bedroom revisited

A while back I was talking about doing a mini bedroom cure – I didn’t get too far, mostly because the bedside tables I wanted from Ikea never came into stock. I have finally given up on ever getting the bekvam stools and ended up buying the Rast Bedside tables last night:

image courtesy of ikea.com.au

In some ways I think this one is slightly better. It’s a lower height than the stool, which fits my Malm bed a lot better. And it also provides the space for more storage – I am however against having too much open storage as this can looked cluttered, so I need to have a think on what I do with all that space, cute boxes maybe? I will be painting the tables soon, I think just to be safe white will probably be best, but maybe as the room progresses (and I settle on an exact colour scheme) an accent colour. That’s what I love about this sort of Ikea furniture, at $14.99 each, and solid wood, you can paint it as many times as you want, until you get it right.

So that’s the bedside tables finally sorted. Unfortunately there are a few more niggling things that the bedroom needs. Currently I am in two minds about the floor plan. Since I moved in I have had the floor plan in the below configuration; with my Malm bed and Malm chest of draws. The box in the bottom right of the image is my wardrobe with sliding mirror doors, and the space to the bottom left currently houses my laundry basket.

The Malm chest of drawers was never quite right in that space. I bought it for my room back in Perth so it wasn’t bought for this room. I always thought something lower (it is the four drawer Malm so it’s quite high) and longer would look better. But one night I got restless and changed it to this configuration of the bed (now with my bedside tables):

The dresser still doesn’t work, it’s an awkward shape for the room. I could put the dresser in the nook to the bottom left, but that’s where my laundry hamper sits and is hidden nicely by the open door – if I moved it there, where would the hamper go that’s out of sight? I’d love to get rid of the drawers all together, but I can’t fit everything in my wardrobe, and it’s nice having some where to place your jewellery and jewellery boxes – so I think I need some sort of table, chest of drawers, or sideboard for my room – but how to configure the floor plan? I had a play and came up with the below options:

Option one has my bed slightly to the left with a low chest of drawers/sideboard on the right hand wall, I even squeezed a chair in – but it’s not really necessary. I am not sure if the bed being off centre would make the room look strange.

Option two is leaving my bed where it is at the moment, in the centre of the back wall, and then moving my current chest of drawers to the nook on the bottom left. The cheapest solution, but I would need to figure out what to do with my hamper…

Option three is moving my bed back to where it was, against the right hand wall, and then having a low and long sideboard/chest of drawers directly opposite the bed. The only con with this plan is the bottom bedside table is close the wardrobe doors.

So I need to decide on a general direction soon, and then I can get moving on finding the pieces to complete the bedroom. Let me know if you have a favourite plan, or something completely different – all opinions welcome!

I’ll update you soon with how painting the bedside tables goes!

all floor plan images were made at floorplanner.com

bedroom floor plan

Using floorplanner.com I have come up with a few options for the floor plan of my bedroom. Due to windows and some exposed beam work in my bedroom I am very limited as to where to place the bed – there is only the one wall it go on. The little nook in the bottom left houses my laundry hamper nicely – however they didn’t have a hamper icon on the site. Just for your reference the wall on the lower right in front of the bed is my closet – it has mirrored sliding doors.

Option One: two small bedside tables (possible the ikea frosta stool) and a smallish low dresser, with chair in corner.

Option Two: Longer dresser across opposite wall

Option Three: Bigger, and square bedside tables (possibly Ikea Bekvam stool)

Or it could be a combination of the three…which one to go for. I think the dresser is going to be the trickiest to find in the size and price I want – as both bedside options are looking to be quite cheap so far (either the Frosta or Bekvam stool from Ikea, painted in some fashion). I like the idea of painting the Ikea Rast dresser – however I am not 100% confident that they would work side by side…decisions, decisions!

furniture ideas

Now that I think I have settled on a floor plan (see below) I can begin to start searching what furniture I want to buy in the future. I don’t have many plans to keep the furniture I have because most of it is from Ikea, and I don’t want a house full of particleboard. These items will most likely be repurposed in the guest room. So I am basically starting from scratch.

The most important element I feel for the living room will be the couch, and this has been the most difficult to find. I have settled momentarily on a couch from Recollections, that only comes in a cream leather – a bold move, but I think I could keep it clean. For my TV cabinet, I have settled on using a sideboard, not built as an entertainment unit, but suits the purpose never the less – I will be moving all but the foxtel box upstairs to the guest room (that includes, DVD player, Wii, Playstation, and Nitendo 64) to reduce the clutter. I am stuck on what colour rug to use, something bold and with the colour theme (at the moment I am going with a red/green theme, not christmas red/green though) or something neutral and more natural looking. This will also affect what armchairs I buy, with a neutral rug I think a more focal chair would suit, and vice versa with a focal rug. Below is a mis match of what I have going on so far, now just to save the money to buy it all!

floor plan brainstorming

Unfortunately decisions don’t come easy to me. I have to deliberate them carefully, and even then I am never satisfied with the result. So when it came to finalize my floor plan, so I can start purchasing my furniture, it has unsurprisingly taken me quite some time. I am currently sitting with three proposed options, however since my downstairs is an open plan living/dining/kitchen, the rooms can we swapped with each of the different plans.

I am still unsure which one to go with – 2nd and 3rd option allow a small desk in the living room, the first seems to have the best flow with the couch placement,  I don’t know which way to place the dining room table, and I’m not sure if I realistically have room for a kitchen island? But then the kitchen would have a massive empty space. I need to decide soon so I can start on finding the furniture to fit, which I know is going to be even more decisions….

home sweet home

It’s been a quiet week at work so I’ve been using this spare time to delve deeper into how to decorate my house. My major concern was the furniture placement in my kitchen/living/dining room, which happened to be one long room. I searched high and low on the internet, but none of the solutions worked for my space – so I ended up sending my question into Apartment Therapy, the wonderful blog which explores living big in small spaces. To my surprise they posted my question and there has already been 12 responses on how I should layout my furniture. You can view the page here. The suggestions have definitely given me some food for thought, I might be moving some furniture around this weekend.

I also finally made my way to the Target home sale yesterday and purchased a nicely discounted white wooden star like wall decoration. I was going to paint it red to match some of my cushions in my living room, however I then saw the same piece in a decorating blog hung on the wall still white, and now I’m torn between what colour, leave it white or paint it red?

Looking forward to the wkend - hopefully headed out to see some comedy tonight at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. And then it’s only a hop skip and a jump until next Wednesday when I’ll be on a plane back home to perth (that is if I can leave my poor bailey at the kennels without too much drama!)