One of the things that attracted us most to our current New York City apartment was the relatively large master bedroom. With careful placement of the right not-too-bulky furniture, it would accommodate separate areas for sleeping and a home office without feeling crowded (and those last three words are rarely used together in the world of New York real estate.)
I supplemented things we already had (the bed, rug and lounge and desk chairs) with some relatively inexpensive purchases from West Elm (the nightstands) and ebay (the vintage Bitossi lamps, sunburst wall sculpture and Danish modern desk) to furnish the room with pieces that felt light but were still functional and comfortable. It all worked, but, to me at least, the pieces just seemed to float in the light, white room. Even with the brightly colored and patterned accessories, the space felt a little bare and unfocused.
The walls needed color to warm and unify the room, and a medium gray seemed like a nice choice to complement the cheerful oranges and blues of our accessories. Rather than painting all of the walls, though, I decided I would try using the wall color to define each of the two functional areas in the room — sleeping and working. Using a chalk line and masking tape, I painted two rectangular fields, one centered on the bed and another near the office area. (For detailed instructions on how to easily measure, mark and mask walls for painting, see my post on Painting Stripes.) I think this paint scheme has added much-needed color and warmth to the room, but has also helped the room feel more organized. I think this subtle visual separation has also made the room seem more spacious.
I’m mostly satisfied with the result. The one change I think I’ll try is to darken the remaining white areas to a very pale gray, which I think will make the room seem even warmer and a little more refined. Of course the great think about decorating with paint is that you can drastically change the look and feel of a room with about $100 in materials and a day’s work.
