A new bedroom - perhaps

1948 yellow bedroom
Bedroom, 1948-style
Advance warning: Mr Robot and I are thinking of getting a loft conversion, and that means I’m going to bore you massively about bedrooms over coming months. YEARS even.

It’s slightly odd to think if we go ahead we’ll have a brand-new room in a Victorian house. An old house, yet with a room no-one else has ever lived in. We’re already thinking it’d become our main bedroom; our current bedroom would become the spare, and what’s currently a tiny spare room full of books and stuff without a proper home would become the stairwell to the new room, plus we’d get loads of shelving/storage put in there so my craft gubbins, his photography stuff, the camping kit and so on would all have somewhere tidy to live.

And, of course, that’s freeing me up to think about both bedrooms. The new one would be a complete blank canvas, so anything’s possible. We’d probably get the wardrobes built in, and that sort of sleekness makes me think of both later art deco – the moderne look of the 1930s and 40s – and cabins on cruise ships. And yeah, I know freestanding wardrobes were actually the norm through that period, but the idea of deco is a good place to jump off from. The wardrobes could always be disguised to be virtually invisible, with the rest of the room having a more typical moderne look.

I did also look at later styles, especially the 1950s and 1960s, but they didn’t strike me as the sort of thing I fancy in my bedroom. They either feel like too much, with quilted satin bedcovers and dense, strongly-coloured florals, or not enough, with very minimal lines and hard corners. I’m not dismissing that era out of hand, but I don’t think I’ll find masses of inspiration there. Still, I'll probably spend plenty of time browsing images on Pinterest for ideas, and some midcentury stuff might creep in.

The bedroom could embody more of the ‘Victorian explorer’ feel of the rest of the house, but Mr Robot’s keen to keep things light and bright, and ‘light and bright’ are words you’d rarely associate with the Victorians. That said, I could end up finding a wonderful fabric for sale while I’m in India and deciding to theme the room around that. At the moment all I'm really keen on is to make sure there's a bit more green. My glass dressing table set is a super shade of green, and it looks really out of place in our current blue/grey/cream bedroom. (I could have waited to find a blue dressing table set, but when the charity shop gods send you a green one for £15, you don't say no thanks...) And that colour and shape does swing me right back to later deco.
A green glass dressing table set
How did you plan out your bedroom? Or did it just sort of evolve?

Comments

  1. My bedroom is a cluttered mess with a king sized sleigh bed at the centre. I hate it ;)
    Our rooms are small, so any storage needs to make use of vertical space. In reality, that becomes shelves and bookcases to the ceiling.

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    1. We're considering a sleigh bed - the Mr's keen on one.

      The former-boxroom-turned-stairwell will be well shelved. Right to the ceiling!

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  2. How exciting to be able to plan a room from scratch. I'm afraid our bedroom just sort of evolved. We're slowly replacing the cheap furniture we started out with things more to our taste, but we're taking our time. The dressing table set is fab! I'm quite partial to them, sand I've actually have two green sets. I love the deco style of yours. And it's a great style for a bedroom too. xxx

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    1. It's a strange thing to do; when we moved into the house we had to make do and couldn't really plan much, and so all the other rooms have evolved. Starting with nothing is almost terrifying, it offers so many options.

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  3. How fab to look forward to a new bedroom!I'm making some changes to my house too which I'll post about on Friday.

    A blank canvas can be a marvellous place to start from. Just imagine you could have those very clever fitted wardrobes with all sorts of clever storage thingies to store everything you own !

    I love your green glass dressing table set.

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    1. Oh, good to know I'm not the only one doing housey things.

      As the roof is sloping, we'll be able to have plenty of storage on either side - all the drawers in the world! (I will finally have a decent space to store shoes, instead of stacking all the poor things in the cupboard under the stairs.)

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  4. That's going to be an exciting ride! Think of all that Pinterest planning you can do for decor inspo. When we moved into our house over 15 years ago, building a loft conversion was first on our list. Luckily, my Dad and his builder friends built it for us, which saved a lot of money - though we should have taken out shares in Yorkshire Tea and Mr Kipling!

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    1. Oh, that must have been handy having all those people to do the job. I've no idea how we'll go about finding people to do it - ask around, I guess.

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  5. How exciting! We may do the same in a couple of years. We're slowly working on our current bedroom. We have just painted it a lovely pale blue and a new carpet is next on the list. I look forward to more interiors musings! X

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    1. When you live somewhere, rooms do just evolve, don't they? Such fun planning something from scratch.

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  6. Exciting! The loft in our Victorian terrace was already boarded and plastered, so we added stairs last year. We weren't after another bedroom, but have a new space...hadn't really thought too much about how this altered the house. Am really loving a House Through Time at the moment. Would be great to find the original plans

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    1. A House Through Time is excellent. I've really enjoyed seeing the lives of the people who lived there - and I'm so glad the street was spared the wrecking ball.

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  7. I think the best advice is, as you mentioned re: finding a fabric, to start with one thing you love. We wanted a particular white wooden dresser which has pewter handles and we knew we wanted dark curtains, which evolved into our grey and white theme with black throws and cushions.

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    1. Yup. I'm not going to settle too quickly on a theme, I'm just going to absorb it all and see what I turn out to love. Though I have learned from the bathroom to say when I really don't like something; if I hadn't refused all the things I wasn't keen on, we'd have ended up with a very different room that I wouldn't love half so much. (Pete's so pleased with the bathroom, I bet he's glad I didn't compromise too.)

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  8. How fun! My home decorating/remodeling are rather limited here in South Asia- not much to buy here in the way of home decor. So I'm looking forward to vicariously enjoying your ideas!

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    1. Weirdly, I dind myself veering towards the 70s. Something I never thought I'd do! Though I may find some fabric in India that completely changes things.

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  9. Sounds very exciting and the planning will be lots of fun. Love the dressing table set. I have a green one too, it is a bit paler and frankly not as nice as yours. As you say though, when a complete one turns up for a good price you can't leave it!

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    1. If I had room, I'd be forever rescuing stuff from charity shops, and keeping it till I found it a proper home.

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  10. That sounds like a brilliant thing to be able to do. I love the thought of an attic bedroom. Your glass dressing table set is gorgeous. A deco theme would be fab. Definitely very steam liner. Xx

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    1. I might have to visit the ocean liners exhibition at the V&A for ideas...

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