golden Girl Blog
See post here
Spraying fabric with starch so it acts like wallpaper–but is completely removable. Since I have so much space to cover, I am thinking about doing just one wall at a time and working my way around the room. To make it affordable, I am thinking of buying a bunch of white or natural fabric and printing my own designs and colors onto it. Right now I’m thinking about teals and turquoises and greens, because I find them tranquil, and they match our quilt.
I have some simple fabrics on order. When they come in, I am going to try the fabric wallpaper DIY with a scrap in a discreet place to make sure that it won’t damage the paneling. I’ll let you know how it goes.