Bedroom on a Budget-Met Monday

     We have spent the past few weeks giving our bedroom a makeover. It has been a bit of a challenge. I hate to admit that I didn't take before pictures. I've been writing about food and travel for several years, I always take pictures when cooking, eating or visiting new places. I'm not used to taking pictures when I move furniture around...so, you will have to use your imagination a little bit. The "after" pictures aren't perfect. I really just took them to send to my daughter for her opinion, but I decided to go ahead and share them today. I would have made the bedding more "perfect" if I had planned ahead!

     We have a king-sized bed that was handmade by my husband's uncle, 6 years ago. He is an amazing woodworker and he wanted each of his nieces and nephews to have a piece of furniture made by him. We asked for a bed and we asked that it be in a light colored wood as we know we will be moving south one of these days. He usually works with oak, walnut or cherry. We asked for pine, but he wouldn't do it. He said the wood was too soft. So, our bed is made of ash with a "pickled" finish. We also have a sofa table under the window and the frame of our beach picture that are the same finish. Matching other furniture to it is difficult. When we got the bed, we bought pine furniture to go in the room. We had a pine dresser, armoire and nightstands. It never looked right. The colors were just enough off that it always bothered me. The armoire was too large for the room and I just never liked the look. We also have a built in corner shelf to work around. It was built for a television set, but we like our bed on the opposite side of the room. So, I had to find items that would help tie the colors together for that shelf.

     A few weeks ago we decided to go look for a dresser and chest to replace what we had. We talked with the designer at the furniture store and her suggestion was to pull in various woods, not trying to make things "match". We noticed that many of the pieces we were seeing had very straight lines, with very simple designs. It dawned on us that we had a bedroom set that belonged to my grandparents tucked in a bedroom in the basement. The set is cherry, it is about 60 years old and had a very shiny finish. The pulls were brass with ornate plates behind them. My husband refinished them (painting wood is something he is allergic to) and we changed the pulls to pewter. I think they turned out surprisingly well. New would have been more fun, but we saved a couple thousand dollars by "shopping the basement".

     The next issue was what to use as bedside tables. I thought about looking for old luggage to stack next to the bed to try to tie in the dark furniture with the light furniture. I also wanted to look for new bedding that would pull some of the dark color to the "bed side" of the room. My husband didn't like the idea of stacking old luggage, he didn't think it would be sturdy enough for lamps, coffee cups etc. We were thrilled when we found end tables that looked like luggage, but aren't. I found bedding that pulled in the dark brown and still had the turquoise from our picture above the bed. I need to add a few things to the walls, they seem very bare right now. Anyone have suggestions? Overall...it isn't too bad. Our expenses were the pulls and supplies to refinish the furniture, the bedside tables and the bedding (on sale at Macys). It is certainly a mix-match of furniture...but it actually works pretty well when you see it in person.

     The pine dresser moved to the guestroom to live with the matching pine bed. The pine armoire is in the basement room that is going to be my dish room!

     I'm linking this to Met Monday. Our hostess Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch will have lots of wonderful projects to show you. The others will even have "before" pictures...they are better at this than I am!