Some rooms are easier than others and y’all I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – BEDROOMS ARE THE EASIEST ROOMS TO DECORATE. Why? Because there is mostly one singular function (or two, LOL). You don’t need to worry as much about flow or multiple uses for multiple people (well, depending on your lifestyle, no judgment here!). Also, there is a clear focal point and most importantly – it’s where you can easily employ symmetry, flanking said focal point (so less decision and shopping time). But for whatever reason this bedroom has been HARD. It’s now done and if I could snap my fingers I’d change a few things, but I’ll get into that in the reveal post coming up. Today I’m going to remind you where we came from and how we got here before you see it all shot and wearing her fancy clothes. Also, I get candid about some $$$ stuff below so if that’s not your thing click away.
As a reminder, there is the original house from 1910 (the tall one) and then there is the 60s addition that was used mostly as a group home meeting space. We ended up adding 8 feet to that wing to fit what we wanted. Now I’m not sure I would have done that again – BOY can 8 feet be so expensive when you are talking roofing, foundation, HVAC, an additional electrical meter, and even a new dug-out basement to house the HVAC for this wing. ANYWAY, now that we have a spacious bed/bath and mudroom I’m of course psyched about it, but I will not be so cavalier next time to just “add on”. So our bedroom is in there ?
Here is how the house was laid out before our almost 3-year renovation:) For the sake of ease, picture where the brick patio was (on the right) being what we added on. I guess we were reacting to having a really nice sized spacious bedroom from the mountain house (where we lived and loved during lockdown). And as much as we tried and tried, Anne from ARCIFORM couldn’t fit what we were requesting in the square footage we had without greatly compromising the size, function, or flow of the rooms. Now that I think about it, our bathroom isn’t that big at all, the family room literally couldn’t be much smaller or we wouldn’t be able to fit a big sectional (the sole purpose of the room), so could our bedroom and mudroom have been smaller? I think so. But our rationale was that we were already spending so much money that to not get the rooms and space that we wanted felt NUTS. Like why go through this entire rather painful process and then afterward have regrets (and not be able to add on later, obviously)? That’s all to say that I’m glad we added on that 8? to fit this room – NOW – but let’s just say next time we’ll think about it more as it likely added $75k to the whole already ludicrously high budget (and no, I still haven’t added it up). I find that I need years of perspective before I can crunch the numbers, which also allows the blog to create revenue from the content from the renovation which eases the pain of course.
For the Portland Project flip that I did with my brother, as you might have read here, I lost so much money. But after years of the posts being on the blog, accruing ad dollars, I think I might have actually made a little bit of $$. It’s a lot like Mr. Beast (wait, what??) where he spends like $100k on many of his individual videos with the hope that eventually the views will be there to profit. Content creation is a gamble, where you have to invest in the project to get the views, but the views are what pay for the project and if the views aren’t there then you lose so much money. So…ya, waiting is a healthier move (and I realize I’m very privileged to not have been forced to know by a dire financial situation – the sale of our LA house saved us financially). It’s also tricky when your job is like mine and some of the expenses can be written off – but only very specific things, some of it covered by partnerships that I hustled to pitch (and then some of it directly paid to vendors, etc). I wrote about the Portland $$$ I think 3 years after it was over, so maybe in 3 years I’ll come to terms with what this monster of a renovation costs – THAT WE ARE SO LUCKY TO DO AND LIVE IN. But no, not yet. I need more space from it, TBH, lest I should puke ?
This was how that wing looked before we renovated, BTW. It was super chopped up with a lot of temporary walls so the family that lived there before us could use the space.
This is where we landed with the layout for a million reasons. If I could go back in time I’d likely swap the mudroom and the bathroom, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t want our bathroom to be facing the backyard like that for more privacy (which is hilarious because it faces the entry now, LOL, with way more foot traffic). But now that the kids have to feed the pigs and alpacas twice a day in literal shit-covered boots, I’m glad that we have that mudroom there with the covered porch for their disgusting boots. In Oregon, I just wish we had a mudroom at every entrance (the kitchen is our everyday drop zone – not ideal).
The Construction Phase
ARCIFORM did such an incredible job, y’all. Jamie (that man in the overalls) has to know so much and have so much experience to execute a project of this scale so well (he’s been with them for over a decade). I truly marveled at how he seemed to know everything about all aspects of building a home. Anyway, we added a bunch of windows, a fireplace, skylights, and even an exit (didn’t need that).
We laid it out just like we did at the mountain house – bed facing the fireplace, with a TV above it this time (despite Orlando’s disgust – read that post here).
from: farmhouse update: the current state of our bedroom
We figured that we’d clad the fireplace in brick and paint it, similar to the original one in the living room. The windows are all white oak on the inside (aluminum clad on the exterior) from Sierra Pacific and ARCIFORM designed this pretty custom millwork for all the window and door trim. They are gorgeous. the floor is from Zena Forest Products (and they got so busy after this project so thank you all who supported them – way to help a small family-run business grow).
Move-In Day
We had like 15 minutes to shoot the whole house before the moving trucks loaded in so here I was. DAY ONE (that was 15 months ago, FYI). I had it painted white during construction because I didn’t have the creative bandwidth to design the room and I just wanted a blank slate. Creative bandwidth is a real thing BTW. it’s not just about time, it’s a specific part of your brain that gets tapped and depleted. When that happens you literally can’t force it. You just have to sit down, work on yourself, give yourself some time, and wait for it to come back.
Y’all, if I weren’t in the business of revealing idea-provoking, well-designed rooms with clear points of view I might have kept it white. I like a white bedroom and I really like my bedrooms to be simple and less “designed” (mostly because my life can feel chaotic and here I just want it calm and to send me to sleep). In short, I like bedrooms that are easy for your eye to understand (thus the symmetry). It can be perceived as boring for sure, and I like it more now painted, but for the record, a clean white bedroom isn’t the worst.
We painted the fireplace Smoky Blue by Sherwin-Williams which ended up being too light and bright (but we loved the color enough to put on our stairs).
We brought in a lot of leftover furniture (and a new/old vintage lamp that still hasn’t landed anywhere). This is how we lived for 8 months or so. And no one died!
We had chosen this bed months before we moved in, from Maiden Home and admittedly I chose a too simple fabric for this room. I played it too safe (not to blame Brian but he might have encouraged me to be safe and he loved this gray). Lesson learned re Gray in Portland – just don’t do it. This bed is also really low – we had to add another mattress underneath ours. This low of a bed is fine in certain rooms with certain vibes, but with the fireplace being so tall it just felt so off balance. To fix it, we added a leftover king mattress underneath our mattress to raise it up a bit. Also, this is where Brian used to work out (thus the dumbells).
While I ordered a new bed (after apologizing profusing to Maiden Home because it was such a pretty bed) I decided we did, in fact, need to design this room to be really good, not just simple. So I painted it Debonaire from Sherwin-Williams (after so much debate). I had looked at no less than 30 blues and decided this one was it. Do I love the color? YES. Do I think it’s right in here, NOPE.
Wait, Why Doesn’t This Color Work In Here?
I think the depth of the color is too intense for the amount of natural light in here. I think had we not put in skylights it would be fine and feel like a cozy box. However, with the 4 windows and 4 skylights, it just feels like it should be lighter. The saying is right – paint light rooms light and dark rooms dark. But what about medium tones?? I thought I could paint a light room a medium color, but it gets so saturated and intense with all the natural light so I just wish I had gone lighter (but I LOVE this color and plan on using it again in rooms that are meant to be darker and cozy).
This week you are going to learn about the custom bed we made for another room, that landed here, and then you’ll see the first real reveal of the room without repainting it light (LOTS to talk about). And again it’s beautiful but just not 100% there yet. But isn’t that the “fun” of design? The journey? Ha. At least you can keep tweaking until you get it just right:)
*Pretty Photos by Katlin Green