My Bedroom Makeover: The Inspiration Phase

Welcome back to another installment of a series I like to call Arlyn Finally Does Something About Her Boring Bedroom. This week, I’m dipping my toe into the never-ending realm of inspiration a.k.a. Pinterest and Instagram rabbit holes. If you were here for the before post, you may remember that the two biggest issues in my bedroom (that I share with my husband, so when I say “my,” I really mean “our”) are storage and a complete lack of personality. In fact, I compared the room to a bag of Malt-O-Meal generic cereal…good enough for the investment, but not quite the same punch as name brand.

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

To address the former issue first, a handful of readers in the comments threw out the idea of an armoire jumping to the aid of my “where to put the suitcases” dilemma with additional room for shoe storage which I desperately need. Some asked if the luggage fits under the bed—sadly, no. But I’m now currently on a watermelon sugar-fueled hunt for a burl wood armoire. I’m not 100% sure where I’d put such a thing, but there are ideas swirling in this brain of mine that I’ll share when I have a more formalized mood board or plan (coming soon).

Something like this beauty:

I just love the funk factor that burl wood adds to a room with mostly contemporary elements. The light catches the variations in wood tones in a way that looks like glistening honey. These are the kind of pieces you’d see in a thrift store or on Facebook Marketplace and think “eh, too stuffy” but then you get them into the right space and they sing. Oh the glorious chorus it would sing in my bedroom.

There’s also the option to find a plain wood armoire and refinish it, like this photo from Domino, taken in the home of Courtney Adamo:

While I do love this and it satisfies the eclectic English cottage design fantasies I often harbor deep in my soul, it’s a bit less exciting to me than the burl wood. We’ll see though. I need such a specific size to fit my suitcases that beggars can’t be choosers, though I prefer to live my life expecting a sprinkling of serendipity (does that cancel out the very nature of serendipity, I wonder?).

Now that I have my marching orders for a possible storage solution, it’s on to the color palette. I briefly mentioned my desire for pink walls in the previous post in this series, and if you know me at all, you may be as shocked as I am with myself. The thing is, I am not a pink person. Shy of a hot pink Vince Camuto blouse I very much loved that one time I wore it before splattering it accidentally with oil, it’s safe to say the rosy hue hasn’t had a place in my closet nor my home since my rosebud-themed bedroom from my elementary school days.

That is until I started taking note of a peachy pink wall color I kept bookmarking without realizing. Every time I saw the glowy, fleshy tone, I felt at ease, comforted, warm. IS THAT NOT EXACTLY HOW ONE WANTS TO FEEL IN THEIR BEDROOM?? I do, that’s for sure.

This photo, from an Apartment Therapy house tour of Kip & Co. founder Alex McCabe, has long been imprinted in my mind. It sat there, not knowing what I’d eventually turn to it for, but it hung on, and now here we are. The peach-toned walls are a bit too saturated for what I want, but it’s a good starting place. Doesn’t it just feel friendly, inviting, happy without being too perky? What a delight.

This is a bit more in line with the paint I’m looking for. (They used Quaint Peche Paint from HGTV HOME by Sherwin-Williams, in case you were interested.) As this is a room to be shared with Charles, I’m looking to find a way to strip the glam factor from it. Not because he’d mind, necessarily, more so because I prefer the bedroom to feel casual without too much pomp and circumstance.

Enter mustard yellow…

Okay, so the velvet here doesn’t exactly feel casual, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering some velvet action for possibly a new bed, but I just want you to examine what this earthy ochre color does to the pink in the curtains off to the left. To me, mustard is the great equalizer. It instantly reigns in a color palette, balances it, adultifies (this is not a word, but it should be) it. I like my rooms like I like my hot dog: with mustard.

Now, Dabito’s bedroom up there is picture-perfect. It needs nothing more, nothing less. I’d be happy to move right in, BUT imagine a little peach thrown into the mix, will ya? And the gleaming burl wood armoire? I think we’re on to something here.

Somehow, I want to strike the balance between designed and this all came together over time—even if it didn’t. I do not like overly designed “perfect” rooms. If anything, my living and dining room are too designed. While I’m happy with them as-is, I’m after something a little looser in the bedroom. Less stiff, more lived-in while remaining tidy, simple and warm. I’ll go into more of what I mean by all of this in another post down the line. It’s a delicate dance…let’s see if I can pull it off.

I leave you with this photo of a headboard detail from one of my favorite design firms Arent & Pyke. I stare at this, at the very least, three times a week. The swoop, the velvet, the light streaming in, the barely-there styling. There, of course, isn’t a lick of peach or mustard in this image, but somehow it’s still a driving inspirational force for my bedroom in terms of “feeling” if that makes any sense.

Nevertheless, stay tuned friends.

*featured image via The New