I am so excited to share this update with you today! The story of our master bedroom has been a long one. We bought our house in 2015, and I remember the moment I saw this back bedroom thinking that it would be the perfect master. It had it's share of challenges (namely a random sink placed underneath a window) but the fact that it had it's own second story porch off of it had me dreaming of slow weekend mornings with Anthony, curled up on a porch swing with a cup of coffee in hand. 

 I started working on this room in January of 2016, and if you followed the blog back then you know there were a few twists and turns... First I shared inspiration for a moody, masculine master bedroom in this post. I painted the walls an olive green, and then immediately changed my mind about the whole direction of the room. On a whim in April, I decided that joining in with the One Room Challenge was just what I needed to push through my indecision and get this room back on track. If you aren't familiar with the ORC, it's a 6 week challenge where home bloggers makeover an entire room from start to finish. At first, things were going well! I shared my new inspiration for a  "Vintage Neutral" master bedroom design, we removed the sink and we got to work on my creative solution for disguising that oddly placed window: a faux brick accent wall.

The beginning of week three is where things started to unravel. I convinced Anthony that while we were at it, we might as well tear up the carpet and refinish the original yellow pine floors beneath as part of the challenge! While I don't regret this decision at all (I am in LOVE with our wood floors!), it was way too much to take on halfway through a 6 week challenge. I shared a week four + five update with our new light & airy paint color and accepted the fact that the room would not be finished by the deadline. On week 6, I shared a post with my eleventh hour reflections. I mentioned something about the last 6 weeks being the craziest of my life, but what I didn't share then was that after I started the challenge, Anthony and I decided to move up my plan to quit my day job and pursue my own interior design business full time. Another thing I would never regret, but it basically spelled disaster for our master bedroom project. I was transitioning into my new routine as a work-from-home small business owner and you know what they say, life just gets in the way sometimes!

So that's the story of the last two years and why you're just now getting a progress update on this room. It's been on my list to photograph for months and months, but I always said "after I finish this one thing, I'll share an update" and of course, that one thing turned into many things. We still have some work to do in this room (baseboards, window treatments and closet build-outs), but after we painted our nightstands this month I forced myself to get the room together enough to share some progress with you all!

You know what the crazy thing is? I designed this bulk of this room two years ago and I am still so in love with everything. Our bed makes me so happy. The headboard is almost as tall as I am and it makes exactly the bold statement I hoped it would in the space. For our nightstands, we actually used the leftover paint from the first time I painted this room! Even though I didn't love it on the walls, the color was so rich and beautiful that I knew it would be perfect for furniture. I don't usually recommend using wall paint on furniture, but we took some extra steps to ensure that the finish would be more durable so I'll share my tips and how they are holding up soon! The whole goal of this room was to create harmony and balance -- between masculine and feminine design elements and light, medium and dark tones. And I really think we achieved that! The room feels cozy, fresh, relaxing and just easy to be in. 

In addition to our IKEA nightstands getting a makeover, last summer my childhood dresser got new paint and new hardware as well! You can see what it looked like before in this post. My friend Jamie was over and we were originally just going to test a few paint colors on the dresser to see what we liked best, but we ended up painting the whole thing with a sample pot I had on hand. Another thing I wouldn't recommend, but to get momentum going in this room I've had to adopt a spirit of "done is better than perfect". And you know what? I'm surprised with how well the finish is holding up! 

The bedroom is getting so close to being done and I'm hoping we can make some progress on the last few projects before our baby girl is due in May, but either way, I'm really happy with where the room is now. The last few years have taught me that owning a fixer upper is about learning to love a work in progress and boy, do we love living in this room!