Grown Up Bedroom

Those of you who have been following since the birth of this blog may recall that I live in a dorm room. I have my own bedroom in a small apartment with 4 other graduate students' rooms. We have a kitchen and a bathroom, but no living room. The building is conveniently located to Columbia, approximately equidistant to two major subway lines, and has a doorman and a mailroom. As far as dorms go, it is quite nice. But as it is a dorm and I am no longer a student, so at the end of the summer, I will get the boot. I have decided to move in with two friends who are currently living on the Upper East Side. There are many things I'll miss about Morningside Heights, but that is a topic for another post. This post is about the best part of moving - decorating!

Since this is my first non-student room, I'm trying to give it a different style than anywhere else I've ever lived. I started by picking a color scheme, creating an inspiration Pinboard, and setting three major goals for the room:

1. My new bedroom should have a really zen feel to it - this is a space where I want to relax. However, I don't want it to be boring. I want the room to be whimsical and inspirational, all while creating a very soothing vibe.
2. I will minimize surfaces. As my mother would love to tell you, I use any surface more as a dumping ground than for its actual function. I do not want a desk (nor do I need one or have room for one). I also want the room to be as uncluttered as possible in general, which will be difficult considering the size of the room.
3. Of course, I'm trying not to break the bank here. If a piece is really worth splurging over, I'm willing to shell out a few extra dollars for something I'll have for life. For example, I have recently decided that it is very important to me to have 100% cotton sheets, and at least two sets of them. But for the most part, I'm decorating on a budget here. Wherever I can cut corners, I will.

My source - if anyone has the original source, let me know!

The next step was to find the bedding, since that is arguably the central piece to any bedroom. After much deliberation, I decided a duvet was a better choice than a comforter. I would be lying if I said this wasn't almost entirely influenced by the fact that duvets are much prettier than comforters right now. While my room will only comfortably fit a twin bed, I've decided to go for a full/queen duvet so that I don't need a bed skirt because it's a more sound investment. Even though I'll be getting a discount on it, the duvet insert I plan on getting is a little pricier, so I wanted to make sure I would have it for a while. I fell in love with this cover from Urban Outfitters:

Source

In my quest for duvet magic, I stumbled up on the piece de resistance of my new room also from UO: a gorgeous magazine rack that I intend to use as a night stand. It will add a pop of color to the room and give me a small surface to place my laptop on without allowing me too much space to dump crap on it. Also, it's beautiful, it was on sale, and I'm in love with it. I bought it immediately.

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Once I had these two pieces in place, it was time to plan out the space. Using Photoshop and a whole lot of simple arithmetic (math is power, people!), I created a scale model of what my room will look like. Now, I'm not quite sure how big that little entryway thing is on the right because I forgot to measure it, but I'm pretty sure it's tiny. And ignore that gray box, as the room is not a perfect rectangle, but images on Photoshop are.

There is it, folks. My humble little abode. Yes, it is the smallest room I've ever lived in, but I'm really looking forward to it! I think as long as I prop my bed up on risers and utilize my above-closet storage space, I can make a functional, useful space worthy of its Upper East Side neighbors. Two great challenges remain before I can call my room fully decorated: pillows and wall art. What's that, you want to read all about my quest for decor? Alright then, I guess I'll just have to blog about that later!

What's your decorating process? How do you maximize small space for a big impact?