Dressing Room Progress

Last week, I gave a peek at the walls in this strange little dressing area off of our bedroom. We haven’t quite settled on a name for this space, but the previous owners called it a dressing room and I can’t come up with anything better than “the closet room thing” so we’ll stick with that. You walk through this area to get to the bathroom. It is a useful space with a large closet and ceiling high cabinets.Let’s get right to the walls. It may look like wallpaper, but it’s not. The design was drawn on with a paint pen!

When we moved in, this room had floral striped harvest gold wallpaper to match the bedroom. We quickly removed that, painted all the surfaces bright white (except the closet doors – I’m not there yet!) and were left with an empty white space waiting for something exciting in it. I knew I wanted it to be a fun but practical extension of the master bedroom. Practical in the sense that there are no windows in this room and it is the room where outfits are made. I considered painting the whole thing, ceilings and all, black and – knowing me – I someday will. But the lighting issue stopped me this go round. A bright, well lit space seemed like a good idea.

At first, I was considering wallpapering the space. However, there was a huge HOWEVER…I was working on this room right after we moved in (not sure why, but I was driven to finish this out of the way space quickly). This was just after we had finished removing so much wallpaper from our house. At that time, adding more wallpaper back into the house was completely out of the question for my husband. And I wasn’t crazy about the price, work, or commitment either. After some thought I decided to draw a gold bamboo pattern on the wall. And it’s rad.

I will share the process tomorrow (here it is: DIY Paint Pen Wallpaper Walls), but for now, check out the pictures. Don’t mind the unpainted closet doors or the carpet or the ridiculously unfinished bathroom, okay?

My husband bought me this vintage sputnik light right after we got married. It has hung in every place we’ve ever lived. I planned to put this fixture in our entry but after seeing it in here, it had to stay. The amount of light it gives off is perfect.

These are the knobby original cabinet knobs to my shoe cabinet. Yes, the bottom cabinet has slanted shelves made specifically for holding rows of shoes! This dresser wall seemed like an obvious place to lean an oversized mirror and comfy chair but despite my best efforts at simplicity, I have a lot of clothes so storage it is. (You’ll also notice my sloppy bamboo designs behind the dresser…that is where I began before I had worked out the kinks of the process. It need to be repainted.)The before:Clearly, the room isn’t done yet. It could use a little accessorizing and some more painting and some flooring but it’s very much on the way there. A list, for reference: