Anyone? Anyone?
But I love, love, LOVE the combo of gray and white. Take gray of pretty much any shade, put it next to something white, and I'll swoon. There are a few examples of this in our house already. Gray walls and white trim, obviously. A charcoal piece of fabric framed in a white frame. Charcoal gray glass tiles surrounded by white subway tile (both set off with medium gray grout).
When we moved in almost two years ago, the second room we made over was our bedroom. The first was the guest bathroom, which we've already completely redone again. Honestly, we made some decisions in our bedroom that we wouldn't make again. But this is a much bigger room, and these decisions involve a lot more expense. So we're going to work with them.
We do love the paint color we chose, truly. It's what started the color inspiration for our entire house. So I'll give us an A+ on that. But the trim color is not so great. I would have already redone it if not for the French doors. And I'll eventually do it anyway. I originally chose a muslin color when we thought the common rooms were going to be a tan/brown. But now I want all the trim to be BM Simply White. It's going to be a bitch of a job.
The furniture? Meh. The style is okay. We wouldn't choose it today, but it's not bad. We're just not into matchy matchy anymore. We would not buy a matching set today, and we would rather have a medium wood tone. And really, we would SO rather have smaller scale furniture. But the biggest mistake by far was the brand. We bought from Ashley Furniture, and we are SO unhappy with the quality. We have known people who had Ashley stuff they were happy with (not heirloom quality, but we didn't expect that). But I would NEVER buy anything from there that had moving parts. Our drawers are awful. We've had to replace the tracks on two drawers in a year, and several won't stay shut.
We'll be replacing this a lot sooner than if we'd just saved a little more, and went with something higher quality. Or even better, waited a little longer and bought estate pieces or shopped in Houston where we had better, and cheaper, options.
I also chose bedding, art, accessories, etc. that I liked at the time, but looking back they just aren't my style. I do like certain pieces of course, but the whole neutral earth tones palette just wasn't working for me anymore.
So with some Christmas money, thanks to the grandparents, I started what will be a slow process: making our bedroom look like a part of the rest of our house. First on the agenda was injecting some gray and white, in the way of bedding.
With my money and a West Elm coupon code burning a hole in my pocket, I gambled on whether I should wait for the Spring Collection, or go ahead and buy on sale. I decided to take a chance and wait, and it paid off.
I got the new Stripe Duvet Cover with Euro Shams. And we also got the Flame Stitch Blanket (it's hard to navigate to their blankets, even though they have a couple. Put blanket in the search bar).
Love that texture. And you know I'm a sucker for anything chevron.
That first pic was taken with my phone. Here's a truer to color, and truer to life picture of how the bed looks.
Come on, like you all have perfectly made beds with throw pillows every day? We both love how much BRIGHTER the room looks from this change alone. It's so refreshing and just feels cleaner.
I do plan on covering a couple of throw pillows, but I have to choose fabric first. My instinct is very graphic, black and white, but then I think I should bring in some very bright color. Like a flame red, the color of my dutch oven? I love the contrast of the color with gray/blue gray.
(making a big pot of red beans and rice this weekend. it means the beginning of Mardi Gras in our house)
Gray and White is really the perfect color scheme, I'm convinced. I've yet to find a spot it doesn't look good in. I have gray and white curtains in our office. A gray and white letterpress print in the upstairs bathroom. And now this bedding.
But there comes a point where an obsession can go to far, and I think I've reached it.
Meet Moe. Short for Mowgli, his shelter name. He's about three months, or a little older. He's got long hair that we think will stick around, and blue gray eyes that we think will go away with age.
He has two modes: running around like an insane wild man, or snuggling up as close to one of us as he can be. We already like him very much (you might even say love) after knowing him just two weeks. Charlie, our tuxedo cat, alternates between playing with him and ignoring him, and Sadie's coming around. All in all, he's a great addition to our family.
Of course, we didn't pick him based only on the fact that he matched our house. But it didn't hurt.
