Middle Bedroom, Before and After

I'm having a tough time coming up with a good way to demonstrate my shutter speed post so I thought I would show you the middle bedroom.

The motivation for sprucing up the middle bedroom was, as you now know, the photo shoot.  Even though BH&G told me this room wasn't in the shot list, the openness of the upstairs made it quite possible it would end up in a portion of a shot.  Aside from the kitchen, whose makeover I showed you a few weeks ago, this was the other room that wasn't quite ready for prime time.

This shows the room's evolution.  Above is the room when I bought the house.   This was the only room that didn't have wallpaper.  I painted it Benjamin Moore Bali which I thought was a nice vintage/beach glass color.  I've tried unsuccessfully a few times to bring "sea" colors into the house.  They just don't fit and I can't explain why.

I initially set up the room as a "studio" where I was going to work on my artwork but, after three years of never working on a piece of art, the large desk was becoming a dumping ground.

I got rid of the large desk and replaced it with this antique spool bed that I stained dark brown using gel stain.  I built a platform inside the frame so it needed only a mattress to become a daybed.

And here is the room today.  I've repainted the walls in Benjamin Moore White River at 50% strength.  My paint colors keep getting lighter and lighter and I'll probably navigate to Decorator's White next time around so the woodwork can be darker which has more of a historical look.

The rug is too small but I love the colors.  I've tried a few different Dash & Albert rugs that just didn't look right.  Too new looking I think.  The antique Bar Harbor wicker chair came from York Antiques in Maine.  I would have preferred an upholstered chair but with limited time and funds before the photo shoot, I thought this was good versatile chair that would work as an accessory in almost any room.  

The paint on the chair is the original paint which is bluish-greenish gray.  The cushion is covered in a vintage ticking from Wendy Lewis.  I love all the colors with the rug.  Now if I can only find a larger one in the same colors.

The bedding.  The matelasse coverlet I got from Antiques on 9 in Kennebunk for 70% off...the best deal of my life. The pillows from back to front are:  A vintage linen pillow case from Wendy Lewis.  The Euro-sized floral pillow shams are Ralph Lauren.  The blue ticking pillow shams and red ticking are also textiles from Wendy Lewis.  The bolsters are an oatmeal colored Ralph Lauren linen I bought on ebay for $20 which is trimmed in an old linen shirt from my closet.

Above the bed is the vintage cow print/chart that was formerly in the kitchen. 

Many thanks to Ann LaFortune for making the shams and the bolsters for me.  I sent Ann a bunch of fabric and she helped me figure out what to use where.  

The back of the blue shams are done in the same oatmeal linen as the bolsters with a flap of oatmeal and brown windowpane plaid linen making them completely reversible.

I also bought these cool pillow covers made from vintage material from Ann's etsy shop that work really well in the dining room.  Be sure to check out Ann's shop.  Her prices are really fair and she also does custom work.

I would have preferred to have a small chest rather than the small table under the painting.  I feel there are too many spindly legs in the room and a chest would allow the spindles on the bed to be the star in the room.

The table was $27 at the Cambridge Antiques Market.  I've used an old square English fishing basket underneath to fill some of that space and disguise some of those spindles.

The small green cabinet in the corner houses a lot of electronics for the house:  modems, wireless routers, phone, etc. and a small TV that would allow a guest to hang out and watch their own TV if they wanted to. 

Above the TV is a painting that you might think is vintage.  It's actually a new painting by a friend, Katrina Walker, from Provincetown. The painting provides a peek inside the Beachcombers Club, a private men's club of artists and writers that started in 1921.  Katrina found the vintage frame, that fit the painting perfectly, in the trash.  This is a very cherished piece.

There's no hiding that my elliptical machine sits in the corner along with the wrenches pieces I showed in the last post.

Above the windows, I've kept the original shelves.  Since the windows are really low on the walls, I use the shelves as kind of a valance on which to place an ever-changing collection of things I find interesting at the moment.

There's a  raku vessel, an art piece made from found objects including an old flag, a shoe last, an abstract bronze sculpture and a shadowbox piece by Provincetown poet/artist Lynn Stanley.

Finally, this is the Great Great Grandpa vignette.  I love to pull these items together to study their relationships.  I'll do another post sometime soon on vignettes so I won't talk a lot about it.  

Here is a close up of the details.

For a quick makeover, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I'm sure it will continue to evolve.  I was also pleased that the photographer was inspired to take a few photos in this room.  One of his shots was just amazing so I'm hoping to see it again in the book.