Where to begin? Primary bedroom

What an almost-year it's been The blog fell so far behind with all the work we've been doing that it was hard to pick up again. We have done so much to the house that three of our pre-existing rooms are nearly unrecognizable as each change led to more change (yay domino effect), and all of it had to get done within a pretty tight timeline. Combine that with slowly furnishing and accessorizing the new addition in waves (obviously we needed things like the bed and the window coverings quickly but could take our time on things like throw pillows and rugs). And so now, about 10 months after the project's completion, it's time to show off all our progress.

When last we left off, we were at this stage in the process (this is the last picture I posted, from July 2024). Family visiting from out-of-town at the same time as a sick kid meant that we had to move in quickly to redistribute rooms. Thank goodness our visiting family was able to help move furniture! (I still don't know how they got my dresser down the stairs and around the turns...)

One thing I did not document last summer was our decision making process on staining the floor. We were excited that for the addition, thanks to the step-down from the office, we didn't feel compelled to stick to the same yellow color on the rest of our floors. The carpenter gave us a few options. Of these two, both quite natural and with minimal tint and we went with the one on the left, Bona NaturalSeal, with even less warmth in it. The product description says it is a floor sealer with the look of unfinished wood. It has a satin finish so it clearly looks "finished" but in a very muted way with no color. We're very happy with it.

So fast forward to some pictures many months later, when we got not only the big items in the room but the little details as well. Besides being undecided on potential artwork, our room is decorated and done.

First, the bed wall. After some skepticism on my part (I wasn't sure I was ready to give up built-in under-bed storage), we got the Thuma Classic Bed in natural. The construction was as advertised and pretty fun to build. The pieces lock together without any need for nails or screws.

The mattress is a natural latex mattress from Latex Mattress Factory. It has organic cotton batting and a wool cover, so it's right up my alley. It came in three layers that we customized for ourselves. The company representatives made it sound like assembling it would be easy, but getting them unrolled and into their cover was very challenging. Since this one has different densities at different layers to better support us, we can only rotate it, not flip it. Also a king-sized latex mattress is no joke--the thing is massive and impossible to lift. Even lifting the corners to make the bed feels like a massive undertaking. We updated the covers on our throw pillows and I added a beautiful bolster pillow I found deeply discounted at Crate & Barrel. The duvet cover is from IKEA. I loved it so much we bought a second one for when the cats inevitably destroy this one. The colors just worked perfectly with the room.

The purple trunk in the corner is this trunk that I bought over a decade ago in a light matte blue and had in our upstairs bedroom. I chose Benjamin Moore's Purple Lotus (Sherwin Williams has a very poor selection of purple shades), but I wish I had gone one shade warmer in the paint chart as it was a bit cooler and brighter than I wanted (despite the color being described as "smoky"). Coating it in gray, just like I did when it was blue in our upstairs bedroom, helped a lot.

Our new nightstands took some time. They needed to be relatively small and we didn't already own a set, using a shelf attached to the wall upstairs because of the baseboard heating. These turned out to be finds from Target done in a pressed tin. I swapped out the nobs to amethyst depression-glass ones instead of the boring silver ones included. They don't hold very much but they work well enough.

Turning the angle a bit, an IKEA Holmstrup rug (that, sadly, was a "last chance" buy no longer available) in a style I love--the new "pebble" rugs I've seen in a few places are usually all wool (yes please) and feel very plush underfoot.  I clearly went all in because the small one on the side of the bed just peeking out of the top picture is a Pottery Barn version of the same style.

We started out with some expensive curtains but returned them because they didn't block enough light, opting for something random from JC Penney's instead. The inner curtains are IKEA Matilda that already have holes in them thanks to the cats, so at least they were cheap. The sizes didn't quite match so I did some aggressive shrinking in the washer and dryer before hanging them up and they still stick out from under the door curtains and drive me a little crazy.

I found a beautifully framed silver mirror at an antique warehouse and bought a purple Turkish lamp for ambience. It is resting on my original dresser from our upstairs bedroom. The painting was upstairs too, and the pinks worked well in the new room.

I was going to describe the closet area but I think this post has gone on long enough, so I'll save that one for another time. Hopefully in less than a year.