Welcome to my Sanctuary.

Almost. Okay, here's the thing. I have never decorated a bedroom top to bottom. As in, my mom decorated my room when I lived at home, and when I moved in with my boyfriend, he was already set up. Even though I added a few feminine touches, we still slept underneath a huge canvas of a surfer, all of our furniture was covered in snowboard/surf stickers, and our mattress was on the floor. It was such a bachelor's room. Cut to us moving into our first home together (Woo!) 2 years ago, and we still couldn't really afford to make many changes, so the bedroom has stayed the same since then: three walls a nasty chartreuse green color, and the fourth being an odd blend of eggplant, brown or navy - depending on how you are looking at it, and none of our furniture matching (his is still covered in stupid freaking stickers). The old tenant was an in-the-house smoker (GRRR, never again.), so all that was necessary was re-painting the downstairs, to get rid of the old smoke stench (seriously, it smelt like an old hotel room, mixed with wet fur and smoke. just disgusting). This year however, we decided to re-do our upstairs areas, so the master bathroom, and bedroom(s).

People, I am SO EXCITED TO RE-DO A BEDROOM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE.

I have promised Andy I will keep the girliness waiting to vomit all over our room to a minimum, and keep it as neutral as possible. Sigh, no chandelier in this room, but that's okay. The biggest win for me here is that my lovely boyfriend is color blind, and probably the most easy-going guy ever. Apart from a solid veto on my originally chosen duvet cover (see below), the answer to most of my inquiries was "You know what will look good, go for it, I trust you." This guy, I tell ya. A control freak girlfriend's idea of perfection.



Okay, so the frou-frou, girly-as-all-get-out girl in me was just clawing her way to the surface, and my heart lit-er-ally sang when I first saw this duvet cover:

Andy, did not share my enthusiasm. "Babe! It is SO pretty I love it SO MUCH! I'll keep everything else as neutral as possible and it won't feel girly!" Nope, not happening. Ugh, Fiiine.

My vision is the exact opposite of what this room currently is: I want this to be our zen zone. Where we can come, lay down, escape the chaos of real life, and just. Chill. So, grey walls seemed to be pretty on cue with that vision. We have really limited natural light, (all of our windows are on the shaded side of the house) so the colors had to be light enough that it felt very calm and comforting, while also reflecting the light a little bit, so a light grey just fit in with that vision perfectly. We went with all white furniture to keep the aesthetic very "light", -see a pattern?- so what better place for good solid, well-priced furniture than IKEA? No where; in my mind, they always win. Throw in some white frames and accent pieces, and we're almost set.

I have a little obsession with the artist Katie Daisy, and decided that the color punches and feminine touches could come from framing some of her print work, as a bonus, all of her work is very positive, optimistic, and focus on loving each other, and mostly just being happy with the life you've been given.What could be more perfect for a bedroom?

This has been so much fun for me. For one, it took my mind off of the stress that's been around for the past few months, and I am so unbelievably excited to have our room be the perfect little oasis. We are hopefully going to start the painting process this weekend, and by "we", I mean I will hopelessly paint A wall, Andy will laugh at how horribly I am doing, and I will spend the remainder of the painting session making him lunch and bringing him cold beverages. I know my place in this, and I am not upset about it one little bit. Know your strengths, right? Painting properly is not one of mine. But, I do make a damn good lunch. (I refuse to say sandwich. ;) )