Yesterday marks two months since we moved, and our bedroom was probably the last room to make the transition from “dumping ground of things to unpack” to a comfortable space that finally feels like ours. Here’s what the room looks like now, what we added, and what’s still on the to-do list (including some very rough photoshop to illustrate ideas).
If you remember from our before tour, this space started as a living room. There was a larger living area upstairs with a deck that we wanted to use as the family hangout, and we preferred to sleep on the same level as our kids. That made this room a natural choice for our bedroom. It also had a convenient place to add a closet and an ensuite bathroom — we simply needed to close off the big doorway and add a door to the smaller opening beside it.
To save you a scroll back up: voila — the room is starting to feel finished.
Fun fact: before this reno the whole house only had two rooms with doors you could close for privacy — our daughter’s room and the bathroom. Having a proper bedroom with a closing door (and the option to close our son’s room door) is a huge quality-of-life improvement.
It’s also exciting to see the space we pictured during that rainy day walkthrough finally come together. Most of the pieces in the room are things we already owned, so the transformation feels like us rather than a complete restyle.
Our main purchases were a new rug, a wood bed frame, and curtains. We still need a proper headboard (we’ll likely build one), and when that goes up the mirror over the bed will probably move elsewhere. For now this is how the room feels and functions.
One of our favorite features is the wall of glass doors across from the bed. It brings so much natural light to the room and will eventually open to a private patio or courtyard. Because of privacy and light concerns, covering those doors was a top priority. On our first morning here the doors were still bare, which made the temporary packing blankets feel like a necessity until proper window treatments arrived.
We still use packing blankets on the smaller windows at night while we wait for shades, but we now have blackout-lined curtains on the doors for privacy and to block early light. We picked a soft ivory/talc tone so the curtains layer against the white walls instead of blending in completely. The walls are painted a crisp pure white, and the slightly warmer curtain color softens the overall feel.
We hung the curtains on brass rods with matching rings. Once the fabric relaxed after being hung we moved the clips to the hidden nylon loops on the back of the panels so the front looks clean and the top rail isn’t cluttered with visible clips. The long rod effect is actually three separate rods butted together and leveled with a laser to look like one continuous piece.
About that bad photoshop I promised: we’re planning a privacy fence to carve out a cozy courtyard outside the bedroom doors. The idea is a small seating area where we can relax once the kids are asleep, maybe with string lights and a fire pit or a DIY water feature. The mockup is rough, but it helps visualize the space as a private outdoor nook rather than an exposed yard.
The fence design and color will likely change, but the goal is to make the area feel tucked-in and private. We’ve already hung string lights over the stairs that lead down to the yard, which look lovely from bed, but the yard itself needs more attention before it becomes a true bonus space.
The fourth set of double doors sits next to Sherry’s side of the bed. That’s where we plan to add an ensuite bathroom in part of the side porch area, though the project has moved down our priority list for now. Sharing one bathroom has been working better than we feared, so the urgency has eased.
We bought a second wood-tiled dresser to use as a matching nightstand, the same model we owned for seven years. It arrived and matched the old one perfectly, which felt like a small miracle. Using dressers as nightstands gives us essential clothing storage while we’re still waiting on built-in closets.
Keeping an inlay theme alive in the room is a secondhand inlay dresser that used to live in our previous house. It’s one of Sherry’s favorite Facebook Marketplace finds and brings texture and character to the space.
We chose a subtle West Elm rug that reads as neutral in person, even though online photos emphasize pink tones. Up close it shows tan, gray, and faint lavender hues that worked perfectly with the room. The 8×10 size anchors the bed and gives a cozy landing spot for feet — and for Burger, our resident launch-ready companion.
Now for the side that still needs work: the fireplace wall. Right now it’s a motley collection of useful but random items — an old filing cabinet, an air purifier, a small end table, and a single lamp. These windows are also ones we cover with packing blankets at night, which makes the view feel less inspiring compared with the doors opposite the bed.
Eventually we’d like symmetrical built-in storage flanking the fireplace. Smart storage is crucial in this smaller house, and built-ins will give the room a more finished, intentional feel. For now the mess is a big improvement over the pile of moving boxes we started with.
We also have shades on order for the windows. After the natural gas company connects the line for our tankless water heater we’ll convert the fireplace to gas logs, build a mantle, and decide on furniture for the fireplace area. At the moment our vignette could be described as “a potted plant enjoying a good book while relaxing on a fur rug in front of a roaring fern.”
One corner of the room is particularly odd: an un-square angle with extra floor space and the minisplit AC/heater installed there. Rather than let that corner remain awkward, we sketched a plan to enclose a portion of it and create a closet space. Enclosing the corner would square it off visually, remove unused floor space, and give us a closet without sacrificing porch or bathroom footprint.
The rough photoshop shows the idea: a drywalled side wall with two lattice doors across the front so the minisplit can vent freely while the opening provides texture and airflow. It won’t be a huge closet, but it would be functional and tidy, and we don’t need massive hanging space — our current needs are minimal and most clothes already fit easily in dressers.
We’re still refining the idea — wood tone, framing, and door detailing will evolve — but it’s a promising solution to make that corner feel intentional and useful. In the meantime I’ll marvel at how much fits under a wood bed frame like ours; the storage potential has been surprisingly generous.
If the window shades would just arrive so we could retire the packing blankets for good, I’d be over the moon.
P.S. To follow along with the whole renovation of this house, we keep a running archive of updates and progress in our Florida house project notes.
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