Now that the secret’s out about my latest bedroom project, I want to show you the bedroom itself.  It’s gone through a few stages during our marriage, all of them consisting of blue and neutrals, by which I mean lots of brown.  After a while that got old.  Here’s the blank canvas I started with:

A bookshelf served as a bedside table for me, but I preferred the less-clunky vintage sewing table on Lovey’s side of the bed.  The oval mirrors will bring better symmetry to the look once they’re painted to match.  The curtain and bedspread could use a dose of color.  So we begin.

While checking in newspapers at the library, I read that a local department store was having a home goods sale.  Bed-in-a-bag for $50?  Yes, please!  This set came with a skirt, two shams, two throw pillows, and, of course, the bedspread.  Lovey and I laid it out on the display bed in the store (with permission!) to make sure we liked the set and not just the photo on the bag.  It played nicely into our plan to incorporate plummy purple, crimson red, and vivid orange into the bedroom decor, so we bought it.  But the lighting at home is not like the lighting in the store.

After Lovey remarked multiple times that the purple looked more like brown in our room, I knew I had to grab my receipt and try again.  Brown was exactly what I was trying to avoid; no sense trying to convince myself, “But it’s purple!”  He was right.  I could have tried to fiddle with the lighting, but come on–who wants their bedroom lit like a sales floor?  Might fix the color but it would kill the romance.

Here’s what I came home with the second time.  It was a bit more expensive: $60 and I only got a comforter and two shams.  But throw pillows and a bed skirt can come later.  They’re not essential–and look what a difference this color makes!  Now we’re getting somewhere!

Into that context we will soon insert what I hope is the most gorgeous light fixture of all time.  (I’m feeling optimistic.)  To get ready for the day I can bring home my sewn strands of circles and glue them to their base, an old lamp shade frame, I went ahead and put hooks in the ceiling to hold the base in place.

This is what it looks like from directly below.  The next photo shows what it looks like from the side, which is how it will be viewed most of the time–and how it will reflect in the giant mirror that now rests on the bookshelf at the foot of the bed.  That just might be the detail I’m most eager to see!

Here’s another shot with some wall for perspective.  I don’t know about you but I think the all-ceiling shot above is kind of perspective-flattening.  I thought I’d throw in a little closet door to spice things up.  Are you getting a sense of it now?  I bet at this point it’s beautiful only to me–but that’s because I see what it will be.  Now to coordinate with a friend who has a sewing machine….

Okay, parting shot: all the current elements in place–bedspread, shams, painted side tables (awaiting more sanding with wetordry sandpaper and more coats with some kind of amazingly glossy red paint); and light-fixture-to-be.  It is a sweet dream, indeed.