This is my bedroom. This is where I go to collapse at the end of the day. It is also my haven. It's kinda crowded and cluttered but I love it! Would you like a guided tour? I got a little carried away and had a lot of fun so this is pretty long. Sorry!
THE BED
* I found the old windows in the muddy crawl space under I rental house I once owned.
* The frame in front of the windows had a beautiful bevelled mirror in it once (I don't even remember how or when it got broken). I found it in the mud also -- in the enclosed front porch in front of an old junk shop I used to haunt in my early 20's. It's not really painted white - I just washed it with crushed chalk mixed with water because I wanted it to be white but didn't want to paint over the patina.
* The candelabra is one of my favorite things! I paid 27 cents for it and then sprayed it with free white paint.
* The headboard underneath the slipcover was my mother's. The slipcover provided the perfect way to store Mother's headboard while at the same time getting the look I wanted.
* We bought the brown taffeta bedding with a gift certificate we got for our wedding. (Thank you Becky!) We still love it.
* The three old corbells holding up the shelf were an Ebay purchase from back when I did frivolous things like buy off of Ebay. I built the shelf out of scrap lumber that I had laying around. The girls and I write messages on the underside of the shelf with a Sharpie! My favorite is "I Like Pie!" -- Oh! And "I Love You, Mom"!
* The white matlasse pillow sham (in front of the brown shams) was a TJMaxx find. Every time I look at it I think it's just simply delicious (and I've been looking at it for YEARS!).
THE DRESSER
Somewhere around 1994, I fell in love with a bird's eye maple dresser in a rural Oklahoma antique store. I never had the $400 to buy it even though it sat in the store for years. Somewhere around 2004, I found this birds eye maple dresser at a yard sale. I couldn't get out of the car fast enough! I paid $75 for it. Then I didn't have a place for it so it's been in the closet under the stairs storing our mittens and scarves since then.
I FINALLY got to move it into my bedroom recently! I love using it as my night stand. I love getting to look at it every day. I love the old-fashioned feel it gives my bedroom. I love that every drawer has a little brass-lined keyhole -- like I really need to lock up my socks and undies!
I'm still trying to remember if it came with a mirror. If so, I have some digging in the garage do to!
THE ARMOIRE
This antique Italian cypress armoire is my very favorite piece of all the furniture I own. It was in the old "maid's bedroom" up the back stairs from the kitchen in my dad's house in Tulsa when he bought the house in 1982. I think it came with the house because no one wanted to carry it down the narrow, steep back stairs!
That was the bedroom I stayed in when I visited my father during my high school years. I used to have long, late-night phone conversations with Mark in that room as I looked at that armoire. I have always loved it.
A few years ago, my dad and step-mother remodelled and things got shuffled. They asked me to go up into the attic and see if there was anything I wanted before they got rid of some things. I happily climbed up into their wonderful attic with diagonal raw plank floors and the Amityville Horror windows and there was my armoire -- in the "outta here" pile! We had to carry it down two flights of stairs to get it out of the house and up one flight of stairs to get it to my bedroom but it was totally worth it! Now I get to look at it every day.
OUR "HIS AND HERS" CHAIRS
The very first time I set foot in this room (in August 1993), I thought that there should be a pair of chairs by the front window. Alas, the onslaught of babies and pets in the house made it more practical to have my mother's antique day bed there for whatever wandering child, dog, cat, or space-craving husband might need it. The youngest of my babies is now 10 and I like to keep Mark closer than across the room, so I finally took out the day bed (stay tuned because it's about the be the jumping-off point for a room in the shed in the back yard!) and put in the long-awaited chairs!
Here's the play-by-play on this photo:
* MY chair is the green one on the right. It's from the 40's. It was in our lake cabin (circa 1953) when we bought it. Like the dresser, I adore the old-fashioned feeling if it.
* Mark's chair is the one on the left. It came from the Salvation Army. He loves it... and so does Lily-dog!
* The little wicker table was a freebie. Again, I love the old-fashioned feel of it.
*Above the window are the silver baby spoons and rattles from my babyhood -- tied into brown frames with pink satin ribbons.
* On the left side of the window are framed copies of my daughters' birth certificates -- embellished with the crowns of flowers they wore at our wedding.
* The lamp in the far left corner was my grandmother's and then my mother's. On it is the crown of flowers that Tessa made for me out of roses from our rose garden for Mother's Day last year.
* On the right side of the window is a framed copy of our wedding invitation and a framed copy of our prom picture along with a framed heart ornament that was tied onto one of our wedding gifts.
* Above the window is a wonderful wreath made from rolled magazine pages that Emily made for me for Christmas. I love both magazines and wreaths so it was the perfect gift!
* All the curtains in the room were $3 each from the Salvation Army. All the frames were $2-3 or less from similar sources.
* At the foot of the bed is my beloved "barkcloth" duvet. The fabric is a reproduction of the wonderful "barkcloth" that was popular in the 1940's. Inside is a down comforter so it's extra warm! I paid $15 for the duvet cover at a garage sale years ago and still feel like I got a total steal!
THE SHELVES
The room had this weird little nook from where the front gable of the house stuck out more. I built shelves into it and corralled all my family photos into one place. I've been glad for many years that I did this. It's much better than having them scattered all over the house. This way, photos of everyone I love are gathered in one special place.
* These shelves also contain baby books, year books, and favorite books, beloved magazines.
* The top shelf is a shrine to my mother. It has her baby photo (with her mother), her engagment photos with my dad, her silver pitcher, and the candy dish (with the lid and the red accents) that she always put ribbon candy in at Christmas when I was little. There's also a glass jar full of vintage lace on that shelf -- but my mother would HATE that because she was definitely NOT lacey!
* On the second shelf from the top are two teddy bears made by Emily. The white one she made in 2001 at the age of 7 1/2 for her new baby sister, Sara-Grace. I love that the stitching is on the outside, it lacks legs, and the face is drawn on with marker. SO CUTE! The one behind that Emily made for me in 2003 at about the age of 10. It's fun to see how her sewing skills have evolved. She made this bear out of things she found in my project room. By chance, she used some very sentimental items: scrap peach and white stripe oxford fabric from the shower curtain I made for my first California apartment (1988), extra buttons (the eyes) from my favorite maternity outfit (1993), a black velvet button (the nose - circa 1940's) that was my very favorite of all the buttons in my grandmother's button jar that I had played with since childhood (1960's and 70's), and the tie (around the neck) from my mother's wedding dress from her second marriage (1978).
* The lamp is made from an old porch post that came off of the house my children's great-grandmother lived in (built in the 1910's). It was the house there grandfather was born in and lived in again during his retirement years until he died in 1999. Emily and Tessa have memories of riding his donkey around the house with their "Grandpa Donk" leading them.
THE SHOE RACK
Recently, I've managed to put quite a few of my very favorite possessions on the wall opposite my bed. Because I am VERY visual, what I see from bed is paramount because it's the view I see most.
* In addition to me beloved armoire, this vista also contains the antique shoe salesman's rack ($125 -- but still worth it because I see them in magazines all the time and still love every one I see!) that I bought in Fayetteville in 1992 -- three years before I even moved here.
* My pink china plates and the wire rack that holds the pink china plates, featured in a previous post "$3.78 Worth of Cheap" have recently moved to this wall so I can look at them!
* I've had my grandmother's candleabra for 20 years. I just recently became grown-up enough to feel like it suited my decor!
* Also here: a white quilt (TJMaxx $15), a vintage bird cage stand (free), a pink enamel veggie bin from an old pink refrigerator ($2), and a chalkboard with an ornate white frame ($4).
MARK'S SIDE
This is Mark's side of the bed. It has lots of fun stuff too:
* A vintage table that I've been halfway through mosaicing for the last decade!
* A vintage stained glass window that came from my Tahlequah, Oklahoma days (where I lived from 1993-1995 and where our lake cabin is). I think I love the "amethyst" glass because amethyst is my birthstone!
* A wonderful dark wicker bench which is actually weather-proof outdoor furniture courtesy of Kmart's Martha Stewart collection (and an end-of-season close-out sale!).
* A showcase box of momentos from our wedding (under the table).
* A silver tray with a photo of Mark's son, Noah, and a photo of me from age 4.
* Mark's $6 dressing stand that he loves to put his suits on.
* Our $6 vintage clock that was featured in a previous post.
* And lots of wedding photos!
OUR MEMORY WALL
And lastly, our memory wall.
* Our room is pink, white, and brown because those were our wedding colors and we still haven't gotten enough of them!
* This wall contains photos of Mark and I from 8th grade through the present. There are photos from several high school dances and the prom mixed in with wedding photos and wedding gifts and momentos (the silver plate from my aunt and uncle and the photo album with the copper plaque on the front made by my Matron of Honor's talented sister).
* If you look closely, you can see dried wedding bouquets and boutinieres, the boxes our wedding rings came in, and the sea shell Mark dove down and retrieved from the ocean floor on our honeymoon.
* A bunch of the white matte vases that I collect -- all for just a few dollars (or less) each.
* A couple of silver holders with candles from our wedding.
* A few pieces of pink ceramics because I love them! Pink reminds me of Mark because he work pink Polo shirts and pink or pink and white striped oxfort shirts in high school!
I can build a shrine, can't I? But I think that's what a haven should be -- I place where you can surround yourself with the things you love, with favorite memories, with photos and momentos of the people you love, and with lots of things that are about what's REALLY important.
I just remembered -- we are about to paint the walls in this room a dark, chocolate brown! Maybe I should have waited to photograph it until after the paint job! Oh well! At least we now have "before" photos!
