White's Just Right

What makes a room the master bedroom? The size? The location in the house? The proximity to the bathroom? Having an ensuite? Is it the room with the best view, the biggest closet, or the fewest drafts?

When working with a monochromatic palette, texture is essential.
Think layers: something smooth, something fluffy, something velvety.
Thinking about how the light reflects helps, too. Satin gives a nice sheen,
and these lamps have a little sparkle in the shade and the glass
bases are super shiny.

I personally think it is a mark of distinction. It's the most sophisticated, the one with the nicest furniture, the most attention to detail. A person's room says a lot about who they are, and in the home, there's nothing more personal than your own bedroom, whether it's the master or not.

 All too often, parents put themselves last. The kids will each have their own bedroom covered in murals and custom curtains, their names spelled out on the walls in wooden letters hung by coordinating ribbons. The parents' room will be left to the last, and often not done at all. Maybe they ran out of energy, or time, or money. Maybe they thought they would do it, kept putting it off, and just never got around to it.

I have to say that I believe this is a mistake. The master bedroom is for the master of the house. The owner. The lease signer. The one who keeps the lights on and food on the table. That position deserves respect. And a nice place to lay your head down at night. Not a lumpy mattress on an old metal frame and crappy dressers with cheap blinds on the windows.

This is so sad! The bed is on the floor, the mirror over
 that dresser doesn't even begin to work,
and that poor painting doesn't even
 have a frame! For shame.

Since my very first apartment, I've always made the master bedroom (or the only bedroom) the first thing I decorate. There was one exception, when I moved into our first owned house with a 5-week old and 15-month old. I thought it would be easier to do the kids' room first since they were so small, which may have been a good idea, but we ended up spending the first few weeks in the guest room while we waited to paint our room, then it was a month before the curtains were hung, two months before the dresser was painted, then over a year before the nightstand (a super easy job) got painted. The bed itself never made it off the floor - it was just a box spring and a mattress. A nice, new, comfortable mattress, but still... I had such great intentions for that space, but they never came to fruition, not fully. It was too low on the priority list. Other spaces - kid spaces, public spaces - were more important.

So my feeling is that no matter how small your budget, there is something you can do to distinguish your own room, especially if it's the master. Something that says:  It's okay to do something for myself before I do something for my children. It's alright for my bedroom to be nicer than the guest room; in fact, that's how it should be.

I am an adult.

I have earned a nice place to call my own.

I am the master.

And hey, if you do a private bedroom first, peer pressure will make you finish the public rooms, so you don't have to worry that they won't get done.

Details: Floors are original hardwood discovered underneath carpet. Walls and trim are Marscapone by Benjamin Moore, that same as the trim in the bathroom. The painting with the umbrella is 'Open to Love' by Lydia Hejny. I won it in an online auction - it was very exciting! Bed details were in a former post, only that one had green accents and this has purple. One of the great things about white - it's easy to change up with accents.

Curtains and rods are from Ikea - hands down the cheapest place to get long curtains and inexpensive quality hardware. I prefer their curtain rods to any others I've ever used, and no lie, they cost a quarter of the others. Wall sconces are original to the house and work beautifully, though the one on the left has lost its knob.

I normally don't want beds in front of windows, but when there aren't any other good options and there's another large-ish window on the adjacent wall, make it work. It does make for nice star gazing if you feel so inclined.

What I like about all white is how clean and fresh it looks and how easy it is to highlight the room with another color. Just swap pillows or throw blankets and you're done. White walls are clean and easy to work with. However, having had an all white room roughly 4 years now, I gotta say I'm over it. The next master I do will be colorful... I think.