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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Modern Traditional Master Bedroom Reveal: Week 6 of the One Room Challenge

Our master bedroom makeover for the One Room Challenge is complete! I feel so many emotions. Relieved, obviously, and I hope I can take it a little easier the next few weekends… But also, I am SO PROUD of this room and myself.

You can see all my One Room Challenge posts here
See Week 1 ("before" and inspiration) here.
See Week 2 (paint, windows, bed progress, window shades, and lighting choice) here.
See Week 3 (queen vs. king bed debate, plus nightstands and dressers) here.
See Week 4 (new rug, bench, jewelry storage, and hiding the cords) here.
See Week 5 (almost done but stuck on bedding) here.

This post contains affiliate links.

I put a lot of pressure on myself because I honestly started the mood for for our next bedroom about a year ago, before we even know knew we would get the house. I’ve been staring at rugs and upholstered headboard and nightstands and lamps like these collage-ing for months. It was really hard to finally make decisions! Also, this is the first room in this house to look the way we want it to. We have so much work to do over the next several years or more, but (now) in the bedroom, there’s basically nothing else I might change if I had more time or money.

I also sometimes have a tendency to rush things and cut corners, so I was a little afraid that I might not do this room justice, and it’s important because I am part of this exciting, wonderful One Room Challenge group and I wanted to be really good! But, now that I’ve spent all the time working on it, blogging about it, and photographing the reveal… it does feel really good. I am really proud of my work! 

So, welcome to the room! Let me show you around!
First, I hope you’ll notice the bed. It is possibly my biggest and coolest non-installed/built-in DIY project. I will do a full tutorial on the construction and sewing soon. (Update: HERE it is!) It’s made entirely from scratch, with plywood and lumber and a variety of screws and bolts, plus batting, muslin, and a linen slipcover plus bedskirt I made myself. I picked the height, width, and everything else about this bed!

I was inspired by the slipcovered headboard/footboard beds I see in a lot of designers’ rooms, but this one is a lot like this one from Serena and Lily. Jason didn’t want a footboard, so I skipped that part and it did make it easier. It has a French seam around the headboard and light scale tailoring to make the bed skirt part look crisp. I am really proud of how it turned out.

I actually didn’t start out planning to make the bed, but I just couldn’t find any simple upholstered headboard beds that I like. I wanted linen and couldn’t tell from the photos online what the fabric was really like. My budget did not allow a custom bed like this one or the ones I liked at Restoration Hardware! Plus, this way I was able to get the headboard that was the perfect size to fit in between our nightstands without blocking the window. (It is narrower than most queen-sized headboards, which extend beyond the rails more than this one does. Read about our queen vs. king debate here!) I also ended up changing the height of the headboard after building the frame in before sewing the cover. Not that I recommend re-doing work like that, but it resulted in a perfect custom height!

We also upgraded our mattress. The new bed is a platform style, and I didn't want to separate our mattress set (saving it for a future guest room), plus I've realized it is just way too soft for me. I shared about that in this post as well--postpartum back problems, ongoing back and neck problems... I felt better sleeping on our firm sofa than I did on our soft mattress. I wanted to try a Lucid mattress because they are one of the only online mattress companies I've seen that has options for firmness! I love the mattress-in-a-box concept, but I can't believe the ones that are one-size-fits-all for firmness. We got the 10" latex hybrid mattress, which is medium firm. (Go Mattresses/Shop by Comfort/choose your firmness on Lucid's website to see the options.)

Then, the bedding. I have always loved bedding... so much so that it is overwhelming when I can choose basically anything! But I went for quality but budget-friendly pieces and upgraded almost everything about our bed. New mattress pad, even--this organic cotton one. The sheets are these organic cotton ones and I cannot believe the quality for the price. They are super soft and thick, but also--they are so generously cut! Long, wide, and deep, with wide elastic plus an extra piece right at the base of the 10" mattress. I ordered extra pillowcases (also plenty long) and kept the four pillows really basic.

The coverlet is a cotton/cashmere blend and I just love it. More neutrals, my favorite... but this is so soft and feels so special despite being a basic color! Under $100, too! I added another light tan blanket at the foot of the bed. I did a full/queen size rather than use a 50"x60" throw; they are just not substantial enough. I love this sweater knit one.

I left the throw pillow decision to the last minute. I lucked out when I found these blue plaid ones at Marshall's. I wasn't planning on the room being so blue-heavy but I think it totally works! However, I can easily switch out the pillows and change up the look for winter, spring, etc.

Look up above the bed... I wanted something from nature, something Pacific Northwest-ey and unique, and found this photo by Dan Otis on Unsplash. I downloaded it and picked out the custom gold picture frame and mat from ArtToFrames. I picked the size (frame about 38" wide) based on the width of the headboard. I was even able to customize the mat color!! They have several whites to choose from and our walls are just a little warmer than pure white so I wanted something that wouldn't look blue next to the paint. The frame color is "muted prosecco gold" frame.

Pieces from ArtToFrames also come with THE easiest hanging tools--I have never seen such smart tiny hardware before! Each piece even has a tiny, tiny adhesive level you can stick on top while hanging. Genius.

Now, the nightstands… Full credit to Emily of The Sweet Beast for finding these gems! These are real, solid wood nightstands for under $100 each! She used them in her guestroom One Room Challenge last spring and I have been thinking about them since. We actually haven’t had matching nightstands in a really long time, so these are such a treat!

I combined them with these baskets on the bottom shelf to hide some more stuff--for a minute I was concerned about I should have bought nightstands with drawers for extra storage, but now I realize that the baskets are even better because I can easily stuff things like my pajamas into them without folding them!

The lamps for a lucky find, although I had been looking at every HomeGoods and Marshall's and T.J. Maxx that I went into for a while. I found some great ones online, but just wasn’t sure about the height/scale. I just wanted a basic ceramic white lamp with white shade, but with a little extra interest. These lamps (Tommy Hilfiger from HomeGoods, I can’t find these exact ones anywhere online) are white glazed terra cotta and I love the stripe.

I keep the tops of our nightstands really clean because otherwise it’s so easy for them to get cluttered! I did a FREE upgrade on the chords for the lamp in nightstand (it plugs in! It has comes with a USB charger for our phones! So fancy.) that I can’t believe I’ve never done before. I just rubber-banded the extra cord together in a loop! So simple! It makes it so that the cord just go straight down to the floor and so is minimally visible.

I also did a cord update on the other side of the wall; unfortunately the wall where we need the headboard to go doesn’t have any power, so we had previously used extension cords on either side because there are outlets on both perpendicular walls. But it looked like a mess. So, I got these simple brackets that hold our extension cord in place and fastened it down in a straight line on one side. The cords for my nightstand and lamp come from an extension cord behind the bed. Almost entirely hidden! Look to the bottom right.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned the rug yet. This is the Loloi Loren line, which is made in Turkey and printed to look like a vintage Turkish rug, but is a flat-woven polyester with a cotton backing. I would love to only use natural fiber rugs in my home, but that really limits me (budget, time, size, even patterns/colors). I am sometimes tempted by the hundreds of pretty vintage-look polyester pile rugs, but I'm pretty sure I would not be happy with them close-up because they look like boldly patterned carpet. This rug, on the other hand... it is so pretty up close and so comfortable to walk on. And from afar it really does a great job of giving off the vintage look. I got the 7'6" by 9'6" size and ideally would have centered it under the bed, but then it would have been even more off-center on the room, so I positioned it in the most balanced way possible.

Now around to this corner. This is a money tree! I just got it at IKEA as one of the last additions to the room and it’s basically perfect. I really wanted something with some height in this corner but we didn’t need any more furniture. I think the color and scale of the leaves add some interest and texture that we didn’t have before. Jason thinks the braided trunk is weird but I kind of love it!

The wall under the double windows is also a focal point when you walk in the room. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to put here but I was thinking a bench would work well. We don’t have any accent seating here so it’s nice to have an extra place to sit down and put on your shoes (or to be honest, a place to pile the laundry if I don’t get a chance to fold it before bed!) I had only just barely started to look for bench options when HomePop reached out to share some of their products for this project! You may recognize their products from Target, HomeGoods, Overstock, a bunch of other retailers. They have some really cute sort-of mid-century inspired pieces including a velvet line I love. I originally gravitated towards this bench in grey, because I play it safe and stick with neutrals most of the time!, but then I looked back at their choices one more time and pulled out this navy blue. I’m so glad I did! It really makes the room extra special!

I defaulted on the curtains in this room and went with these white IKEA ones I always use and this affordable, super easy to install blackout curtain rod and clips. I did a whole post about this curtain rod at our last house and I’ve ordered several more for this house. Ideally the curtain would have been hung a couple inches wider on either side, and the curtain panels would be a little wider, but the wall is pinched because of the width of the dresser. So, the curtains are just the eyelashes and are functional and that they cover the windows, but kind of blend in. Another reason I just stuck with white panels.

I am super happy with the linen-look Roman shades we have on all three windows in this room. I have them in our living room and now Otto's room, too. They are top-down/bottom-up, cordless Roman shades for an amazing price. They are not custom, so they are slightly longer than I need, but they come in lots of widths. I have been sharing about them on Instagram and you guys are so into them! This double window here faces our neighbors driveway so it’s nice to have the top-down option to let light in but keep it extra private. These blinds are not full blackout, but they do a pretty darn good job and combined with the curtains, we have plenty of darkness at night.

Now to this corner: my dresser and jewelry storage. We each need a dresser in addition to the closet space we have in this room, and ideally I would’ve had one long, low dresser as well as one tall one, but there just isn’t room. (We tried several different orientations and this was the best, but it meant either very small low dressers or just two tall ones.) I think it’s a little bit funny but it’s functional, and it feels very grown up to have these matching wood dressers.

For dressers, I wanted solid wood but again, not a huge budget… I almost just went with white IKEA Hemnes dressers because they are great and store a lot, but we have one already in Otto's room and Jason is tired of me picking everything in white. These dark wood Parsons dressers are a little heavier than the nightstand but a similar color, and of course go with our dark woodwork. They are from Target and were some crazy percent off when I bought them, but literally the day after I placed my order these and the low, wide version were out of stock. I think there are several years old, Threshold line. They were originally $799 and I paid $165 each. One of my strokes of luck in this bedroom makeover!

I am really excited about the jewelry storage upgrade. As I shared in this post, I have been using the same jewelry storage trees since I spray-painted them in 2012. My necklaces were all crowded and I didn’t wear most of them anyway. It was totally time for a refresh and upgrade! I love the simplicity of these pieces: the board that goes against the wall holds my study earrings much better than the little dish I was using, and holds my delicate necklaces. The tree holds bigger necklaces and bracelets, although I don’t have any bracelets so the chunky necklaces go on the lower rung. I did get rid of about half my jewelry when switching it over to this system and I love it! So much easier to see everything I have! Plus, more linen. I love linen.

On top of both of our dressers, I’d like to leave extra room because we stack not-yet-dirty-but-worn clothes on them often. So leaving empty space prevents clutter on these, too, because we need the open space for loosely folded jeans or whatever overnight.

The print on the wall above Jason's dresser is one of his favorites that we had framed in a cheap black frame for a long time. The artwork itself is not quite a standard size, so it was perfect but I ordered a substantial frame and custom mat from ArtToFrames for this as well. I wanted to add some of his favorite things in the room, but dressed up with a nicer frame to match the feel.

We are almost all the way around the room! This mirror--I am so excited about how this turned out. We have had this mirror for longer than almost anything else that we still own. It’s from IKEA but I bought it off craigslist for $80 or something along time ago. It’s huge and weighs more than 40 pounds. (We checked when we were thinking about ways to hang it! It is propped instead of hung for now.) It was a pale stainless steel metal finish and that just did not go with the room at all. But, we knew we wanted to keep the function of a big mirror. I saw this one from McGee & Co website and it reminded me of ours, so I had the idea to paint ours and add some rivets! I looked at the fabric store for a flat shank button that I could glue on, but didn’t find anything. Once I sprayed it, though, with the sharp right corners of this one, I really think it’s just perfect as-is. Reminds me of those Rejuvenation bathroom mirrors that looks so crisp.

You can see the light fixture in the mirror, too. I could not decide about the light fixture for the longest time!!! One of the inspiration rooms I have been looking at has a black drippy glass chandelier, so I was thinking about maybe doing that, but so much of this house is traditional I also wanted something more fresh. I think I just stumbled upon this black one while looking for semi-flush mount options, and it is so cool! It's much bigger in person than I expected it would feel, and every time I walk in the room it pops and makes it feel so much more interesting. I considered adding a ceiling medallion to make it stand out even more, but researched them and think they are just not right for a historic home of this era (1937). I'm glad I kept it a little cleaner.

That's our room! When I set out on this project I said I wanted our space to feel luxurious. It totally does. It has come a long way from the day we got the keys, obviously, but also from the thrown-together space it was before we started.

It has been just magical to watch this original mood board transform into a real, live space I get to live in. The art, the light fixture, that wonderful rug... now they all feel iconic to me and it all clicks together when I'm in the space. Like I said before, I feel so good about this room and am so proud of my work turning it from a concept into reality!



(Almost) all sources:



Thank you so much to LucidArtToFrames, and HomePop for providing products for this room! 

Check out the room reveals for the Featured Designers and other Guest Participants, too!

Shop the pieces here!

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