Traveler's Retreat

I love a room with a story.  I think a room that inspires Wonder and Imagination in Everyday Living demands one.  Yes, that is indeed my tagline, but it has been the driving force behind my love of design since I was a teenager with no idea that design could become anything more than a personal interest.  That did not stop my teenage self from designing my first space at the ripe old age of 15, which like many of us, was the bedroom I grew up in.  Bedrooms still rank high in my list of favorite spaces to work on.  I love the intimate connection to relaxing and dreaming.  It makes sense to me that a bedroom should offer the opportunity for us to be our freest selves.  It should not be an afterthought or just a place to sleep.  It is the place where we wake up ready to take on the world and where we retreat from the world at the end of the day to recharge.  It is the place where our mind wanders and makes grand plans for life as we drift off to sleep and where we get the opportunity to live out our fantasies in dreamland. So it seems only right that a bedroom should tell and support the story of its occupants.  I don’t subscribe to the idea that a bedroom must be muted and lacking in pattern or be of a specific color to offer rest. Certainly for some people that may be true, but not for all.  So, when it comes to bedrooms, I say dream big, both asleep and awake!

                Traveler’s Retreat is a bedroom with a story.  It was designed to marry a sense of travel and mystery with a cozy retreat and perhaps to feel a just bit out of place and time.  The bones of the room were American middle-class Victorian, complete with original wood-stained trims, doors and built in wardrobe.  I wanted to invoke a layered feel on top of the rooms bones by bringing in a bit of the 1920’s / 1930’s in the colors on the walls and ceiling and finishing it with furniture that gave the flavor of a sophisticated world traveler and made you feel like the room could have landed in any number of far-off locations.

I knew I wanted to bring in the cozy feel by enveloping the room in texture.  I love wall treatments, and upholstered walls rank high on my list of treatments.  I also knew I did not want it to feel precious, or to have any sort of recognizable pattern.  In the end the idea of the humble, utilitarian burlap won me over.  Burlap has historically been used in shipping heavy sack goods like grains, coffee, tobacco and cotton, so it has its own history of world travel!  I chose a soft sage green burlap that had been treated to have no strong odor.  Given the open weave, the walls were first painted with Benjamin Moore’s Silver Sage before the burlap was applied.  Silver sage was a bit lighter than the

burlap itself but it added an extra bit of depth and maybe a little twinkle!  The seams between burlap panels were carefully planned out to provide a sense of structure and rhythm to the treatment.  After some on site tests I landed on a thin, neutral cotton as the tape trim to cover all of the seams between panels.  The ceiling was finished in Benjamin Moore’s Clementine Rose, which combined with the sage green walls brought a hint of the 1920’s and 1930’s to the space.

The furniture itself needed to bring in a world traveler feel, so I paired a set of moody black nightstands inspired by travelling chests with a black and brass campaign style paneled bed and anchored them on a quiet but warm jute rug in natural and black.  A number of smaller details like vintage art, lamps made from glass bottles, small trinket boxes, dark wooden blinds layered with curtains and tasseled tie backs, and an antique orientalist style pier mirror came together to bring that final touch of travel and mystery. The end result is a cozy, layered bedroom that is both moody and sophisticated.

And they all slept happily every after, full of Wonder and Imagination in Everyday Living (and Dreaming)!