RTTPYO #15: Styling a Bedroom Corner
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About the RTTPYO Series
RTTPYO stands for Removing Things That Piss You Off — the small home problems we tolerate for years before finally fixing them.
In this series, I tackle one everyday annoyance and show how a simple design change can make a space work better.
I am not a morning person.
While I am not crabby or resentful, I’m just not all there.
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want to see when I open my eyes is something elegant and inspiring.
Something that doesn’t make me want to unplug my clock radio and pull the covers over my head.
I call it my Morning View.
In my condo bedroom, it was a pair of posters from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London featuring colorful floral textiles by William Morris, who is one of my heroes. One of the posters included Morris’ most famous quote: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Those posters got my day started on the right foot.
In my new bedroom, that spot was the far corner opposite the bed, and my beloved posters were too large for the wall space.
I needed to get the space staged quickly. Because I had a lot of shit to get done, and I wanted my early-morning-motivation space ready to, well, motivate me.
But, in my haste I neglected to take my own advice and think through the problem. Instead, I just started throwing things against the wall (literally) to see what sticks.
You can guess how that went.
Epic Fail #1—Decorating with Things I Love (That Didn't Work Together)
I had painted my bedroom a restful, mellow green (Cedar Green from Benjamin Moore).
The bedroom corner was furnished with a white CB2 three-drawer dresser, a satisfyingly neutral setting for my get-the-day-started-right arrangement.
The first objects I put on the dresser were a pair of small crystal table lamps by Thomas O’Brien that had lit my entryway in the condo. I loved them as much as I loved my William Morris posters, and I needed light in that corner.
I was off to a good start.
I added a small framed photo of Fallingwater, one of my favorite places on earth, and my treasured George Nelson Sunburst clock.
I loved everything on that dresser. I thought that would be enough.
It was not.
When I woke up the following morning, and looked at the corner, my reaction was to squeeze my eyes shut and say, “Too many hard edges.”
The Fallingwater photo was too small for the space, and its black frame was too harsh of a contrast with the green wall. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t actually see Fallingwater in the photo from my spot across the room. The clock seemed to point at me and scream “GET UP, BITCH.” The dresser’s shiny lacquered surface magnified every edge.
The only thing that worked for me were the lamps.
The obvious reaction was to RTTPYO the photo and the clock and think a little more critically about the objects that would work together and ease me into wakefulness.
But that’s not what I did.
In the midst of working, unpacking, trying to clear moving boxes and reno debris out the garage, and getting started with the post-move reno tasks, I just wanted something to be DONE.
Epic Fail #2—Adding a Plant (?)
I decided that adding a plant would soften the space and add an organic element to the corner. I hastily ordered a freeze-dried fern that I saw on my Instagram feed.
When it arrived two weeks later, I hated it before I took it out of the box—but I took it out of the box anyway, placed it on the dresser, and hated it even more.
The fern was the wrong scale for the space and the other objects on the dresser, it obscured the Fallingwater photo (which I couldn’t really see anyway), and its dark-green color read as black against the white dresser and the green wall. Its pot was covered with a freeze-dried moss that shed all over the white dresser and caused the pot to tip sideways. To keep the plant upright, I put it in a small bowl that I used to serve condiments—another hard object where I wanted softness.
My attempt to improve the arrangement made the problem worse.
I decided at that point to think through the problem before ordering any more epic fails.
This time I was partially successful.
Semi-Fail #3—Solving the Scale Problem
First, I removed the fern and put it in the garage where I didn’t have to look at it. (Eventually I gave it to a friend who loves it in her living room.)
Then, I sat down on my bed and—finally—contemplated the corner. What was working? What wasn’t? The only objects that I knew were working were the lamps. The clear crystal bases and soft white shades were well-proportioned for the space and provided a soothing contrast with the green walls.
Then it hit me. The William Morris posters, with their elegant floral motifs that I loved in my condo bedroom, had color and freshness that the corner lacked.
What about a floral arrangement? To make my life easier, I wanted silk flowers. For me, that’s Petals.
But, before I bought another object that didn’t fit the space, I measured the distance between the lamps, cut a “test bouquet” out of newsprint, and taped it to the wall between the lamps. Then I lay down on the bed to assess.
After a few judicious trims, I had the best height and width for the space.
On the Petals website, I narrowed my choices to small arrangements, and found the perfect thing for my corner—pink peonies in a glass vase.
Peonies are one of my favorite flowers. The only thing I don’t like about them is that they only bloom for a limited time. With a silk arrangement, I could have peonies all year round, and the glass vase would coordinate with my treasured lamps.
After checking the measurements (and Petals' return policy), I placed my order.
When it arrived, I put the peonies in position, and sat down to look.
The verdict? Almost there.
Nailed It—Getting the Balance Right
I loved the combination of the lamps and the peonies, but the rest of the arrangement still bugged me, so I took a photo of the corner and looked at that rather than the actual space.
It’s super-helpful to look at a photo of a problem space rather than the space itself. Photos remove depth, which makes it easier to see scale and balance issues.
As soon as I looked at the photo, I sadly realized that my beloved Fallingwater pic and my treasured Starburst wall clock were too small for the space and too hard-edged for my peony and lamp combo.
Loving the objects wasn’t enough to make them work in the space.
I returned to the bedroom, removed the photo and the wall clock, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I took a photo of the corner to better evaluate what I wanted to complete the arrangement.
To balance the peony and lamp combo, I needed a fairly substantial piece of wall art that filled the space directly above them. I figured out the optimal dimensions for the piece by blue-taping a rectangle on the wall until I got a balance I liked.
But what should the wall art depict?
I loved the contrast between the peonies and the wall. Vibrant pink and restful green. Soft versus solid.
Hmm. What about an image of pink peonies?
I went to Etsy, typed in a few search terms, and there it was—a photo of pink peony blooms in a shade similar to my silk arrangement.
I ordered it. I also placed an order for a white frame—softer than the hard black lines of the Fallingwater photo frame, but distinct enough to reflect the dresser’s crisp lines.
Minutes after my orders were delivered, I hung the framed photo on the wall.
The following morning, I woke up and saw this:
For the first time since I’d moved into the house, I woke up, opened my eyes, saw my Morning View, and was inspired to start my day.
It took me three months to get to this point. Why so long?
First, I assumed that arrangement would work because I loved everything in it. When that failed, I thought about the problem for 30 seconds—and bought a “solution” 30 seconds after that.
When that didn’t work, I finally came to my senses.
I stopped running toward another fail, and went back to what I wanted that bedroom corner to do for me.
I looked and I thought.
I RTTPYO’d the objects that didn’t work, even though I loved them.
I selected objects that helped me feel the way I wanted to feel but worked together as a balanced whole.
And it worked.
I was so delighted with my new Morning View that I posted a pic on Etsy. The photographer messaged me, “I gasped when I saw your photo. Stunning arrangement!”
Girl. I feel that. Every morning.
BTW, I did find places for the items I RTTPYO’d from the corner. The Sunburst clock enlivens my living room. The Fallingwater photo found a home in my office, where I look at it daily for inspiration—after I’m fully awake.
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