In the bedroom

Our bedroom as it was, the week after move-in.

It happens every summer. The thrill and delight for stepping on shovels, for digging and hauling, for having dirty fingernails slowly ebbs, with the evening light, so there's just a little less each day. And as it goes, slowly, slowly too there's the trickling in (or rather, trickling back, like the tide) of a desire to be nesting. 

That's really a good thing, because about the time the garden-passion starts to ebb, the "Oh my GOD the house is a wreck!"- thoughts begin to rear their ugly head. 

It felt so good to focus on the inside, yesterday evening. Oddly, the bedroom is the one room of the house that's really beginning to pull together. I think it's because I've had the clearest vision of that room, from the start, and so it's just a matter of connecting dots. In most of the other rooms, there are still decisions to be made, options to be considered. In the bedroom, things are falling into place.

Patrick helped me put the bed skirt I made on the bed before leaving for rehearsal. It's a little wonky, admittedly very wrinkled, but I'm really loving the contrast with the dark floor. I made it out of two queen-size sheets I thrifted for $2, which allowed me to skip out of having to pay $80+ for a pre-made bed skirt. Who in their right mind would do that? I wanted something so basic, I just screwed up my courage (knowing it would be an extremely boring, repetitive project--and it was!) and got it done.

And I should mention-- the bed frame is one of those super-cheapo metal ones that we outfitted with a big piece of plywood (because we don't have a box spring) and nice long wooden legs (courtesy of my dad at Brookside Woodworking). I am thrilled. But that's me. I get thrilled whenever awesome results are achieved with a $20 bed frame and $2 sheets.

The lamps I picked up at a yard sale last year for $10/pair; the shades were scooped up last week as part of Home Depot's lighting sale for $9 apiece. I made the throw pillows. The dressers came to us, for free, by way of my wonderful in-laws and good connections. The duvet cover (sans duvet) was part of the guest room in our old house. The pictures leaning against the wall everywhere ended up getting hung on the walls right after I took this picture (it was getting dark) and I love them. They're from Puerto Rico; a nice souvenir of a trip there when I was twenty.

I really, really love the curtains. They need to be hemmed-- small potatoes-- but so far I'm enjoying rolling over in the mornings and watching the sun and leaf-shadows playing through the delicate flower-printed voile. They look more washed-out in the pictures than they do in real life. That, I think, is the best part of the whole room.

Here's what's left:

• Find a pair of nightstands so Patrick's lamp doesn't sit on the floor and I don't have to use a chair for mine.
• Refinish an old door (from Binghamton) and hang as a "headboard" on the wall over the bed.
• Hem curtains
• Hang a full-length mirror on the wall by the door (just to the left in the picture above).
• Buy a wastepaper basket
• Swap current light fixture (ugly gold "boob light") for chic ceiling fan. Retire oscillating fan to closet.
• Find a rug-- perhaps a runner for each side of the bed?

It's such piece-of-mind having one room beginning to feel like home. Well, the whole house feels like home-- I smile every time I see the dining room light fixture or the flower wall-- but in the bedroom, things are taking shape. Chaos is ceding to order, to chosen details that add up to contentment. 

And that, friends, is what nesting is all about.

Anyone have any door-as-headboard war stories to share? How does it work? Most importantly, what color should I paint mine? 

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