A Cosy Bedroom Scheme.

Since Mark and I have lived together, we have mostly been renting. As such, we never really decorated or bought any more furniture than immediate need dictated. Our bedroom never got any priority beyond a bed and wardrobe. Now we’ve finally (so nearly!) finished the front room, we’re turning our attention to our room. Finally, we’ll get a cosy bedroom where it’s comfort as well as function. I’ve started a Pinterest board (of course) so I thought I’d share some key ideas I’ve got brewing!

The bed we own is this one from John Lewis (it’s not on sale anymore but I found this online)

So I needed to base the rest of the room around this main piece.

This caught my eye recently when I was shopping with my sister in Oliver Bonas – it’s utterly gorgeous in real life, and velvet which would be good in our room as it’s quite dark – any reflective materials give an extra oompf. This would sit perfectly opposite our bed.

The room is an odd shape and has two alcoves around a chimney breast (sadly any original fireplace is long gone) One of the alcoves has an old-school wooden wardrobe built in that we like and will keep (though I want to paint it a matte colour. It’s grim gloss currently!) The other alcove has a free-standing wardrobe, which I want to get rid of – we don’t need it for storage as all our clothes are upstairs in another room with lots of built-in space) In its place, I want to get a dressing table – or even build one in, like this (photo by Britta Nickel)

Then I’d get fabric storage boxes for underneath (it’s a wide enough space) and I really want a fluffy chair, much to the disgust of husband! I’m trying to persuade him on the virtues of mixing up textures…

I’ve enlisted the help of the lovely Rachel from The Orange Tree interiors company for our curtains and colour ideas – it all needs redoing and we want to get stuff that’s going to last. I really like one of her ideas with regards to wallpaper. This beautiful Prism paper by Cole and Son (it’s not as busy on paper as it seems in the picture) will add height and has lots of shades of colour that will make it easy to pick out other items to match.

I think the hardest part is going to be choosing the curtains – look at all these lovely samples! Shot silk, or velvet?

If you’re thinking of updating your bedroom, there’s lots of good advice from other bloggers (including one bit from yours truly) on this post on the Laura Ashley website. So many pretty things!