An En Gedi Bedroom--Guest Post

Here is the guest post I promised you, brought to you by the lovely Miss Heather H. of http://www.blessyourfamily.net/

Our Bedroom Re-decorating Project

Last summer I was inspired to give my husband, Jacob, a space of his own, with none of the pink-and-flowers of the rest of the house—a room that reflected Jacob’s own style. With two lovely daughters in our family, we females outnumber him 3 to 1, so I figured he needed a manly “hideaway!"
Excited to be able to decorate a room “from scratch,” I found a bamboo placemat on clearance for $1 and built a theme around it, choosing chocolate brown and dark green colors to coordinate. By the time our master bedroom was finished, we transformed it from a cluttery catch-all room with a too-short quilt and mismatched everything, to exactly what we wanted.

Here’s a peek:

(Now that we’ve moved away from this little home, I find that I took far fewer pictures than I’d thought. Still, I hope you enjoy the few shared here.)



Our bedroom transformation involved many changes:


Painting: We found the exact shade we wanted in a friend’s house and made a dramatic difference for under $25. (That doesn’t include the first gallon of paint I bought, which I realized was the WRONG color when we started painting the walls! My gracious husband agreed to let me purchase another gallon to fix my little mistake.) A friend helped us add wide pine trim around windows, closet, and doors, which we painted shiny black for contrast.

Carpeting: The original carpeting was in sorry shape, so we replaced it with a new roll of carpet that went very nicely with our theme. Our landlord had already purchased it brand-new, so this step didn’t cost us a thing. A friend taught us to lay carpet—another skill under our belt!
Window treatments: The pink-and-lilac gingham curtains I’d sewn early in our marriage weren’t exactly Jacob’s style, but they served their purpose for the first six years. However, replacing them with bamboo shades made an amazing difference.



Furniture: We added a black oriental-style nightstand, a black trunk, a floor lamp, and replaced our bedroom fixture with one that had an amber-colored shade. Another friend pitched in and wired the new fixture into the wall.

The piece de resistance of our new room is a vintage dresser that underwent an amazing transformation:

Before: In my parent's basement

After: In our new room

The dresser was my dad’s as a child. Having this redone was my parents’ Christmas gift to us!

Bedding: We scored a great deal on green satiny sheets at a JCPenney clearance, and got fabrics 40 to 50% off at Jo-Ann to make our quilt. A friend who makes pillows professionally volunteered to sew us four throw pillows. The striped ones have a coordinating fabric on the reverse, so I can change the look by flipping them to the other side. My friend Kate, who helped us a lot with our project, found a garage-sale bamboo mat that became our headboard.

Personalized art: I framed pictures of us together for the nightstand, and included Song of Songs 2:16, I am my beloved’s and he is mine.

We also planned to hang a wrought-iron triquetra on the wall, a Celtic symbol of the trinity. Since we weren’t able to have one made, I’m planning to make a triquetra on a fabric banner instead.

After the room was decorated, there were still a few remaining tasks to make the bedroom a retreat, which I’d love to share with you:

Make the bed daily: Take just a few minutes to do this in the morning. It changes the feel of the room from disorganized to comforting.

Keep it picked up: Even if you have to creatively stash things in other rooms, do it. Or get a classy-looking trunk to hide it away. It’s hard to relax in a cluttery room!

Relax in your new room together. Don’t save your room for those few minutes before you fall asleep. “Retire” to your room half an hour before bedtime. Read together. Get a book on marriage or intimacy and keep it in your nightstand. Talk about the day together. Make it your place to get refreshed and connect with each other at the end of a long day.

We love our new room. After six years of marriage, it was good to do something to focus on our relationship again (especially since we’re the busy parents of young children!) Jacob told me today that when life gets crazy, it’s nice to have a place that makes you calm and relaxed just by entering the room. "Yay!" I told myself. "It worked!"

Heather blogs at http://www.blessyourfamily.net/

She is the mother of Kardelen (almost 3) and Sofia (17 months). She enjoys baking, decorating her home, simplifying, natural living, crafts, educating preschoolers, teaching piano, being frugal, and bargain shopping.

Note from Mrs. Jo: Heather's work inspired me to make my bedroom more of a haven, even if we are still in a rental. I'll post pics tomorrow of our newly organized bedroom!