Monday, September 29, 2008

Our Bedroom...

Well, we are pretty much completed in the "master" bedroom so I thought I would share a few pictures. Or bedroom, being on the second level, is kind of a odd shape. The area that the bed sits in has sort of a low ceiling. It is kind of odd and took some getting used to. After bumping your head quite a few times you get the feel of it. It is quite large if you look at some of those bedrooms on shows like Small Space, Big Style. I does have sort a cosy feeling when your in bed. Anyways, lets have a look...
Our bed is the Tate Bed from Crate and Barrel. We fell in love with this bed when we first laid eyes on it. It really does have a Mid Century look to it. At $1300 for the bed alone it was pretty much well out of our price range at the time. Luckily, Molly spotted one on Craigslist for a awesome deal. Around $600 for the bed and a great mattress that was only a couple of months old. We couldn't have beat that price. Being a platform it really does work well in the space.

The Ikea MALM floating night stands are 2nd hand freebies for our friends Coni and Mike. Thanks guys!

I recently whipped up some lime green curtains that have a square pattern similar to our bedding. As simple as they can get.

The rug barely visible in the photo is the Milano Rug which you can see HERE. It is the perfect rug for the space. I love the pattern on it. I would say that it was one of the things we actually paid full price for but that would be a lie. Molly was able to use her employee discount when she worked for a rug store.
I also really loved a quilted bedding set they also sold at Crate and Barrel called their Plaza line. It was also way too much dough for us. Luckily Shopko (of all places) sold a very similar set last season for a fraction of the price. Same look for a hell of a lot cheaper. This season Target is selling a set like it.

This little vintage baby blue panther planter has a home on my nightstand.
This alarm clock was a great gift from Molly. I don't really use it as a alarm clock but it sure is neat. The area where the starburst is lights up when the alarm goes off.
We really needed some lighting in the little space. Luckily, our friend Mrs. J from up north had these vintage sconces that she no longer wanted. The lime green would work perfectly. With a quick re-wire they were ready to go. Unfortunately the lights didn't have any usable shades. I thought I would make my own shades because I couldn't find any cheap shades on the market that would work. While up North we spotted a HUGE fiberglass shade that had seen better days. Of course that ment we could cut it up with no bad feelings. I was large enough to make two shades for new sconces.

I went to the craft store and found some clip-on shades that were on sale. I tore off the crappy pleated material and prepped and painted the shade frames with flat black.

(If you do this, make sure you find a shade frame with vertical supports. It helps a bunch.)

I then cut and disassembled the large fiberglass shade to get it ready for chopping up. I made a paper template for the new shade frames which was kind of a pain. A drum shade style would have been easier to work with. Once I was happy with the template it was as simple as laying the template on the flattened fiberglass shade then tracing and cutting. I left enough extra material to make sure that it would cover the entire frame. It is better to have too much rather then too little. Joined the ends with a quick drying super glue and trimmed up the shade to match the top and bottom.

Next I punched holes for the lacing. I used my leather punch (which doesn't work worth a damn on leather but great for this project) to punch evenly spaced holes. Once the holes are set it is nothing more than lacing the shade with craft store lacing.

TA DA! Two shades for around $35. A similar reproduction shade from somewhere like Moon Shine would have been $48.00 for just one shade! I'm glad we did this instead. The lime green color sure does look neat.

I think they look really cool when they are lit up.

I'm pretty proud of our bedroom. Given how little we were able to spend on it to get the look we wanted. I like the fact that we have to be a little more picky and really find the good deals. It does force us to be a bit inventive when finding things that work. I hope to show a few other rooms when they finally get them "done".

1 comment:

Heidi Ann said...

Wow - I am very impressed that you made your own lampshades! They are FABULOUS, and look totally vintage. You sure did a great job. I LOVE them.