Growing up

I have a secret in the bedroom..... In the 6 years and 7 months that we've owned our king sized bed, we still use the metal frame that came with the mattress.  Every once in a while we would peek at nice bedroom sets, but couldn't agree on a style. So the years wore on, and we still have the cheap metal frame and mismatched bedding. To make it even worse, we don't even share a comforter anymore! There have been dogs and babies in between us, so it was easier to have two separate full sized comforters so whoever/whatever slept between us didn't suffocate and we could move freely. So here's the ugly truth of a before picture.

I know, I know, its like we are still in college! Box spring in full view, no headboard, mismatched bedding....Ugh. Operation bedroom makeover has commenced. Its still a work in progress, but I can't wait to show you how the bed area has already improved.

Here's what's been done so far. 

I painted the room with a navy accent wall behind the bed. The rest is Benjamin Moore "Rever Pewter" leftover from downstairs. Hubby was skeptical about the navy (as he is with most of my design decisions!) but he's come around. There is a 4" white strip along the top that I think will soon be filled with some kind of crown molding.

I made faux roman shades to hide the standard white blinds. It was as easy as ironing on some ribbon to upholstery weight fabric and setting the folds with iron-on fusible webbing. They are hung on $4 Target cafe rods.

The bed skirt was made from the fabric I dyed to cover the head board. Its just painters drop cloth with a little Rit dye. But it turns out that painters drop cloth has hidden flaws in it that only show up once dye is applied. I had a huge dark streak down the middle that would look horrible on a headboard because there's no way to hide it. So I cut it into three equal strips, sewed them together to make one long strip, and fusible webbed some ribbon detail on the bottom. I pinned the whole thing directly to the box spring with straight pins. The streak was sneakily hidden in a box pleat at the front of the bed. You can't even tell its there, see....

The pillows I made a while ago because I had a vision of this room in my head and they were easy to whip up quickly. The white bed spread is Cynthia Rowley that I found at HomeGoods. Originally I had a beautiful West Elm pin tucked gray duvet cover, but after seeing the room come together, I decided it was 50 shades of gray, in a literal way. I like the crisp white against the blue wall and dark head board much better. Speaking of the head board...

This was a labor of love for me!

I love the Tall Tufted head board from West Elm, but at $749 for  King, forget it! Do people really buy these things? Here's the inspiration pic.

So my plan was to do this for under $100. I bought 80"x44" worth of cheap fiber board, $9. Of course that won't fit in my car, so the nice folks at Home Depot cut it in half for me. I had to put them back together with mending brackets, $10. At Walmart I found 2 foam mattress toppers for a full size bed for $9 each. They also had a queen quilt batting piece for $8. Walmart does have good prices for my weird projects! The fabric I ended up using instead of the drop cloth was a curtain from Ikea that I had left over from the old apartment. It has a nice linen look to it. I hung a set in the bedroom already, so this matches perfectly and didn't really cost me anything because I already had it, $0. The buttons are my attempt to make a very masculine room a little more feminine. Bling buttons from Jo Ann's, $10. You've seen all the tutorials on Pinterest, so I'll spare you the details on how to put it together.  My only real challenge was hanging the thing! I ended up using two flush mount picture hangers on the back, $20. The trick is to get these totally level on the wall, so measure twice and use a bubble level!

Did you keep count?  Yup, $75 for a whole King size head board! Take that West Elm, I win! (I still love you though).

There's still lots to do before the room is complete. I need to refinish the night stands (a $50 internet find), get new lamps, hang art work, install crown molding, and so many more little details.

But for now, I feel like a grown up, in my grown up bed.

-Sarah