The $7.99 bedroom makeover REVEAL

When I promised you a Monday reveal on Friday, I sort of forgot that Mother's Day was sandwiched in between.  And that I was hosting.  I spent Mother's Day morning playing around with bedding and styling, and it could not have been better.  I ask you: is that strange?  

Better yet:  to say I am in love with my new bedroom is an understatement.  I am smitten.

Here's the "before"

It never ceases to amaze me what a big difference small changes can make.

The inspiration was the giant Pottery Barn bolster, found for $7.99.  The challenge was to build a makeover around the bolster without spending any more money.  

The first issue was the bolster itself.  The right size bolster form costs $50.  But I have a cabinet full of unused bedding.  It took a twin quilt, full size cotton blanket, and 4-count 'em FOUR--baby quilts to fill this puppy.  Probably not practical in the long term (the result is one heavy frickin' pillow), but I have some foam and batting lying around and will likely make a custom bolster.

The next problem was the duvet cover.  The whole point was to move away from my (beloved) chinoiserie, and I knew I wanted white.  I considered borrowing the hotel style duvet from the guest room, but then what would go in there?  My husband uses a white Ikea bedspread for his body work business, and I had my eye on that, but it was at his studio.

Well, I'm a genius, cause the back side of this comforter is plain old white.  That's right.  I just flipped the thing over.  And I like that the burnt orange piping around the edges keeps it from being too blah.  Something textural, like a modern matellase, would be perfect, but those cost money.

With these issues resolved, it was just a matter of borrowing from the house and styling it up.

Before:

And After:

The lamp was on the other side of the room, I just traded to give the bed more presence.  Same with the zebra pillow, which the bed needs to make the brown stripe on the bed skirt make sense.  The throw is the same, just opened up to cover more of the plain bedding.  The jewelry boxes came from my dresser.  That chunky basket came from the auction at the girls' school--we bought the "game night" and all the games came in that puppy.  The extra throw inside it was just hanging out in the linen cabinet.  The bamboo side table came from the guest room (and my old room at my parents' house before that).  The white quilted shams came from my girls' rooms.

All of this leads me to an important point.  I always hate it when watching a makeover show and they "shop the house," and the result is basically one good room at the expense of the rest of the house.  So I made a silent rule that I could not borrow anything just for photography purposes and then send it back when the blog post was done.  Nope.  This makeover is staying put.  I swapped a different side table in to the guest room and different pillow shams into the girls room.  No harm no foul.  (I know: it helps to have a stash of extras.  I've been collecting it all for a long time.)

Here's the area across from the bed.

Before:

And after:

The Moroccan table went more orange (with the red still underneath) and the chairs (my grandmother's, back in the day, which, incidentally, lived in a room with kelly green wall to wall) got green pillows to ground the white and my favorite old Indian embroidered floral pillows, because god knows I still need a stylized floral in the room.  Hello, old friend.

Just a little detail.  I love the pinstripe sheets peeking out--a nice masculine counterpoint.  Oh, and those flowers would be cheating, budget wise, except, of course, mom's get flowers for Mother's Day, right?

When my sister in law saw the mini-transformation tonight, she said "I love your room--it looks so FRESH."

Exactly what the doctor ordered.  And not bad for $7.99!

And hey, if you are a mom or have a mom, I hope you got to celebrate yesterday.