ABOVE: blue and white bedding and lamps are from Homegoods and the sunburst is an old find on One Kings Lane
I’m so excited to FINALLY start sharing the adventures of redecorating my room that I’ve been slowly but surely trudging through over the past 3 or so months. There’s been A LOT of back and forth and I’m still not quite finished, but it’s been such a fun process nevertheless and I’m going to do my best to share all of it with you.
Before diving into the design process (which I plan to do through a series of posts over the next few months), I thought it would be interesting to tell you how I came to the decision to redecorate my room. Below you’ll read the 5 reason why I decided it was time to make a change. First I want to note that these are just what motivated me and are pretty personal to my story and experience. Some of you might read this and think I’m crazy! But hey, I’m just being honest here :)
And then stay tuned for the next post which will cover how and where I decided once I committed to redecorating.
1. It was time to settle into Dallas
After living in my current house for a little over a 1.5 years, I decided it was time to give my bedroom a makeover. For the first time ever, I felt like I had some roots because I’d lived in one place for longer than a year – which was quite the accomplishment for me!
Let me give you a quick little background. Basically, I moved upwards of 11-ish times over the past 7 years, amounting to a move just about every 8 months or so. As such, you an see why I haven’t really been able to actually settle in anywhere until now.
You might be wondering, where on earth and WHY have you been moving so much? Let me explain :)
I went away for college (UT-Austin) where I moved each school year AND summer for 4 years (yeah, it was insane!). I graduated early from college and moved home to Baton Rouge to focus and study/take the CPA Exam (it takes about 6 months) before starting my new job in New Orleans.
ABOVE: An ancient instagram post that shows a little peek into my NOLA abode.
Aside from college, New Orleans was my very first home away from home and I had no idea what I was doing. I think that Pinterest had just gotten super popular around this time so I was transfixed by the idea of having an all white bedroom. But unfortunately, the reality of an all white bedroom just didn’t look as cool or luxurious as it did in the Pinterest photos (ha!). Instead, it just kind of looked unfinished and a little random.
ABOVE: home decor details from my Houston Apartment living room
ABOVE: quick mirror selfie I took one day before heading to work as a CPA in my Houston Apartment. You can see I was still on an all-white kick obviously…
After New Orleans, I moved to Houston for 9 months. In the mirror selfie above, you can see a little bit of my Houston apartment, which is where I lived while I continued to work as a CPA.
Lastly, I moved to Dallas, which is where I’ve been ever since. Needless to say, there wasn’t much time for getting settled in (or even comfortable, really) over the past 7 years. But for the first time EVER, I don’t plan on moving in the near future. I have zero plans and I love it. And I’ve actually been living in the same spot for over a year :) So this in and of itself was enough of a reason for me to want to redecorate!
2. My room was basically a melting pot of stuff
The collection of furniture and home decor that I could claim to my name was VERY random. And while this is to be expected for college years and even post-grad years, I was pretty sick of it. I was SO OVER my smörgåsbord of random hand-me-downs leftover from college supplemented by the occasional Homegoods find or Target impulse buy.
In the past, I just made sure I had what I needed – bed, chest of drawers, bedside table, lamp, etc. But now I wanted to actually design a bedroom with pieces that were intended to go together. In other words, I wanted to decorate from start to finish, rather than throwing together my random acquisitions.
ABOVE: mirror selfie from the earlier days of my Dallas room. At this point, I still had some of my bedding (the grey bed skirt) from my NOLA home and I had recently acquired the blue and white bedding too. Oh, and then there’s the random gallery wall above my desk that just looks cluttered and messy I think. None of it matched…
Speaking of things that don’t go together – note how the grey bedskirt and the blue floral duvet. The bedskirt is from my nola room (custom made) and the duvet is a random Homegoods find. Whatever the case, I wasn’t loving the way the two jived.
Not only did I not have space for everything, but I just has too much STUFF (furniture, random decor, etc.) Also, I didn’t even really like the stuff I had.
I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea to buy that headboard? I think I just have bought it after I bought that floral bedding…because that’s the only thing that makes sense.
At one point, I think I had like 3x as much furniture as I do in my room. And not just furniture, but just STUFF. I had so much JUNK piled up everywhere. It was driving me crazy! Basically, I needed to say goodbye to a lot of stuff. And although this reason alone doesn’t necessitate redecorating in any way, I somehow used my need to purge as an additional reason (slash excuse) for needing to do an entire overhaul.
3. I couldn’t stand the yellow walls
ABOVE: old mirror self I took while sitting at my desk. You can clearly see the yellow-ish color of the walls because it’s contrasted with the ceiling. It might not look that bad here, but it was enough to drive me crazy
Now for the walls.
Omg. I couldn’t STAND this yellow color. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m living in a rental and the walls were this nasty yellow color when I moved in. You can see it pretty well in this photo above – see the difference in color between the ceiling and walls? I bet it wouldn’t bother most people (translation: it’s really not that bad slash I know I’m being a drama queen), but it absolutely drove me nutty. The yellow color kind of cast a shadow on everything and made room look darker than it was and murky at times.
4. I wanted a cohesive look
Some people might not have cared that the room didn’t match or that the walls were yellow, but I really do appreciate a well-decorated room and have always wanted to have one of my own some day. I’ve been daydreaming about eventually decorating a home for years – mostly because I was surrounded by it growing it. My mom was constantly decorating and redesigning our houses. In fact, we actually moved somewhere around 16 times and I think she decorated most of those homes – from details in the blue prints all the way to custom upholstery and window treatments.
Needless to say, I’ve been pulling inspiration for years and now it’s my turn to play decorator :) or at least give it a fair shot. And although it’s not quite time to do an entire home, I’m excited to finally be decorating my bedroom – it’s better to start with one room anyway, right?!
5. I turned 26 and wanted a big girl room
I think turning 26 was the tipping point for me. I figured I was past the hump of being in my mid-twenties and that it was time to have more of a big-girl grown up room with maybe a little less hot pink and less clutter craze.
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