Design Advice: Amy's Master Bedroom

My sister-in-law, Amy, moved (all the way from Florida!) into a beautiful house here in the Northwest last summer.

Her and her family have very tastefully decorated their new house.
Every room looks great....
except the master bedroom.

Why is it that the master bedroom is always the last room to get attention?

Amy and Frank's bedroom has great bones, it's just a little, well....plain.

They've got great blue/cream floral bedding that they purchased last summer.

And they painted the room a light tan to cover the hideous taupe-ish pinkish sponge paint job that covered all of the walls before they moved in.

Amy told me that she did not want to repaint the walls again (can't blame her!) and that she wanted to keep her bedding (it's super cute anyways!).

She also told me that she was thinking maybe a cream wrought iron headboard and black furniture.

So to help get the decorating ball rolling, I came up with some ideas to help her out...

1 The color palette is based on your existing blue and cream duvet cover (which, by the way, is beautiful) and your current wall color, beige. The black was added in for contrast and interest. If the black seems too harsh, you could always do a warm wood tone instead.

2 These striped curtains add pattern to the room and also help tie in the blues and tans from throughout the room. The fabric I found is and upholstery fabric called Pintado Stripe from http://www.fabricsandpapers.com/, but I have also seen similar fabric at Joann’s Fabrics. The black wrought iron rod and the curtain clips help tie in the black color.

3 A distressed antique white (it looks white in the picture, but is actually more cream) wrought iron bed flows nicely with the cream in your bedding. This particular one is the Savannah bed from Pottery Barn, but I’m sure you can probably find one elsewhere for cheaper.

4 An antique looking picture, like this one of an old bicycle would go well with the style of furniture and accessories in the room. This picture also has blues and tans as seen in other parts of the room. The frame is distressed antique white. Both the frame and picture were found at art.com.

5 A long antique black dresser would be optimal for more storage, for mounting a flat screen TV above it, and for displaying accessories. Look for something that has curved details and slender feet. These can be a bit pricey if bought new, so a cheaper alternative (and more unique) idea would be to find one on craigslist.com and paint & distress it.

6 These blue ceramic lamps bring in more color & interest to the room and are a more substantial size to help fill up the large wall behind your bed. A cream colored drum shade would be ideal for this lamp, found at Pottery Barn.

7 The large wall behind your bed dominates the room, so you need nightstands that fit the scale of the room. These black nightstands are actually small chests of drawers found at http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50162858 The slender, curved legs look a little more feminine to flow with the lines of your bed frame.

8 Three tall mirrors would look good above your bed since the wall is so tall. The cream frames on the mirrors would tie in nicely with the cream of the bed frame. I found these at Ballard Designs, but I also saw very similar black ones at Target (you could always spray paint them cream!).

9 This tan settee is from JCPenney and the style of it would definitely fit in with French Country style; however, I think it may be too big to fit in the corner where the little stool is. You may want to consider a chair with similar colors and style instead. The cream and blue pillows help bring color into yet another area of the room.

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After receiving her feedback, I placed some of the items in the pictures of her room so that she could get a feel for how things would actually look in her room.

Option 1:

Option 2:

I also found some pictures of other rooms for her to use as inspiration.

Images from Houzz.com

Images from Coastal Living

Images from Pottery Barn

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I can't wait to see what the finished room looks like!