A Simple & Sweet Master Bedroom Retreat

As the end of the month approaches, I am (finally!) wrapping up the room reveals in our Kansas home. Today’s post marks the last room reveal post; and while I wish I could say I “saved the best for last,” this room most accurately reflects the challenges of living in (and decorating!) a room for only one year. In room reveal after reveal in this home, I have been proclaiming my newfound love for neutral walls and spaces that are brought to life via the things in them rather than the color on the walls. This room, however, is the single exception to that sentiment…in this home at least. I absolutely adore every single unique element in this space. But with the neutral walls and carpet alongside our light and bright furniture, this room has continued to feel flat and unfinished no matter what I do to it. Over the year of living in and working on this room, I was forced to accept that it would never look quite “right” to me. But thanks to a handful of simple and sweet DIY details, we were able to make this spacious bedroom into a master bedroom retreat! Let me give you the full tour!

(As usual, all the tutorials, links, and product resources for this room will be listed at the bottom of the post for easy reference!)

Before digging into the details of this room, here is a look at the room the day we moved in. It’s easily the largest master bedroom we have ever had (and probably ever will have!), with high ceilings, large blank walls, and great flow. I was originally concerned about the two small windows being the only source of natural light in this room; but the nearby bathroom also brings in a lot of sunshine for most of the day.

We combined our dressers, side tables, and other accessories from our last home with a new bed (Happy 10 year anniversary to us!) and some new textiles (curtains, pillows) to achieve a decidedly different feel to our master bedroom from our previous NC home. Have a look…

The focal point of the room is our new king-sized (ooo la la!) navy velvet bed layered with crisp white linens and a load of patterned pillows!

Ya’ll know I love fabrics and patterns more than any other home decor element, but mixing patterns can be super tricky. And because I tend to want to use too many great patterns in a single room, I often fail at it. Either I am finally getting the hang of pattern matching OR I got lucky this time, because this combination of pillows gives me ALL the heart eyes!

Above the bed hangs one of my most successful DIYs of all time…our spray-painted circle mirror!

Besides the color of the walls, the main obstacle in this space was figuring out how to dress the awkward corner windows. Thanks to a $0.99 plastic piece from the plumbing section at the hardware store, I was able to achieve a corner curtain rod on the cheap. Paired with our old shower curtains-turned window curtains, this window setup is one of my favorite parts of this whole room!

For almost the entire year we’ve lived in this house, the expanse of wall to the right of the window felt so boring and empty to me. In true Megan fashion, inspiration hit in the final weeks, and I decided to re-create the floral pillow sham fabric in art form using paper. I am so crazy over how this simple art project came out and continue to be amazed at what can be done with a stack of colored paper!

(If you’re scratching your head saying “Wait, I never saw that project tutorial!!!” It’s because it was for one of my free-lance assignments. You can now see it HERE!!!)

Underneath the flower artwork are our two handy hampers that we still love. They were given a quick update to match the room with new fabric lids.

Here’s a look at the far wall opposite the bathroom.

Our large and lovely grey dresser sits on the wall opposite the bed, along with all the chrome accessories we’ve accumulated over the years. Admittedly, this light dresser and monochromatic accessories on the beige wall look ridiculously boring to me. But we weren’t going to paint either the wall or the dresser for the year, so I accepted it and just pretend the wall behind the setup is really navy 😉

One of my favorite and most functional organizing projects in this entire home are my jewelry organizers. They were moved into my dark closet after I shot these photos; but after struggling for years with the best way to store and display my jewelry so that I’d actually use it, these have been complete winners (and so simple to make)!

On the final wall is both my closet and the door to our master bathroom.

I’ve already given the “full tour” here on the blog, but now you can see how these two spaces work together…

Room Resources

I’ve done my best to round-up the products used in this space. If there is something I’ve overlooked, let me know in the comments!

• Navy velvet bed – Joss & Main
• White quilted coverlet – HomeGoods
• White quilted pillow shams – DIY, made out of a coverlet from Marshalls
• Floral pillow sham – DIY, fabric from fabric store
• White/silver throw pillows – DIY, fabric was remnant at local shop
• Blue/white scallop pillow shams – DIY, fabric from JoAnn Fabrics
• Blue/white dot lumbar pillow – DIY, fabric from Fabric.com
• Silver circle mirror above bed – DIY, mirror originally from Kirklands
• Grey/white bird curtains – DIY, fabric from Hancock Fabrics
• Black curtain rods – IKEA
• Hampers – Ross with DIY covers
• Flower Paper Artwork – DIY
• Small grey dresser – thrifted then DIY
• Large grey dresser – thrifted then DIY
• Large silver rectangle mirror – HomeGoods
• Large silver tray on large dresser – HomeGoods
• Silver candlesticks/vases – HomeGoods
• White/navy bathroom towels – Target
• Navy/white rug in bathroom – HomeGoods
• Lamps, grey – HomeGoods
• Lamp, crystal – HomeGoods

I certainly don’t mean to be dramatic when I suggest this space is so “blah.” I just try very hard to work with what I’ve got in the time I’ve got to make a room shine. I’m not sure I embraced this space enough to make it the best I could in the time we had. However, I do think I’ve moved our bedroom design in a direction I really love (navy + grey + lots of white!) and I am super anxious to continue and complete the vision in our next home!

Before I sign off for today, one last look at this space…

Do you have a space in your home that you just can’t seem to get right? Have you found yourself fighting with a wall color or piece of furniture but just not compelled to change it out? I’d love to hear how you’ve moved beyond some “tricky” design hurdles in your living situation!