In this episode, I share a little behind the scenes of my current book writing process and answer a question about decorating a bedroom with romantic English country style. If you have questions for me, make sure to submit them here. I’m currently on maternity leave but will be popping in once a month to batch answer your questions. This episode, we discuss… [01:01] A behind the scenes look into Betsy’s current book writing process [09:05] Decorating a bedroom (Megan) Question: You were so helpful with my last question about my living room. I’m hoping to pick your brain for some more great tips as I work on my primary bedroom. We have lived in our home just over a year and this space has not gotten much attention. Originally the room was set up to include my son’s bassinet and changing table, but now that he is in his own room I’m ready to think about this space a little more. I just purchased my bedding and curtains. I absolutely love this pottery barn floral design and am thinking it might be my inspiration piece. I’m hesitant though because I do like to change out my bedding every now and again. I know for sure I would like my room to include green with touches of pink or rose tones. My style phrase is romantic English country. I have been considering a vanity table between my windows and possibly a dresser that sits horizontally. I think my king sized bed is placed on the correct wall, but I probably need some art above it, what size art do you suggest for my sized bed? I appreciate any suggestions you can send my way! P.S. Congratulations on your baby girl! Answer: Well, thanks, Megan. So let’s dig into your question here. I’m excited to help and before I do, let me just kind of give a snapshot of the pictures that I’m seeing so other people can understand what everything looks like. When you walk in your bed is kitty corner from the main point of access and I love that that is the ideal Fung Shui. You can see people coming and going and you weren’t as vulnerable as you would be if you weren’t facing the door. Also, it’s the most beautiful first impression when people fling open the door they’re seeing the bed, flanked by the nightstand so that really makes it feel beautiful and impressive, etc. Your bed is like a beige tufted wingback bed. It is a king flanked by two white nightstands that have a couple of drawers and some tapered legs. I was surprised when I opened it and saw the bedding based on your description. I thought it would be more pink, rose and green but it really does feature a lot of colors from blues or icy purples to goldenrod colors so do I feel like it’s English country? Absolutely not. Do I feel like it’s floral and interesting and a great inspiration piece? Yes. Especially because you can’t use a rug in this situation because you have wall to wall carpeting. In this case, I may have suggested a rug because you do love to swap out your bedding. I think what I might choose instead is that piece of art above the headboard to be that beautiful inspiration. Now, longtime listeners will know when I’m choosing a piece of art to go above anything, whether it’s a bed, whether it’s a console, or even a vanity, what I do is I take the length of that item. So the the width of the king bed is 80 inches, that’s just the standard width of a mattress with these wings on the side making it a wingback. It’s probably like 85, right? Let’s say 86. So we can have some easy math. What you want to do is you want to take 50 to 75% of the length of that piece is going to be above and that is the length of your artwork. So let’s see here, we can easily do 50% of 86, which is 43. But I can easily do 75%. Let me just use my calculator. So we’re looking at 43 to 65 inches long for the artwork in an ideal world so it can range anywhere between there. If you’re a professional designer or if you spend a lot of time online, you know that the two standard sizes of length of artwork between those numbers 43 and 65. Well, you’re either going to choose probably a 48 or 60. Now because the bed is relatively high, you’re going to need to do a piece of art that’s not too tall, because your ceiling seems relatively standard so we don’t have a lot of room to play with. I’m not so specific about the height of the piece, it’s more the length of the piece that’s really critical. In terms of the height, it’s going to be 18 to 24 inches high just based on me eyeballing this picture, and knowing the height of the bed versus the height of a typical eight foot wall. Now, something that’s bothering me is opposite the bed, you hardly have anything going on. You have this little two door console that’s a glorified nightstand, but it’s shallow, and then you have a tall dresser. Now the problem is that this wall is about the same length as the wall behind the bed so we are not experiencing balance in this room. This room feels like it has everything going on on the bed side and not much going on on the other side. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, and I can’t really tell but maybe this room is too tight. Maybe it’s too narrow to put a dresser opposite the bed or to add too much furniture because then you won’t have an ample walkway. Let’s just say that that is the case even though I can’t quite get the perspective from these pictures. You don’t just have to put bulky furniture to make a room feel balanced. If you could put a full length mirror, you could do like a gallery wall that has a series of pictures, you could center this tall dresser opposite the bed and flank it with large artwork do there’s lots of ways that you can visually balance a space without adding bulky furniture that takes up floor space that takes up square footage, it can just take up wall space and then have that gravitas that we’re looking for. So that one wall doesn’t feel super busy and the wall opposite feels super empty. The other issue that I’m seeing is that the drapes are a little oppressive, they’re like an emerald green, which is maybe the darkest shade in this bedspread. Now I’m okay with that but right now, they just feel heavy and dark. And I’d want you to incorporate that color in another way, just so that it doesn’t feel so out of place because the bedding is sort of faded and muted. And that’s not because it’s old, it’s just because that’s the look of the bedding. So this deep kind of forest green wood need to come in and another way for me to feel like it’s not just forced for me to feel like it’s actually being derived from a different piece in the room. And ideally we know that that inspiration piece or the piece from which these drapes will be derived is going to be that large piece of artwork above the bed. The other issue that I see is that you’ve got tall nightstands. In my mind, they’re too tall for this bed because you want the nightstands to be within two inches of the height of the mattress give or take and these seem to be quite a bit higher. I don’t want that to mean that you have to buy new nightstands but let me just put that out there for those of you who are buying your nightstands. It makes these small lamps on either side look very dwarfed because we have this sort of higher than normal headboard and these much higher than normal nightstands to go beside it so I would really encourage you to get lamps with a bit more presence. In other words, taller and wider because right now they look very small and out of scale on these nightstands. And you’re saying to yourself, Betsy, what am I going to do? What kind of material? Well, again, I look around the room and look at what materials I haven’t used so far. And one of the materials I haven’t used so far is stone but if I went for something like marble on a white nightstand, they’re both going to look like white elements. Even though there might be some mild veining in the lamp base, it’s still going to register as mostly white. So I would consider bringing in some glass here. It’ll really lighten it up and bring in that critical element so that we’re not just doing more white, or wood or something like that. Then you asked. Well, you didn’t ask but I’m just going to tell you about your two word phrase. I think it’s problematic because for me, it’s really not reading English country at all. Maybe it’s because you haven’t added additional pieces. Maybe it’s because it’s not complete. Right now, I’m definitely getting the transitional vibe with the tapered legs on the nightstands, with the tufting on the bed as well as the wingback silhouette. You’re going to have to get more into sort of ornate elements for me to feel like we’re English country here. If that is the direction you feel dedicated to, I want you to lean in harder because it is not registering. Find an inspiration image online at my favorite houzz.com or another website just type in English country cottage or whatever you want to do but it’s just not having those elements enough for me right now. It’s only the bedding that may be slightly leaning that way and I’d really rather you make a stronger statement. 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Must Haves For An On-trend Home This Fall
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MUST HAVES FOR AN ON-TREND HOME THIS FALL Changing your home’s accessories with each season is oh so chic—and affordable. Fall 2014 abounds with exciting
