Our English Cottage Inspired Master Bedroom Suite
Balancing our bedroom design with touches of feminine Southern Charm and neutral English Cottage.
After designing our Victorian inspired master for the One Room Challenge last spring to fulfill a dream of mine to have a softly feminine dusky rose bedroom, we were ready for a change. While my husband was more than obliging, I felt I had sufficiently realized my dream, and it was time to move on to a more balanced design.
We kept our Farrow & Ball Pink Ground painted walls that serve as a backdrop to highlight historic pieces we sourced on marketplace to bring the vision alive. Pink Ground brings a softness and femininity to the room, without being over the top. It feels classically Victorian – the shade inside a makeup compact an elegant lady would discretely slip out of her clutch, as she brushed away to the ladies’ room during intermission at an Oscar Wilde play.
THE INSPIRATION
Our original bedroom design was inspired by this Colonial Williamsburg quilt set, which is not going anywhere anytime soon. This quilt embodied all I envisioned for the room – the femininity, the vintage aesthetic, the soft shades of apricot and sage green.
Keeping the quilt as our focal point, we changed the mood entirely by mixing in darker wood furniture, hints of moss green and tan, as well as some neutral touches to design a more gender balanced space.
HEIRLOOMS AND ANTIQUES
When we sold our behemoth modern traditional bed (which neither of us ever truly loved) my parents kindly handed down to us a vintage brass bed that had been stored in their attic for years. It made a world of difference freeing up space in the room and is much more our style.
I simply layered a large gingham check twin size duvet to balance out the feminine and masculine. I love to mix patterns and colors for maximum depth and texture.
The cherrywood nightstands, as well as the crystal lamps – you guessed it – we also found on marketplace. The brass bed – layered with floral and tan check bedding and flanked by dark wood nightstands topped with crystal lamps – to me strikes the perfect balance between Southern Charm and English Cottage warmth.
After downsizing twice on dressers, I finally opted for a marketplace find cherrywood lingerie chest, which freed up even more space. It meant doing a wardrobe clear out, so our clothes would fit, but when I realized I probably had fifty pairs of socks, that’s not such a bad thing.
I adorned the chest with a brass tray for our colognes and perfumes and two delicate brass candlesticks – all secondhand finds. The combination of vintage brass accents, subtle faded art, and muted colors perfectly creates a gender neutral balance.
ACCENTS AND ART
Much of the art that we had in the bedroom was moved to the parlour and library and replaced with vintage sketches of ship scenes and European villages framed in gilt black or dark wood frames. The art lends an old world mood to the room.
Freeing up so much space allowed us to add a plush area rug, which we found unused in the basement. We initially purchased it for my husband’s loft office before we converted it into our Hunt Country inspired home library. The neutral warm tans and browns seem to soften the dusty rose walls even more.
We also had room to add in the corner one of our marketplace find antique Chippendale chairs, which has the most gorgeous moss green velvet upholstered seat. A cozy nook with seating is such a lovely touch for a bedroom. And needless to say, we still love our bespoke monogrammed pillows gifted to us by the kind Alley-Catherine of June St. George.
THE EN SUITE BATH
When we moved into our home, our modestly sized bathroom was entirely painted what we called cement gray. For a small, windowless bathroom, the effect was quite drab and dungeon like.
We updated with a fresh coat of paint. For the panels and trim, we chose Dimity by Farrow and Ball, a light taupe with subtle blush undertones. On the walls, we painted Farrow and Ball Slipper Satin. We previously used it in our kitchen and parlour, and it is such a perfect creamy off white, it soon became one of our favorite colors.
We also replaced our cumbersome black vanity with a pedestal sink to open up the room, and chose brushed champagne brass for the faucet and hardware. It’s amazing what just a coat of paint and change of vanity will do to brighten and free up a space. We even had room to add a vintage lingerie chest in the corner for storage.
While we loved our bedroom before we made these changes, it now feels at once spacious and cozy, the deeper tones and added texture lending a mood of antiquity graced with soft elegance.
Our bedroom is now the kind of space where we look forward to sliding off our slippers and climbing into bed at night. It now feels perfectly us.
