Hey there! So remember a while ago when I shared some inspiration for neutral spaces here on the blog? Well, I mentioned in that post that it gave me an itch to paint a room white in my own home... something that's totally out of character for me, as I'm a big fan of color. But I have to say that the thought kept coming up, and I had one room in particular in mind for a makeover.... I was dreaming of an all white master bedroom.
Welcome to our bedroom:
In the interest of transparency, I should say here that while this photo looks ok, it is actually pretty outdated. Our bedroom has gone through so many style changes since we bought this house, it's really not even amusing at this point. So get your Pinterest finger ready, here's a little more accurate photo of the bedroom situation:
I didn't even bother to edit this photo (or clean up... don't judge me), so you can get a good idea of how it looks in real life. You'll probably notice lots of changes. Some I really love (hello curtains and nightstands!), others were made for function over form (I needed a lamp to read by, so the bookshelves by the bed were 86ed, leaving a nice patchy damaged wall behind). But overall, this room was just not working. Like at all.
Problem number one: no one but our immediate family ever sees our bedroom. It is on the second floor at the end of the hallway, so it's not like you just casually pass by and glance in. That fact alone made it easy to ignore this space from a decorating standpoint.
Problem number two: Because no one sees it, this room had kind of become a cast off area for items that I didn't have a better place for. Example "I really like this chair and don't want to get rid of it, but it doesn't match anything... so I'll just throw it in the bedroom and add some yellow pillows to try to make it work." It was a downward spiral. I kept adding things, but never really had a solid plan, and the end result was a room I really hated.
Sure there were a few things I loved in the room, but overall it felt cluttered and dreary. The dark charcoal colored paint wasn't helping matters either. I loved the drama of the color when it went up, and I still really love the color, but after living with it for six years, I finally had to admit to myself that our bedroom just doesn't get enough natural light to pull it off. Instead of moody and bold, it just came across as dark and cave-like. Especially in the wintertime. I had just started to see it as... depressing. When I started noticing a white paint trend in my Pinterest boards, I realized maybe it was time for a paint change in the bedroom.
But changing the paint only solves one of the two problems. The cluttered, haphazard feeling of all the mismatched stuff in the room was another beast, and one that I'll get to in the next installment of my bedroom adventures. For now, let's focus on the paint, shall we? To say it was a big change is an understatement.
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I'd been wanting to paint the trim work in here white for some time, so this was the perfect opportunity to do that too. I went with Valspar untinted white paint for both, and used an eggshell finish on the walls, and a semi-gloss on the trim. It is a subtle difference, but I dig it. (The previous paint color is Valspar Porcelain Shale, btw.)
I didn't get too many progress shots, but here are a few of the patch work and trim being primed, and the first coat of paint going up. Riveting, I know.
I'll be back with some details on how I solved the decor problem in here soon. I don't want to show you the finished product just yet, but here's one last sneak peak of the change the room has taken. It's just so much lighter and brighter and it really makes me happy.
I am so glad I went for it! It's always kind of a paint to move furniture and patch walls, and take the time to paint everything, and know there will be times I'll probably miss the moody gray, but so far, all white is feeling so right.
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