Taking a snooze...

So we've been in our new house for about a month now, and things are slowly starting to look a little settled downstairs, but upstairs is a wreck.  I really want to get our bedroom set up, but there are a few problems in the way.  One, we have these big white cupboards from our old house that I want to retrofit into a wardrobe system, but it will take a bit of work and John has been having back problems off and on since we've moved, so they are literally sitting in pieces around our room.  The second big problem is our bed.  Unfortunately, our stairs are super steep, and the box spring just never made it upstairs, despite removing trim and gouging holes in the plaster (oops!).  That means we have been sleeping on our mattress on the floor in the middle of our room for a month.  Not exactly my cup of tea.

I've been thinking about what I want the room to look like overall, and ran across these photos on Apartment 34 today, and now I want a low simple white bed, but we'll see if I can convince John on that one. :)  What do think, soothing or too simple?

I Love a Good Before and After...

...but in this case I love the before more. I was perusing realsimple.com this morning and came across some bedroom before and afters (I promise my bedroom is really almost done!), and the after just doesn't do it for me. I think I just like the colors of the before better, although obviously it does need some work. What do you think?

Before

After

(Photos courtesy of http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/decorating/bedroom/bedroom-makeovers-00000000041356/index.html?xid=weeklynews-09-01-2010)

Loft Renderings

Since my friends aren't all engineers, apparently my original loft diagram was hard to figure out. And since DC keeps getting blasted with snow (16"-24" this weekend), I have been unable to do any work on it, so it might be a while before the final version is ready, and I'm stuck with just the frame. To appease everyone's interest, I decided to put my mechanical drawing skills to work and do a few renderings.

Basically, it will be five separate pieces of furniture: the storage locker, which forms the base for the bed and is all enclosed (can't actually see it in the renderings), the clothes shelves (on the left), two rolling shelves for craft storage, and my desk. I'm still debating what to do for the ladder, but the basic option is to put it on the wall to the right of the loft. What do you think?

Apartment Blues

That is, blues in a good way. I haven't really thought at all about how I want my bedroom to look yet, as I have plenty lined up to do in the living room, but the wallpaper below is looking pretty tempting...

(Photo courtesy of Chris Everard via Department of the Interior)

Plan A - Vetoed, Moving on to Plan B

So boyfriend put the kabash on the whole suspended loft idea, as he doesn't think I should make major holes in the ceiling of a brand new apartment. Sad - he has no vision. Just kidding, he's right, I probably shouldn't do that. But anyway, just to get it out of my system, here are a few more lovely suspended lofts.

This one is my very favorite I think - I love how airy it all looks.

Another very airy looking loft - although the metal would make it harder to replicate.

And yes, this is definitely a kids loft, but they had really good instructions on how to build it, and it can totally be modified to be more grown up. I was thinking the railing would have to be taken away, but then I realized how likely I am to fall out of bed. Railing = Necessity.

As I hate the typical 4x4 post look of most lofts (too college dorm like), my new plan is to come up with a way to disguise them. Boyfriend talked me out of buying some columns on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago, and in the process told how they used to make fake columns out of cardboard concrete forms back when he was working as a theater tech guy. My thought is to cut a slit down one side and wrap it around the post, and then patch it back up and maybe do some kind of faux finish on it. Any other ideas?

(Photos courtesy of - 1: Gregory Lee, 2: Shalomama, 3: fivelbbass via Bob Vila)

Up In the Air

So, despite the fact I'm finally moving to an apartment with a bedroom, I'm contemplating a bed loft. This is because I can't quite figure out a way to fit in a work area, which is necessary for all my crocheting, sewing, and whatever supplies and projects. As I have 10' ceilings in the new place, I'm thinking it will be about 5' or 6', so the bed isn't all up in the ceiling. Thinking about different options today, I came up with the idea of a suspended loft, to minimize the college dorm room aspect of it. Boyfriend hasn't chimed in yet as to his opinion as to the stability of this idea though, so it might not be feasible. What do you think?




(Pictures courtesy of 1: Boston Lofts, 2-4: Zack Anderson, 5: Apartment Therapy)