Our bed room was a front room, so it’s taken some work to show it into a cushty, purposeful, and delightful sleeping house (it’s really one in all our favourite rooms!). So right this moment we’re outlining the 6 most impactful enhancements we made to our bed room, full with some up to date photos.
Our Bed room, Earlier than
You may try all of the before photos of our home here, however as you may see beneath, it was a largely clean canvas. Properly, apart from the crumbling drywall, crooked blinds, and large doorways to the adjoining kitchen – all of which we needed to tackle. However we liked the hearth and the wall of french doorways and just about instantly knew it might make for an incredible bed room (for the reason that home was listed as having just one bed room after we purchased it!).
After closing off one of many openings and including a number of storage, it’s tough to match the precise angles of our earlier than pictures, however this shot of our hearth is an efficient instance of how far the room has come during the last 3.5 years.
It’s additionally a far cry from the way it appeared proper after we formally moved in. We swear there was a hearth again there someplace!
A Video Tour Of Our Completed Bed room
Earlier than we dive into the listing of the six most important issues we did to rework our bed room, let’s take a fast spin across the completed room on video. We don’t wish to jinx ourselves by calling this room 100% achieved (each room tends to evolve over time), however now that we’ve added closets, built-in cabinetry, a customized mantel, floating cabinets, and so forth – nicely, it simply feels as “completed” as we expect it ever will. So right here’s how far it has come:
Observe: You may as well watch this video on YouTube.
1. Including A Wall Of Constructed-In Closets
The most important purposeful enchancment on this room was adding a wall of Ikea Pax wardrobes to create that correct (and plentiful!) closet house. Going from a big walk-in closet in our old house to completely no closet on this room was fairly an train in endurance. However because of the addition of those closets, we had been in a position to create simply as a lot storage as we had in our previous home!
It wouldn’t have been attainable with out closing off one of many openings between the previous front room and kitchen, in addition to one of many doorways outdoors that you simply see on the correct of the picture beneath (which is the wall that our mattress now sits towards). It could appear unusual to eradicate a french door, however this room nonetheless has three extra units of them!
Six doorways stay, together with three home windows! So there’s fortunately no lack of sunshine or stunning views in right here.
As a reminder, right here’s what the room appeared like after we purchased it from this angle:
However again to the closets. We love Pax wardrobes due to how customizable they’re and the way straightforward they’re to include right into a room. We wrote a complete tutorial for how to make Ikea closets look built-in.
We additionally shared a tour of how we configured the within of them, so you may see exactly how we organized them here. We even included room for our vacation decor. There’s a complete Christmas tree in one in all them! See all of it here.
These closets are most likely the only greatest resolution we’ve made on this room. Neither of us ever anticipated to have this a lot closet house on this home, not to mention closets which are so purposeful. Truthfully, I’ve by no means felt extra organized. Downsizing + considerate built-in storage for the win.
2. Making Room For A King-Dimension Mattress
Talking of issues we by no means anticipated for this room: the largest mattress we’ve ever owned! Because of some cautious house planning and these easy DIY nightstands, we lastly upgraded to a king-size bed after almost 20 years of sharing a queen. Not solely is it a extra spacious and comfy solution to sleep (particularly with a canine who likes to sleep horizontally between us), but it surely truly helps the room really feel larger.
It sounds counter-intuitive, however small areas typically really feel extra expansive with fewer bigger gadgets than a bunch of smaller ones, which might look extra cluttered and “busier” to the attention. So making room for a bigger piece of furnishings can assist an area itself really feel bigger!
Having a much bigger mattress additionally feels prefer it LIVES LARGER too. We now have extra room to unfold out and it’s a spot the youngsters can lounge with us on lazy weekends too.
And only for enjoyable, right here’s a photograph of this wall again after we purchased the home. We didn’t instantly know it might be the perfect spot for a mattress (so we moved the mattress round for some time), however we like it a lot now that we have now it there! Meant to be.
3. Fixing Up A Non-Working Fire
One architectural “holdover” from this room’s front room days is the hearth. It was not purposeful, so we set our sights on making it into a stupendous characteristic we might get pleasure from gazing at – identical to our wall of glass doorways.
There have been a number of levels to this transformation, the first components being a modern DIY mantle we built for the encompass and a beachy spin on fireplace logs.
A more moderen replace has been the addition of this massive sculptural mirror that I had my eye on for years (it’s not bought however this one is similar). I knew the irregular textured border would play so superbly with our plaster sconces -and it helps to bounce much more gentle across the room.
So all of these gradual and regular aesthetic enhancements that we made to the hearth during the last three years have created such a pleasant focus for us to get pleasure from from mattress.
4: Including Even Extra Constructed-In Storage
Along with the closet storage, we made our bed room much more hardworking by incorporating a complete wall of cupboard storage across the hearth. Not solely did it assist make sense of some empty nooks on both aspect of the hearth, it additionally helped create extra vital cupboard space for our previously storage-challenged home.
I imply, simply take a look at all the hid cupboard space we earned on this wall as in comparison with the earlier than picture beneath.
We created this bonus cupboard space by building in some Ikea Besta cabinets and topping them with butcher block counters. Not solely do they appear good, however they maintain every little thing from board video games and books to our laundry basket out of sight.
You may see the entire tutorial for constructing them in, in addition to a tour of how we organized them in this post.
5. Hanging Good Window Coverings
We imply “good” in each senses of the phrase: good as in “considerate” and likewise good as in “voice-controlled.” Slightly than rehanging blinds on the wall of french doorways, we opted for an almost wall-to-wall curtain rod with blackout curtains (ours are the ivory color). Not solely do they appear rather a lot nicer than the previous blinds did, however additionally they do an unbelievable job at preserving the room darkish at night time. We do sleep in right here, in spite of everything!
On the room’s three home windows, we hung low-profile modern roller shades to maximise the view in the course of the day. However we splurged for good blackout shades in order that we might management them with our Alexa. We did a complete smart blinds FAQ post that particulars the associated fee, set up, and operation of those shades if you happen to’re curious. We’ve had them almost 3 years and nonetheless love them!
Collectively, this mix of blackout curtains and good blinds has made our in any other case vibrant room (which we love in the course of the day!) a comfy and personal sleeping house at night time.
6. Carving Out A Spot For Fairly Stuff
One factor this room is a little bit brief on is wall house, since a lot of it’s occupied by home windows, doorways, and closets. In order that’s why I used to be excited to assert this bizarre nook by the door for purely ornamental functions. And it’s now one in all my favourite corners of our whole home!
On the similar time that we prolonged the built-in cupboards throughout this wall, we additionally added three long floating shelves. Plenty of my favourite ornamental stuff hadn’t actually felt prefer it had a spot to shine – and the second these cabinets went up and I stuffed them with crops, books, artwork, vases, and crystals my coronary heart skipped a number of beats.
A spot to show fairly issues might sound a little bit superficial, however I really consider that seeing issues that you simply love in your house each day could be what really makes it really feel like YOUR house. Particularly in a beautiful association that you may absorb from a number of rooms (these cabinets improved the view into our bed room from our downstairs dwelling space in addition to our view from inside the bed room itself).
We love that the cabinets assist our bed room look decidedly un-bedroom-y from our sitting space (as a substitute of taking a look at a mattress or one thing extra overt from that doorway). And having a spot to showcase private favorites like some metallic birds I made with associates in a workshop or a portray by one in all my kids is so good. Sidenote: if you happen to’re searching for out extra shelving tutorials to improve your room, this publish has 16 easy DIY shelf projects for you.
For good measure, I’ll depart you with one final earlier than & after – which is an analogous view from our kitchen again after we purchased the home.
We actually have come a great distance, and we’re past grateful that we took an opportunity on this previous seashore home that was available on the market for nearly a 12 months!
With that, we’ll wrap up our listing of six issues we did to show this former clean field of a front room right into a serene and purposeful bed room. It really is our favourite bed room we’ve ever had!
As a reminder, this Could will mark 4 years of dwelling right here – so under no circumstances was this a fast bed room transformation! However over time, some considerate, purposeful, and simply plain stunning adjustments can add as much as such a giant distinction.
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