Visualizing (isn't my husband helpful?)

I am trying to be thoughtful as I complete the final projects around my house that will hopefully (oh, please, dear god!) let me feel finished.  For now.  Among other things, this means not doing things that can't be undone if I am not 99% sure that I will love it.

Case in point.

I have been wanting to give my master bedroom the canopy treatment, much like I did for this client:

This is what the room looks like now, more or less:

I like the idea that a cornice-and-curtains treatment would soften the room in lieu of panels on the windows and balance the height of the gallery wall, across from the bed.

I have left over white linen curtains that didn't get used on a project, and some yellow fabric with a small scale print that I have been dying to use again.

I should just do it up, right?

Except.  

The bed wall is one of the first things you see when you come in to the house (and, for that matter, it is what you see from the street when the shades are up).  We kept the paint from the previous owner, and I don't know the color.  All of this means that if something goes up that requires putting holes in the walls, it is not coming down.  The last thing I need is to repaint this large room because I changed my mind about a little canopy and couldn't cover the holes.  (Though that sounds just like me, doesn't it?)

Enter the husband.

Not sure I like it all the way at the ceiling...how about lower?

But of course the mirror would still hang in front of the curtains.  How does it relate to the cornice?

Some days he is a good sport.

For today, we did not put holes in the walls.  I still like the idea, but the execution needs some thinking.  Fuller curtains?  Narrower cornice?  Valance instead?  With the high ceilings, proportion is key.

What do you think?  Should I tweak this idea or abandon it altogether?

Tall headboard plus netting canopy equals bliss

In my (over-documented) girlie's room, I vascillate about going back to tall headboards with the existing "bed curtains."

Sometimes you see an image that sways you.  Hard.

via MFAMB

Of course, it doesn't hurt that I love almost every little thing in this fabulous room.  I'll take it!  Hold the small round rug and stark black and white photo, please.

On a side note, don't you love the restraint of just one perfect accent pillow?  Unfussy perfection.

Also.  (You know I can't write such a short post, right?)  Looking back at posts of the girls room, I am having this moment where I go "what are you THINKING?  It was basically FINISHED.  TWICE."  And then I sigh, and understand my husband's point of view a little bit better.

"Bed curtains" for the four year old

This year for Christmas, my 4-year-old daughter had a VERY specific list:

1. A Rapunzel doll with the plastic hair, the kind you get at Target (in the checkout aisle)
2. A remote control puppy
3. Sparkly shoes that light up (aka Twinkle Toes)
4. "Curtains for my bed."

Yup.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

To make things cheap and easy (shocking, I know), I sent my husband to Ikea on his way home from work one night, to pick up a pair of $20 netting tents.  Yes, a pair.  My girls share a room, and I am simply not free-wheeling enough to tent just one in a pair of beds.  Crazy, I know, but I'm okay with it.

Flash forward to Christmas day and Eleri was SO delighted with her bed curtains that she insisted we get in the car THIS INSTANT and drive home (8 hours) from Springfield to install her prize.  When we still did not accommodate her THE INSTANT we did walk in the door some five days later, she about had a meltdown.

When they were up, the verdict was, well, meh.  They were different than she expected, she said, but she guessed they were okay.

Apparently she really wanted a full four poster with proper curtains that close all around the bed.

I wonder where she gets these ideas?  (Fancy Nancy, I'm looking at you.)

I'm a bit meh, too.  But the truth is, the girls will bore of them soon, and I have other plans for that room anyway, and really, NOT spending hours leading up to Christmas trying to make proper coronas is just fine by me.  I made some of these instead.  Show in the coming days.

Tell me: did you ever ask for home decor at a very young age?

Twin Canopies

For some reason, I have always loved a pair of twin beds in a guest room or kids room.  Maybe it has to do with my general love of symmetry and pairs of things: chairs, lamps, sconces, art.  (More on that next week.)  Maybe it has to do with my grade school friend Ania Burhardt's amazing blue and white room in her mother's Lake of the Isles house which had--you got it--matching twin beds.  I was nine the first time I slept over.  A very influential age.

At any rate, when I rearranged the girls' room to accommodate the vents, I feel like I gained some things (the ability to close the curtains, a bedside table for the girls, etc), and lost some things.  I mentioned here that I would have done some things differently had I planned the new layout from the get go, and today I'm sharing my biggest lament.

If I had started with the girls' beds floating in the room, I would have considered canopies.  Of course, I could still do this, but it would mean a different scale headboard.  It would mean taking down the cornice and drapes and replacing them with a tailored shade.  It would mean time and money that I don't have to spend.

So I'll just live vicariously through the designers who have done this well.  I was inspired by this amazing little room in a recent Architectural Digest, and it prompted me to pull images of other rooms with simple, flat coverlets (duvets may be a thing of the past), and smaller-scale canopies.  I love, love, love this look.


Architectural Digest



Melissa Rufty in House Beautiful


shopgramercy.blogspot.com via pinterest


Tom Scheerer spotted on Nest Egg via pinterest


Architectural Digest

What do you think of this look?  Do you have a favorite?