I’m thrilled to share our navy blue and white bedroom with Calico!
Our first house taught us key lessons that helped us be smarter with this house!
One of those takeaways?
Prioritizing our bedroom. Hear me out…
Why Decorating Your Primary Bedroom Should Be First
Your bedroom is where you begin and finish everyday. A great deal of time is spent here, but somehow, this room tends to be the lowest priority!
A Hard Lesson Learned
I remember in our previous home – we doubled down on the first floor – living room, dining room and kitchen nook.
But the next thing I knew, a great deal of time passed and our bedroom remained hodge podged together. It STRESSED me out so much it felt like Sunday Scaries every night.
I didn’t realize the effect on me till we spruced her up!
Now that our new bedroom is fully decorated, I’m excited to go to bed. It’s our little happy place and I get to go there every night.
Don’t Make The Same Mistake We Did
Since I don’t want you to make the same mistake we did with our first house, or if you need motivation to get your main bedroom in order, I’m breaking down everything we did below so you can replicate all or part.
Just one of these additions could make a significant impact 🙂
How Our Navy Blue and White Bedroom Started
We went from having a tiny bedroom (that could barely fit side tables!) to over doubling in size.
It was a stark, blank canvas that needed cozy-ing up.
So naturally, I reached out to my super talented interior-designer, Melissa Mahoney of MMDH.Studio and she was kind enough to help.
Here you can see the design board Melissa created for us! A navy blue and white bedroom made sense with the rest of our house decor. And naturally, the first stop was Calico – a “one stop shop” for custom decorating.
What Calico and Melissa achieved together was beyond anything we hoped for.
A SPECIAL OFFER – How to Get $100 Off the MMDH Furnishing Method!
Before we dive into the BEFORE and AFTERS – Melissa – who is a well noted interior designer whose work has been seen in Martha Stewart Magazine, Magnolia Journal and more – happens to be offering a Master Class right now that gives you her EXACT process for tackling rooms and getting them looking fabulous. Every tip shared is the exact same techniques she’s used to do this room, our living room, dining room and more.
But the best part? As a Cedar & Rush reader, you get $100 off using CODE: CEDARRUSH100!
Okay – now let’s got to it! Here are the BEFORE and AFTERS…
BEDROOM BEFORE
BEDROOM AFTER
Cozying up the room: Melissa told us wallpaper would single handily make the biggest impact.
Calico has an impeccable selection of wallpapers (this will be our fifth time ordering wallpaper from them!), so it was a no brainer.
We found this beautiful faux grasscloth – the perfect backdrop for our navy blue and white bedroom. It’s actually a print with a bit of texture and looks REAL. This was a huge win as it saved us on the rolls and installation. Real grasscloth (which Calico has as well!) is significantly more to buy AND install.
Functionality: So speaking of grasscloth, we have these gorgeous grasscloth nightstands. But Melissa said to go bigger to balance out the scale of the king size bed.
So we did 30” inch round tables on either side with custom tablecloths. Yes – Calico does tablecloths! I was nervous we’d miss the drawers, but the large surface areas are GAME changing. Like I’ll never go back. Plenty of room for decor AND your night time necessities {ex. water, books, phone, glasses, ear pods, etc.}. If we want anything out of site, we just tuck it is under the tablecloths.
The tablecloths simultaneously add texture, color and pattern – which is key if you go neutral. I love how they fill out the space on either side of the bed. And I ADORE that bottom trim.
How to transform a settee: When I tell people this settee was a $150 Facebook Market find, their jaws drop to the floor. Can you believe the before?
Thanks to Calico, it now looks like a million bucks. They reupholstered the entire thing.
The fabrics Melissa selected from the Calico design room are BEYOND. They also re-stuffed the cushion so she’s perfectly plump.
Hiding an eyesore: I know I rave about Calico all the time, but this is an exceptional example of why working with them can save you money/time. Since they provide custom solutions, you can problem solve and simultaneously conquer two home projects at once. For us, this was adding a beautiful window treatment AND hiding an unwanted eyesore.
Our home was built in the eighties and has soffits. It’s not the end of the world. But in some spots – like our primary bedroom window – they’re an eye sore.
This particular soffit holds wires, so removing it was out of the question.
Of course, Melissa had the genius idea of disguising it using a custom window treatment. Calico strikes again! Not only does the soffit “disappear”, it gives the illusion our window goes all the way to the ceiling.
Dressing the windows: We did two roman shades total with Calico – our one window in the main area (which I mentioned above) and the one window in the bathroom.
Internally, roman shades are an opportunity to “soften” and add punches of color and dimension. Functionality wise, they provide privacy and darken. Calico has done many window treatments for us and they’re absolutely GORGEOUS.
The white roman shade was inspired by Mark D. Sikes. Calico has beautiful linens and more trims than you can imagine. So it was simple to do our own twist but replicate the feel. We also did a fancy trick of an exposed hem at the bottom. This is so the box trim still shows when the shade is up.
It’s truly allll in the details!
How to save money on window treatments: Originally, we budgeted for one window treatment on our main bedroom window. However after troubleshooting with Melissa, we realized we didn’t need the roman shades to completely cover the windows due to the existing blinds. We could do a “fixed” shade for purely decorative reasons. This saved us big time in material/work, giving us extra budget for an additional roman shade in the bathroom! You cannot tell in the photos, but there are blinds hiding underneath both.
Pillows for softness + interest: When Melissa came over to “style” our bedroom, I gathered ALL the custom pillows from our previous house – which are also done by Calico. These came from our previous living room and coordinated perfectly. Which made things feel even cozier!
Making a room feel cohesive with a plethora of patterns: This is where a pro, like Melissa, makes a bunch of materials/prints/textures feel unified. You may not notice at first, but some of the same textiles repeat themselves throughout the room. It’s subtle, so it doesn’t feel “match-y, match-y”. And we could NEVER do this if it weren’t for Calico’s custom services.
Here are the combos:
- The nightstand tablecloths and bed lumbar pillow match – all the way down to the trim!
- Melissa selected the same material for the bathroom roman shade as the back of settee. Absolutely genius.
Dresser: Our beautiful wallpaper and classic window treatment were the PERFECT backdrop to allow us to go BOLD in the furniture department. You can read all about our red lacquer dresser with Vintage Refined here. It’s the best pop of color for our navy blue and white bedroom decor.
The finishing touches: Of course a room will never feel complete without a rug, LOTS of delicious art, books, lamps, mirrors, photos and all those special little momentos that make a space yours.
Once again, Melissa helped me select every personalized touch that went into the space. She also helped me make sure it would all fit, work together and feel like us! We still have a few finishing touches left, but that will be done in due time.
When you have a room you love, it’s not just “pretty” to look at. It makes making the bed, picking up, putting the laundry away, taking off your makeup, slipping into pajamas – and all those other monotonous tasks that wait for you after a long day – enjoyable.
THANK YOU CALICO for making our navy blue and white bedroom a retreat! And Melissa – we could never do it without you.
EXACT SPECS – NAVY BLUE AND WHITE BEDROOM
Wallpaper
- York Wallcovering – GO8306 Fountain Grass
- All walls & angled ceiling – covering all gray painted areas
Roman Shade – Bedroom
- 36”H “semi-fixed” flat roman shade with extended hem (expose bottom trim when shade is up), 6” to 8”H valance front & back roll
- Outside mount to ceiling in front of soffit
- Chiara – Luxe Linen – 101 Pearl fabric with “double box” trim
- Decorative thick navy grosgrain ribbon & thin grosgrain ribbon
- 3 sides 1” inset thick ribbon border with added 1” space to thin ribbon inset on shade and valance
Sofa Upholstery
- Front of Sofa Back, Entire Seat Cushion & Arm Pads: Guinea, Cobalt
- Single/Self Welt on Cushion: Guinea, Cobalt
- Double Welt on Arm Pads: Guinea, Cobalt
- Double Welt on Full Front of Sofa: Kravet Basics 35284-55 Vertical Stripe on Bias {in store}
- Outside Back of Sofa & Base of Sofa Under Seat Cushion: Kravet Basics 35284-55 Vertical Stripe
- Trim on Outside Back – Alderwood, Aegean {in store}
Roman Shade – Bathroom
- 36”H “fixed” flat roman shade (no valance) front roll – site adjusted upon install
- Outside mount to bottom of soffit
- Kravet Basics 35284-55 – Vertical Stripe {in store}
Nightstand Skirts x 2
- 30” Round x 30”H Table Skirts: Leclair/Denim Fabric {in store} with Thick Navy & White Trim {in store} mister 1” around bottom
Bed Pillow
- 14”x 48” Long Lumbar Bed Pillow: Leclair/Denim Fabric {in store} with Thick Navy & White Trim {in store} inset 6” from each end vertically
