Our Bedroom Makeover That Turned out Completely Different Than Planned - Including Paint Color, Furniture and More

A few months ago I decided my bedroom needed some attention. It was one of those rooms that was fine, but it was never really intentionally designed. It had a headboard we’d originally bought for our home in Chicago years ago, a pair of placeholder nightstands, and some simple decor, but there was nothing really special about it.

We’d always just had a headboard and a bed base, and I felt like a new bed was the perfect place to start. So, after looking for. while, I ordered a wingback bed in a gorgeous caramel velvet color to be the statement the room was missing. It was a custom piece that would take a few weeks to come, so in the meantime, I added picture frame moulding to the room, and worked on paint colors and planning the rest of the room around the bed.

The room was painted Sherwin Williams Alabaster, and I love the color so I decided not to change it given the bold color and scale of the bed. Instead, to give it a little interest, I painted the interior doors and trim in the room a slight contrast color, Sherwin Williams Canvas Tan (which is now one of my favorite colors). It’s a beautiful, neutral beige that pairs beautifully with Alabaster.

Here are some of the original designs I did. The left is the mockup, and then I feed it into ChatGPT to create a 3-D rendering style of the space.

Then, the shipping timeframe for the bed came and went. And then three more weeks went by. I followed up with the company a few times, and eventually heard that they had sold out of the style of bed that I had ordered and they would have to cancel the order. I don’t want to put the company on blast, but if you have ever thought about ordering from a website that rhymes with Inferior Refine, just make sure you’re OK with either a chance that your order will be cancelled, or waiting 6-12 months for it to arrive.

Here is how the bedroom looked while I was waiting for the bed. I loved where it was going, but it would have needed the velvet bed to feel complete.

Anyway, because I had already waited a couple of months for a bed, I didn’t want to order something custom again. I’d also been very specific about the color of the bed I wanted, and I couldn’t find anything similar. So, I did a complete 180 and ordered a wingback bed in a cream linen from Quince. It felt simple enough that I could figure out a way to decorate around it.

I did a bunch of mockups with the new bed in the space I’d originally designed for the camel velvet bed, and they all just felt … boring. Similar to how the room had been originally. So, I decided to paint the walls a darker color. The two shades I had pinpointed were Sherwin Williams Evergreen Fog, and Benjamin Moore Knoxville Gray. I had ordered Samplize swatches of both, and decided on Evergreen Fog. I ordered a gallon, got it home, and decided I didn’t like it. Whoops!

Here’s the final mockup of the new, blue bedroom

Long story short, I painted the bedroom Benjamin Moore Knoxville Gray, pictured here, and I love it. The bed pops against the walls now, and it was the perfect anchor to build the rest of the room around.

What else we did, What it cost, etc

Aside from the bed, I also got new nightstands, a new bench for the end of the bed, swapped out the bedside lamps, and added a few new pieces of art and a new throw pillow. I also bought a new rug to layer over the existing jute rug, but it was vintage and when I opened it, it smelled truly awful, and had a stain that wasn’t in the listing photos, so back it went!

Because this was a slightly larger room makeover, and I knew the new bed would be expensive, I made it a point to try and save on what I could. Luckily, I find that things like lamps and case goods (nightstands, dressers, end tables) are one of the best things to buy thrifted or vintage, or to find at warehouse stores.

After looking for nightstands for a few weeks, I found these beauties at the Goodwill for …. $40!! Into the car they went. They were a bit orange for the room, so I stripped them, and stained them in a darker color. I added a little Rub-N-Buff to the handles and they are literally perfect.

The lamps I ended up finding from one of my favorite Target salvage spots, Ebay Bullseye Deals. If you haven’t bookmarked this yet, do it. It’s basically an Ebay shop that sells Target returns and overstock for at least 50% off. I got both of the black lamps for $60, which brings the total for nightstands and lamps to just $100!

The bed I bought from Quince was $1400, which is about $1500 cheaper than the velvet one I had originally ordered. Because of this, I justified the purchase of a statement bench for the end of the bed, and went with this gorgeous velvet one from CB2. After shipping, it was about $850.

The art was also slightly splurgy, since I went with two original pieces from Josh Young, an artist I’ve loved for years, which totaled about $300.

The throw pillow cover was $100, and as finishing touches, I ordered a throw blanket for the end of the bed and a set of shams (also from Bullseye Deals), that cost about $45 altogether.

The grand total for the makeover, including furniture, decor and paint, was about $2900. The picture frame molding added another $400, bringing the grand total to $3300. My budget for a new rug is around $300, which would bring it to $3600. Not too bad for a pretty dramatic change!