Working on the Master

I've been slowly working my way through the house, taking my time making it all pretty.   Now I have finally turned my focus to the Master Bedroom.  Trust me - it needed it!  In fact, when I think about it, I don't think our bedroom has been completely "put together" during our entire marriage.  There is always something else to spend the time and money on. 

When we first moved in we painted the walls and that was pretty much it.  We had always used my old bedroom set from high school, which was basically a queen size headboard, a dresser with a mirror on top, and a single nightstand.  When we replaced our mattresses and upgraded to a king size, the headboard of course never fit and we've been living without one for 8 years.  I used to use an old desk as the nightstand on my side of the bed but we got rid of that a while ago and since we've moved I have just had a big 'ole black spot in the space beside my side of the bed.  And being near-sighted that means I can't see the alarm clock in the middle of the night - not fun. 

We had decided we wanted a sleigh bed and when one because available (for cheap!) we did get one about a year ago.  This past Christmas I told my husband our gift to ourselves was a new set of nightstands.  It took me until February to find the ones I wanted, then another 6-8 weeks for them to arrive since, of course, they had been out of stock.  In the meantime, I had pinned quite a few decor ideas and I now have a pretty clear concept of how I want the room to look eventually.  The first step was new bedding.  I had fallen in love with this Anthro-inspired bedding (inspiration link here) and decided I would take the leap (all white bedding is SCARY isn't it??) and try to make it myself.  I lucked into finding a fantastic deal on sheet sets online ($25 for a king set!), bought two of them, and used them as fabric to make a duvet cover (figuring that is SO much easier to wash than a comforter if the white ever gets stained).  I alternated ruffled strips and solid strips until I had the size of the down comforter we had picked up at Ikea when we were in Charlotte.  Once I got it on the bed, I decided it didn't cover the bottom of the mattress well enough, so I un-picked the side seams and added in a ruffle. 

Much better.  I used the leftover fitted sheet from the second sheet set as a mattress cover for the box springs.  Then picked apart the pillow cases to make king size shams.

For colors, I've been really drawn to high contrast color schemes, especially black and white and I've been excited about building on that idea.  The walls in the room are blue, so I added in a few touches of blue on the pillows to bring it together.

This black and white chevron pillow is my favorite.  Makes me feel like I'm in on the trends, as chevron patterns are still pretty popular :)

Sewing isn't my craft of choice, and the duvet was pretty labor intensive.  The sewing projects took over the sunroom for probably a good 3-4 weeks LOL.  But it was worth it.  I love my new bedding!
Next up - accessories!  And some sort of console table under the flat screen TV the husband talked me into last weekend (it was on the best sale we'd seen, plus he hadn't decided on what he wanted for his "big" gift for Father's Day and our anniversary).  :) Linking to: