"MY ONE NIGHT STAND...AND DRESSER"

The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem. Although Matt has pointed out on numerous occasions that I change my mind far too much and suffer from buyer's remorse, I've never been willing to acknowledge these claims until recently. Each time I organize and clean our bedroom I have an urge to rearrange our vignettes and/or redecorate our entire bedroom. Do I have a problem, well...the short answer is yes. While financially no one could possibly be able to afford to redecorate their home every time a new color becomes trendy or they fall in love with a contemporary style, I stand by my belief that you don't have to spend a lot of money to change the look or feel of a room. As I read other blogs, thumb through magazines and watch interior design shows, my mind is simultaneously brainstorming new ideas and reconsidering past choices. I spend a lot of time conceptualizing anything from how the photo frames in our entry room are arranged to exactly how I'd like our nightstand and dresser displays to look. While I don't enjoy too much clutter on bedroom furniture, I think that each should display some key items: lamp, books, picture frames and some sort of trinkets. I've always loved pulling colors out of a focal piece of art and accentuating it through toss pillows, book spines, throw blankets, candles and flowers. Since we currently don't have any art in our master bedroom (I know, big FAIL on my part) I had to use as a source of inspiration. Our bed-sheets and shams are gray and our furniture hardware is chrome so I decided that the main colors of our nightstand and dresser vignettes would be gray, mauve, silver, white and brown.
The swing arm lamps were a birthday gift from Matt and lend our bedroom a special kind of hotel room/weekend getaway feeling. At first I was going to find a pair of stationary lamps for the nightstands but soon fell in love with the swing arms at Home Depot. They have been a great addition to the bedroom especially for late-night reading or watching movies on the iPad.
The other accessories are a result of my hoarder-like tendency to accumulate books, a photo taken by a friend in high school of my favorite songwriter, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, and a small set-list from The Wooden Birds show at the Rickshaw Stop. No, I didn't elbow or push anyone to get it...it just happened to be laying on the stage after their performance and I casually took it as a memento. As for the clear potpourri jar, I have been searching for those little pastel breath mints in white to combat morning breath, but have yet to find them. The skeleton key was a treasure I found at Ross for a bank-breaking $3.99 and the jar was $0.50 at a thrift store and has a very unique, Anthropologie-ish design on the top.
I've always had an extremely difficult time finding the perfect photos for my ever-growing collection of picture frames. That is why you see two empty picture frames (which I'm terribly embarrassed of). If you're wondering about the JFK sculpture, ever since I can remember my mother has been obsessed with all things Kennedy and this head was gifted to me. I used this dresser as an opportunity to incorporate some bright colors into the room and settled on artificial magenta peonies and a pink candle. It's not exactly the right shade so I'll be replacing it as soon as I find the right color. But my favorite piece is our framed John Vanderslice set-list which he signed with my favorite quote, "There's a sweetness in the worse things." I'm not too sure about how long these particular displays last as I already have my eye on some other photo frames and will more thank likely find some new accessories to replace the current ones with. It's not like I enjoy changing my mind all the time, it's just that there are too many beautiful things out there ready for me to find and fall in love with.

"IN OUR BEDROOM, AFTER THE WAR..."

The bedroom, whether it's a guest bedroom or master bedroom, is one of the most important rooms in a home. This is the place where you unwind, dream and as someone on a "Cribs" episode would say, "Where the magic happens!" Sure, maybe for some more than others, and I think that this is very influenced by your decor. Your bedroom should be a solace, a romantic and most personal of spaces which you do not share with guests. In our previous apartment, Matthew and I had to make the best of Ikea furniture (much to my chagrin), mainly because it was our first time leaving the nest and we had nothing but a bed. San Francisco's Craigslist furniture section is the best I have ever come by and within weeks we were able to furnish almost our entire apartment (some of the things we wanted to buy new). The gray, blue, black, white and turquoise went well with our black furniture flooring and patterned wallpaper, but when we moved we sold all of it and started fresh. I was so excited to start decorating our master bedroom because I had fallen in love with a color scheme in a magazine that made me resent ever decorating in cold colors. It is all slowly coming together and I think that I might be finished by this summer so that I can move on to the guest bedroom. I was able to find inspiration in the bedding I bought at Marshalls. Marshalls is my absolute favorite store to shop for bedding because I think the quality is very acceptable and the styles are pretty contemporary considering the price. I was instantly drawn to the bedding you see in the photo below and pulled as many other colors together that I could to compliment the mauve comforter. I have narrowed it down to a color palette that I am intent on sticking with; a combination of beiges, tans, mauves and even some pink like you see in the make-up compact below. I usually try to stay away from pink because I don't want to overly feminize the bedroom since Matt sleeps there too (there's always a male to consider!) I'm going to incorporate a lot of distressed wood, antiqued frames, silver and white to make the bedroom feel light and airy. I might even splurge on some gorgeous oil-rubbed bronze switch plates to match our new door hardware and ceiling fan. My to-do list when it comes to this room is endless, but as soon as I'm done with school it should free up my schedule so that I can continue my hunt.