Modern Bedroom Makeover
When Daniel and I moved into our apartment, we were beyond excited to make our place feel like home. This was going to be OUR place. We both had developed a love for modern, mid-century, and industrial design styles, so we knew our apartment would reflect all of those in some measure. Over the last year our apartment has evolved as we’ve slowly but surely invested in furniture and décor to create a cohesive space that is sleek, bright, modern, and most of all INVITING. Read on for the details of how we transformed this 8'X10' room, and scroll to the bottom of the post for product links.
The first space we concentrated on was our living/dining room area because we spend most of our waking time there, so our bedroom didn’t get much love. In fact… we used to joke that the bedroom was really quite literally our BED-room. The room is quite small, and we had oriented our bed so that it took up far too much of the space. Plus, it was barren. The walls were the same horrifying beige/cream color seen elsewhere in our apartment, but made even more dull and depressing by the lack of natural light. We knew that we wanted to tackle our bedroom as our next project, so over the last couple of months we have been working away and are sharing our tips for making a teeny tiny bedroom feel spacious and welcoming with the full reveal of our modern bedroom makeover!
The first thing we needed to change was the walls. The dull, flat color made the small room feel even more confining. We painted the walls white and added a rich blue accent wall which created a feeling of depth. This immediately elevated our space.
The second thing we changed was the orientation of our bed. This simple change made a huge difference. We were so preoccupied with having an “adult” layout (aka we felt like our bed was supposed to be centered in the room with only the headboard against the wall). We were totally letting ourselves be trapped by some stupid, rigid, old-school design rule! Once we turned the bed, it opened up a bunch of floor space, making it feel like our room was twice as big!
Our third change was to incorporate some new furniture items now that there was some open floor space. We added a small nightstand and a tall, narrow planter from West Elm containing a snake plant to create some height and draw the eye up. On his side we added a floor lamp to do the same.
Our fourth upgrade was to add shelving and décor to the walls and window. We found a sharp looking geometric shelf from Urban Outfitters that had a modern-industrial look. This is where we’re keeping our bed-time reading! ;)
We also found a small floating shelf that is Daniel’s nightstand since we can’t fit an actual nightstand on his side of the bed. We’ve always loved having a few Chicago pieces in our place so we looked for a print through Etsy that we could print and frame.
We also found some amazing contemporary wall planters from CB2 that popped nicely against the dark hue of the accent wall and filled them with airplants and succulents. While these little guys don't need much sunshine, it can get pretty bright in the morning. Thankfully we discovered these some amazing, modern, bold, textured, velvet, black and white, room-darkening curtains from West Elm which we hung from an industrial, black curtain rod.
And the fifth and final update we made was to add a mirror. When we first started planning the room we were dying to have a floor length mirror that would sit on the floor angled in the corner and reflect the accent wall. We knew this would give the illusion of a much bigger space. But as the room began to take shape we knew that a floor mirror wasn’t going to be the right fit. Instead, we found a large round mirror at Target that we hung on the wall adjacent to our accent wall to create that feeling of additional space by reflecting the room.
Our bedroom not only feels bigger than before, but it is also a place that we now enjoy going to clear our minds and rest, not just to sleep. Hope you enjoyed our tips for making a tiny bedroom feel like a spacious oasis. If you’ve lived in small quarters, what are your small (bed)room tips and tricks?
Room Details
- Wall Planters - CB2 - Trigg Large Wall Vase and Set of 2 Small Trigg Wall Vases
- The Bolt Gold Wall Vases sold out recently. Here's an Etsy shop with some other great ceramic wall planters.
- Floating Shelf - ChristianiModernCo - Floating Nightstand
- Floor Lamp - Target - Edris Metal Globe Floor Lamp
- Comforter - West Elm - Braided Quilt
- Throw Blanket - West Elm - Faux Fur Throws
- Decorative Pillow - CB2 - Pillows
- Curtains - West Elm - Blocks Printed Velvet Curtain with blackout lining
- Nightstand - Target - Porter Mid Century Modern End Table
- Bedside Lamp - West Elm - Scoop Table Lamp
- Hexagon Shelf - Urban Outfitters - Diamond Cross Planes Shelf
- Floor Planter - West Elm - Modern Wood Leg Standing Planter
With love from Chicago,
Daniel + Jennifer