A New Look Bedroom

[AD I’ve worked with Heal’s, fibre, and Skirting World on this room makeover]

This bedroom makeover has been a slow-burner, even by my standards. It started when I realised that I needed to, and indeed could, make much better use of the space, and potentially squeeze a desk in (though that’s still being internally debated as we’d have to lose the sofa) by having the bed in front of the windows.

This layout has, up until very recently, been a big no-no, in my often nonsensical, personal list of design do’s and don’ts, but then, as if by divine interiors intervention, I started seeing really lovely images of this set-up and I realised that I was, well…wrong.

And I guess that’s the great thing about your own rules - you can change them when it suits you, right?

So when I spotted this beautiful Alba Storage Bed from Heal’s (ours is upholstered in the Sienna cotton fabric) I knew it could be done successfully in our bedroom, and without having to downsize from our Super King bed size. Not only that, but we would have a load of hidden storage in the base.

Does it overlap the window a bit on each side? Yes. Does it bother me even one bit? Nope. I LOVE this new layout, and so does Ed.

By utilising this once redundant wall, the room feels twice the size, my head is away from the door (and the radiator that makes noise when it’s heating up and cooling down), and the room has a much better flow. There is ample space on either side of the bed, AND we have space for two pieces of furniture which we really didn’t before. We could actually add another narrow tall chest of drawers in here too if we wanted to, and we probably should as we’re very tight on wardrobe space, so maybe that’s something we’ll look at eventually, but for now, the room is a haven of uncluttered zen, and we’re liking it very much indeed. The black and white bolster cushion is by Bethie Tricks.

We changed the flooring a few months back to a beautiful un-dyed wool carpet from fibre, which also contributes to the zen atmosphere, and feels super luxurious under foot. It really is so inviting and soft. Obvs it's a shoe-free zone.

Of course I couldn’t make all these changes without a wall colour change too, and I chose Smoked Trout, a Farrow & Ball archive colour, which was bought out of retirement for the Liberty colour collaboration, and rightly so, as it’s a gorgeous shade of pinky-brown, which falls into my ‘extra’ neutrals colour list just perfectly. It’s a really warm calming colour and is just delicious!

I had made all these changes, but felt there was still something missing. I didn’t want to fill every wall with art, but they needed *something*. I’d been toying with the idea of adding moulding to the wardrobe doors for several years, and let’s face it, if an idea has stuck in your head for that long, you should probably go for it. So I did. But I didn’t stop at just the wardrobes, I echoed it on the other walls too, and I love it. It adds interest and another layer, but with everything still the same colour, it doesn’t feel busy at all.

I used panel moulding from Skirting World which is 3 cms wide and was the perfect choice, being neither too chunky or thin.

The lower height of the platform style bed, called for lower bedside tables too, and I’d spotted these vintage-esque marble-topped side tables from H&M and knew they were ‘the ones’. Getting my hands on a pair however, was quite the saga as they were sold out, but it was obviously meant to be as one came back into stock and the other one came my way by way of a lovely instagram follower who didn’t need it when I called out for help, so I bought if from her. Certainly one of the better things about that app, no?

We’ve had the lovely white-washed Ercol chest of drawers from Heal’s for a few years now, and above them is another new addition, the beautiful Coastal Mirror by Kieran Letts, which brings in a little more warmth with the lovely wooden frame and organic shape.

I love how cosy yet fresh our room feels, and still can’t get over how big it feels with the new layout. Yay me!