Start with the rug
My mom told me that she did this wrong. She got rugs last and then scrupulously searched for rugs whose every hint of color matched what was already in the room. Worse, she roped me into helping with this.
So I’ve thought the bedroom needed a rug, and it seems like a good place to start. But since we don’t have anything color wise that really commits us to anything and I’m fed up with the room being boring, we got the most brightly colorful rug we could find.
And we really like it. All 3 of us.
We like the rug, but Tito says it doesn’t go with anything else. I disagree, but it sounds like growing up didn’t get me out of this scrupulously making everything match thing.
Now back to the bed wall: like I said before, this whole wall was built in about a foot because there’s a chimney behind the bed. I plan to cut niches into the dead space and build in bookcases. So I’m bringing back the Phase 1 era Microsoft Paint drawings.
First off, the pictures are totally wrong. We had them lying around, so after hanging up the pictures we wanted to hang, I figured let’s put them up. They can’t be worse than nothing. I figured wrong. But now they’re sticking around until we paint the wall.
Yes, we’re painting. We’re ready for something more interesting than taupe and off-white in this room. Of course, we could decorate around the neutral background, but I’ve felt stuck on it for years, and changing out the furniture didn’t make that any better. Plus, we want the bed against something darker. So now we’re thinking of making this wall and the bookcases navy. The rug has navy in it, and Tito wants the room to coordinate with it more. We’d stick with something that’s noticeably blue though.
And then we have a continuity issue with the white woodwork. The baseboards stay in place, so the bottom shelf is slipping right in behind the base cap (and I hope that works as easily as it sounds).
And so, we’re thinking of painting all the woodwork navy. But only the one wall where the bed is. The others we’ll probably paint off white. Tito doesn’t want the room TOO dark and I don’t want to take too many design risks because we may not be in the Crooked House forever. I tried out Gale Force, the color I used in the vestibule. We’d want the trim to be glossy though.
I was worried that dark blue paint would look overbearing or too nautical or too Colonial. (Ironically, I’ve seen some people call this a new trend when I’ve always thought it was literally the most old fashioned way to decorate in America.)
But anyway, I think I’m happy with it. I’m even warming up to the taupe now.
8 Responses
I love the rug.
Everything old is new again? Love how you consider your mother and your husband.
Is it true we marry our parents?
PS I like the navy blue, too.
Well, I only see the resemblance between him and my mom occasionally because they’re not actually that much alike. It still scares me when I see it though. More than marry my parents, I think we become them
Re: Marrying vs. becoming our parents. My first marriage was to a man who was nothing like my dad and could barely talk to him. The marriage didn’t last. My second marriage was to a man who has many emotional and psychological characteristics of my dad. That one is still going after almost 37 years. I think we don’t really marry our parents, but our parents teach by demonstration what a good spouse should be, what we should expect from him or her. The thing that bothered me is that one day a few years ago I looked in the mirror and saw my mother. Then I realized I often think the way she used to, which I didn’t when I was younger.
Re: The rug. I think it was a great choice, because (1) Orientals go with traditional, transitional, and modern furniture. (2) It has many colors to draw from. (3) The cat likes it.
Re: Navy blue paint. I’m not sure about a whole wall of it, but definitely do the bookcases in that color. I’m with Tito in that I don’t think you will be happy with doing all the woodwork in that dark a color.
Actually Tito is all about the dark color on both the woodwork and the one wall, and keeping the other 3 walls taupe instead of lightening them. I want the bookcases and the wall to be all one color though I’m not married to that particular one. I’m also leaning towards painting the other 3 walls off white if we do colored woodwork because I’d rather paint 3 walls than 2 radiators.
I’m not worried about being unhappy with doing something a little different/darker in the bedroom but I don’t want to sabotage resale.
I was all ready to quote my mom on marriages being better the second time, but then I remembered that I’m (for now? lol) happy with my first.
Going through old comments – apparently I lost a lot of them in WordPress purgatory. My sister and I were just talking about this. I was pondering colors and a fabric for a possible future project and my sister told me “Just get a pattern to tie the colors together.” I said, “Do I need to tell you who you sound like?” She said, “That’s mean”
The rug looks great Chad. Totally worth the investment, it will last forever.