Decorating is Hard (and Expensive)

I wish I had more progress to report on my one-room challenge, but maybe my lack of progress is worth exploring (haha)? Working on a room with intention gives me a newfound appreciation for the work of decorators and interior designers. Friends, decorating is a lot of work—and full of tiny time-consuming hiccups!

After researching various pale pink paint colors, I ended up just getting samples of the two Benjamin Moore pale pinks that my mom has used and loved: Blanched Coral and Shell Pink. They’re both fine (in fact, I can’t tell the difference between the two, and I bet you can’t either). I got the book ledges off the wall and started spackling, but I feel zero motivation to spend a day painting the room, but I swear: Next week.

The key piece in our room redo is the bed, and after researching various king-sized storage beds online, I settled on Akron Street’s Dris bed with add-on drawers. It looked simple yet sturdy in the photos, and I like the idea of buying from a smaller company based here in New York City. It took two weeks to find a day when my husband and I could both go look at the bed in person (they have them on display at Brooklinen stores). I’m so glad we didn’t order it sight unseen. What looked minimal in a good way online felt like a half-step up from IKEA in person (it’s got that same slat mattress base–not a platform like I thought). Plus, the drawer just sit on the floor. Neither my husband or I felt like it was worth the nearly $2,800 price tag.

The shock of price versus quality brought me back to options I had dismissed, like IKEA, the go-to source for furniture shoppers on a budget. The NORDLI bed at just $589 was suddenly looking like a really good value, but it is perennially out of stock in the king size. I’d also ruled out a king version of our current bed, a captain’s bed from Gothic Cabinet Craft, because I felt like the price was high for the style, but after seeing the Dris, Gothic felt like a good value. Ready to do another round of scouring the market, I hit upon another idea that will hopefully cost us only a few hundred dollars.

I want to convert our Gothic Cabinet Craft queen bed frame into a king. The bed is designed as a platform in two parts. I think that I could build a 16×80-inch piece to slide in the middle to convert it to a king size bed; we might even be able to store something in there! Yes, for someone finding it hard to gather the momentum to paint, this is a big dream, but it seems worth a try.

In smaller decorating failures, I ordered new French blue shades for our vintage alabaster lamps, but when they arrived they were a solid no: the light they gave off felt clinical and you could see the texture of the fabric in a not-good way when the lights were lit up at night. 

Window treatments are all eye-poppingly expensive, and every review I read of “blackout” shades mentions light leak, which is a huge no for us because we have a VERY bright light shining into our bedroom from the neighboring building. I am thinking maybe my friend Erin has the right idea with a DIY design. 

As for the desk, we’ve moved a desk from the living room (pictured at top) into the bedroom for now. It is definitely not the permanent solution, but it will fit in the corner with the king bed and it’s free. I consider it a placeholder, which is how most real people’s decorating projects unfold: Slowly, over time.

Can we also talk about the investment of time that decorating takes?

Researching beds was hours of work, going to get paint samples and then eventually returning to the store for paint, more hours. Finding cute and affordable lampshades took up my time too, plus the time to return them, when they didn’t work out.

On the wins front: We got some serious re-organization done in the closet and drawers. You can’t see that upgrade, but we can feel it.