Things are Better in the Bedroom

No, that title has nothing to do with Adam's performance between the sheets. Things in that department are great, always have been! (Sorry, was that too much information?)  The title is actually in reference to the apartment design progress.  It is not complete by any means, but it is certainly in a better state than when we arrived.  Just to refresh your memory this is what the bedroom looked like the day we moved in.  

There are a couple of things that were making me crazy about this space.  

1.  The wall of stuff!  The entire wall on the left side of the bedroom was covered in furniture.  Maybe that's why I never took a picture of the other side of the room, because there wasn't anything there except a desk stuck in a corner and a fireplace with an awful blue tile surround.

At any rate, the room felt unbalanced, so we moved the two mirrored wardrobes to the opposite side of the room where the desk used to be.  The desk moved in front of the window, and we centered the the bed on the wall across from the fireplace.  

2.  The bedside lamps. First and foremost the scale is way off!  They are entirely too small! However, it was not just the scale that was the problem.  These accent lamps are not meant as task lighting, so they weren't much help for reading in bed.  They have since retired to the storage closet.

3.  The bedding was lacking in a big way.  Obviously we wanted to provide our own sheets and pillows, but I even had to go out and purchase a new bed valance (bed skirt), because the one pictured above was actually just a blanket wrapped around the box spring!  I wish I had taken a better picture. 

On a side note, while looking for a bed skirt/dust ruffle I initially did not have any luck finding one.  I even asked two sales associate who were stocking shelves in the home section of a large department store if they carried bed skirts and they laughed at me!  One of them said something to the effect of "who puts a skirt on a bed?!" They didn't even bother to ask me to explain.  The only thing they offered was to send me to a bed linens store where they might know what I was looking for. At that point I realized that they must call a bed skirt something different, but I wasn't about to explain this to the rude sales girls.  I eventually made it to Household Linens a linen specialty store in Cork city.  They were very helpful, understood what I was looking for, and told me it is called a valance.

4.  The "lack" of a headboard. (you'll understand why that's in quotes in a minute)  I mentioned in my post regarding the drapes that there was once a panel of fabric hanging across the wall behind the bed.  We opted not to rehang the fabric panel, but something needed to be done because there was about a three inch gap between the wall and the bed due to an outlet and the baseboard.  Solution:  We borrowed this Ikea hack idea from my favorite DIYers John and Sherry over at http://www.younghouselove.com/.

We hit up Ikea a few weeks back; and in addition to picking out simple white bedding, a new coffee table, and some other odds and ends we grabbed three black "Lack side tables" for just under 5 euro a piece! That coupled with 15 euro worth of brackets, and 30 minuets of Adam's time and we had ourselves a new headboard!  I wish it could have been a little taller because of the scale of the room, but don't forget this is not forever, and budget must always be considered!  If this were a more permanent living situation something like this four poster from Crate & Barrel would be ideal for the space.

Here is the bedroom in transition.  I was having Adam move furniture around until I found the most pleasing arrangement.  If my mother taught me anything it was that!  She is a compulsive furniture re-arranger.  This is not a bad thing, especially if your husband is around to take direction!  Adam's patience was wearing thin so he decided to grab a seat until I made a final decision.

Here are a few after pictures. Keep in mind it's not finished just yet! I am hoping to hang some artwork over the bed, a few throw pillows on the red love seat, and I would love to add a large area rug to break up the sea of maroon carpet! I replaced the lamps with two others I found in the apartment.  Still not my favorite, but they function better than the small red ones.  Notice that one is silver and one is black?  I'm fixin' to remedy that soon, and maybe even dress up the shades a little!