Master Bedroom - The Plan

As with every room, I start with an idea of something I want to try (like a paint technique or a color combination), or an inspiration piece (like art or a fabric that I want to use). For the master bedroom, I had both a paint idea that I wanted to try, and a piece of art that drove the color scheme.

First, the paint idea. I had an idea rattling around my brain for a while; before I ever laid eyes on this house, actually. The idea was for a stenciled wall.

No, not like that, Crafty!  No, Nope, Negative.
More like this.

Guest Room - light gray on dark gray paisley stencil

I had done this wall in my last house, in a guest bedroom using light gray stenciled over a darker gray base. Sorry for the poor photo quality. It makes it look like a wall full of leaves, but it's actually a paisley design. 

Anyhow, the new version of the idea in my head was a tone-on-tone thing, where the base color and the stencil color would be the same color, but in different sheens. Base color flat, stencil color glossy (or base color flat, stencil done with clear satin or gloss poly). In my head, that would look like tone-on-tone damask fabric, similar to this tablecloth.

So that idea had been in my head since I did the last stenciled wall. Just suspended there, waiting for a duty assignment.

On to the inspiration piece.

My lovely inspiration art

I stumbled upon this piece of art at a furniture store, and fell in love with it. LOVE, people. It's serene, yet the berry color is so rich. It's also a statement piece at 48" x 48". It was also $149. LOVE. $149 for a giant piece of art that soothes my soul every time I look at it? Sold! In actuality, I did not buy it the first time I saw it, because I was between houses, and had nowhere to use it. But in spirit, I was sold! And like the stencil idea, this piece of art hung in my head (see what I did there?), waiting for a duty assignment.

Fast forward to short sale purchase, and I have my opportunity to use both ideas. The entire color scheme was based on that piece of art - gray, cream, and berry.

From that starting point, I needed to add all the usual necessities: bed, dressers, nightstands, lamps, bedding. And I definitely needed to do something about the window treatments.

Behold the vertical blinds.

Master Bedroom - window wall before

Those have to go.

You know what else has to go? These ...

Baseboards - before

The narrow, anemic-looking baseboards. I'm guessing it was a builder cost-saving measure to outfit the entire house with the narrowest baseboards known to man, but they don't do the house justice. It's like putting a 2-inch angel atop a 10 ft Christmas tree. The mismatch in scale is visually jarring. Plus, it looks cheap.

So now I had a direction, and I just needed to put it all together.

Here's a sneak peek at how the tone-on-tone stencil idea turned out in real life.

Get a load of that! That right there looks like high-end wallpaper. That is exactly how it looked in my mind. Nailed it!

Tune in again to see the finished room.