Interior Design: Master Bedroom

I waited all weekend long for a day of sunshine to snap a good pic of our master bedroom. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday. It would not stop raining in Dallas, y'all! The lighting is tricky because our master bedroom is an addition to the house, and the only natural light is from the French doors that lead out to our patio in the backyard.

Which means, on a good day (read: sunny) it's hard to get the lighting right. I tried numerous lighting situations and this pic was the best out of all the rainy day shots I took:

Adding to the challenge is the fact that the room is an L shape, with the bed having an alcove - an alcove away from the French doors and away from all natural light at that! (Which makes for an excellent sleeping situation, BTW). Anyway, enough with the photo excuses, lets talk design elements.

First, the walls are a light grey and the floors have a cherry wood stain. Neutrals, whites and greys seem to be incredibly popular color schemes for bedrooms lately. In fact, our former duvet cover was a deep grey color from West Elm. But in a grey room that has minimal lighting, it just seemed so... I don't know, grey.

So we decided to spruce up the room with some new details. We went with a duvet cover and shams from The Hotel Collection at Macy's. It's a silvery-blue-purple-grey and the pattern running through it is a metallic silver. I liked how the color complimented the walls without blending into them and  popped against the floors. The metallic pattern brought out the silver lamps we already had (one from West Elm, the other from Pier One). I love how the lamps are similar in size and the same color, but the shapes are different to provide an interesting focal point in the room.

I mentioned in this post that I enjoy doing some crafty things, and the K and P you see above the bed was made by me. I picked up all the supplies at Michael's Craft Store. To DIY, you'll need to pick out your letters, the paint colors you wish to paint them, foam board, frames (glassless, backless, "in-the-raw" frames will allow you to construct this project freely), and then the paper you want as the background for the letter. Paint several coats of your desired color over the letter (I used acrylic paint), letting each coat dry fully before the next one. Cut your foam board with a razor to fit your frame, then rubber cement your paper background to the foam board (make sure the paper you select will fit the size of the frame). Hot glue the frame to the pre-cut, paper covered background foam board. After that has dried and your letters are painted, dried and ready, hot glue them to the paper covered foam board. It's much easier to center the letter within the frame if your frame is glued down and ready to go first!

TIP: I used a white foam board, but you can see the frames are dark. I used a Sharpee market to darken the quarter inch of foam board around the edges so that the white didn't stick out on the wall. Also, I used 3M wall adhesive (you know, the kind that come in strips and that you pull one side and it releases? Yeah, those) to get the finished frames on the wall.

We love how the master bedroom is calming without being boring (you know, like shades of grey tend to be!) There's just enough purple and blue in the duvet cover for it to be interesting yet still "gender neutral" enough for both of us. The personalized wall decor is perfect for such a personal space, and is pretty easy (and fun!) to make. The best part is that you can craft it to look good with any color scheme you have in your room.