Adding Sunshine to the Bedroom

When The Mister and I got married, we were happy, poor newlyweds with very little furniture between the two of us to fill our first place. To solve this problem, we trekked to Ikea for furniture that fit our budget. We ended up with a lot of white furniture. Our bedroom had a white entertainment center for books and our TV, a white bed, white sheets and a white down comforter, and 2 identical white nightstands. We went this route because our bedroom is small and very neutral. Neutral colors make small rooms look bigger, right? So we had touches of tan, brown, and black here and there to add contrast, but the white washed room became too much.

As we dream of moving, we are also dreaming up a brighter bedroom! We have already purchased a duvet for our comforter (expect that to be shared soon-ish) and now I have moved on to the night stands.

They are Ikea's Aspelund nightstands. We picked them because the shape matched the shaping on our bed and the door allowed for more hidden book storage.

It is a lovely, basic, boring nightstand that I loved at first but now am sick of. My eyes are weary of seeing white!

As we dreamed up our bedroom, we were drawn to grays and yellows with natural woods thrown in. These are some inspiration rooms:

 

(**Pictures are clickable so you can see the source!)

 So, I decided to go for it and paint our nightstands yellow. Behr's Sun Ray, to be exact.

After mixing our paint and getting his dab to put on the lid, the paint guy said "That will wake you up in the morning!" That was my thought exactly.


I discovered that yellow paint is the most difficult paint I have used so far. It took 3 coats and a careful eye for coverage to avoid lighter spots where the yellow paint appeared more green.

See where the top is separated on the right one? Well, that is because I tried to take the nightstand more apart than just unscrewing the door. But, the tacks on the back held it in place, too. And I was too lazy to untack just to retack it back.

I think the little polished bronze looking knob is cute (for now). Isn't this much better than the boring white nightstand we had before?

Now let us see this sunshine beauty in the room, shall we...

My camera was having a hard time with the clouds taking away my natural lighting in some of the shots. The picture with the most true color is the very bottom one. Just the pop of color we need.

You can't say we didn't go for it.

Now - to find the perfect accent pillows!