Welcome back!  Today, I want to talk you through the next steps in the design of my 2016 Bucks County Designer House bedroom.  Last time we discussed the floor plan.  If you missed it, you can read that post by clicking here:  http://wp.me/pEVbo-Qv

Usually, after deciding on the actual furniture placement, I like to start thinking of the colors.  For me, color is almost always dependent upon fabric choices.  Fabrics are like candy for me…I so enjoy falling in love with a pattern or texture (or both!).  After that, it’s easy to select paint colors inspired by the textiles I’ll be using in the space.  Now, I’m so eager to finalize those fabric choices and have already started leafing through the huge pile of fabric books in my home office.  But I need to rein myself in a bit…

Way before I can start choosing fabrics for this bedroom, I need to think about what to do with those fabrics.  How can I make selections if I don’t know where they’re going to be used?  In a bedroom, of course, bedding is a key component, so that’s one important element.  And in my honest opinion, custom window treatments and draperies can simply make a room.  Custom treatments elevate a beautiful interior to the next level and make it luxurious and high-end.  So, in addition to the custom bedding, I’m deciding what to do about the windows.  You may remember that many of the doors open right on top of the windows, so while I entertained the thought of full-length, luxurious draperies (this type of treatment could help to elongate the lines of the room and draw the eye upward) I realized they wouldn’t work in this particular space.

The wall to the immediate right of the entrance door has two windows with a nice wide blank space in between.
You may have noticed that the doors throughout the space open right in front of the windows. This really dictates what type of window treatments I will choose.

Of course, creating custom window treatments is no easy task and can often be quite an investment both in fabric costs and in the fabrication labor.  So before even thinking about starting a project of this scale, I picked up the phone and called one of my favorite window treatment professionals:  Grace Rumer.  Grace owns a custom drapery workroom in Hatboro, PA called Grace Irene Window Fashions.  Grace has a terrific website which can be found here:  http://www.graceirene.net/

My drapery fabricator, Grace Rumer, and I are measuring for the beautiful window treatments that will enhance the bedroom I’m designing at Foxwood Manor, the 2016 Bucks County Designer House & Gardens.  Over the years we’ve become more than just colleagues, I like to think Grace and I have become friends.

This is the Ad that Grace and I are running for the 2016 Bucks County Designer House guidebook. We’ve been collaborating on projects for many years.

So let’s talk about what to actually DO with those fabrics in my 2016 Bucks County Designer House bedroom.  You may remember that there are 4 small-ish windows in this bedroom with extremely low ceilings.  Thankfully, the room has amazing exposure and gets great light throughout the day!

The bed wall has two windows, and the attic door butts right up against the window in the corner (shown at right). So, not only would the door opening visually block any outside mounted treatment, but there’s no wall space to accommodate any type of fabric on the wall at all.

Luckily, the windows have a nice, deep setback, creating ample room for inside-mounted treatments and a lovely large windowsill.  So I’ve decided exactly what I’ll do:  use inside mounted, simple and soft roman shades.  They are just classic and elegant.  And if I use a light color, they will have an airy and open feel.

Having decided on the windows, I’ve begun thinking more about the bedding.  Since the inside mounted roman shades will need to be relatively simple, I’ve decided to do something more elaborate with the bed, creating a true focal point for the space.  This will be accomplished by using a half tester with bed-hangings.

Above is a gorgeous bedroom I found on Pinterest, designed by the amazing designer Ashley Whittaker.
Here, Ashley uses an absolutely stunning custom tester above the bed, placed between two windows featuring roman shades.  This room has almost the exact same layout as my 2016 Bucks County Designer House bedroom!   You can click through to the Pinterest file, by clicking on the image.

Aside from being romantically beautiful, there are additional reasons I chose to design the bedroom with fabric bed-hangings and a tester.  Using bed-hangings and mounting them at ceiling height, will draw the eye upward in my designer house bedroom.  This will help give the illusion of more space, since you may recall that the ceilings are quite low in this historic part of the home (at only 80″ tall!). The relationship in the above photograph, between the inside-mounted roman shades and the slightly taller bed-hangings, will be very similar in my 2016 Bucks County Designer House Bedroom.  Making a quick sketch helped me to visualize how this would actually look in my own space.

A sketch, or perspective, I drew of the bed wall in my 2016 Bucks County Designer House bedroom.
Now that I’ve decided on the types of treatments, some beautiful fabric choices can be made.  Now that will be FUN!

I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with me on this installment of the 2016 Bucks County Designer House bedroom design.  There’s still a bunch more to do, so I hope you’ll visit me again, when we talk more about selecting the fabrics and colors for the room. Until then, feel free to share my posts and images with your friends on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. I absolutely adore making new friends!

Robinson Interiors information and contact info.