A Vintage Rug In The Bedroom

We mentioned some recent bedroom movin’ & shakin’ on this week’s podcast, so we thought a post full of photos was in order for anyone wondering how it is looking these days. Fairly much everything in our bedroom was purchased while we were living in our second house, so after moving here in 2013 stuff simply kinda landed where it landed and whoop, there it was. We painted. We hung frames. We made a few sporadic dresser swaps, and then we repainted. But the anchor pieces like the rug, the bed, the armchair, and most of the other furnishings fairly much remained the same. More lately we got a especially on-sale chandelier and swapped beds with the guest room and it felt like the room was nicely settling into feeling “nearly-done.” In short, we were fully expecting to go back to ignoring this corner of the house for at least a few more years.

And then it happened. A total bedroom curveball. My friend texted me a vivid picture of a rug she came across in a local consignment shop called Izzie’s. YES, A CONSIGNMENT SHOP. And I fell hard. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Rug enjoy at first sight. I am fairly sure you could have seen little cartoon angels flying around my head holding bow and arrows when I ran up to John with that dazed-looking cheeks-flushed expression and said “remember how we have consistently said it would be pleasant to have a plush wool rug in the bedroom someday!?” And thankfully, he remembered. And he agreed that it looked promising sufficient to go check it out in person (and smell it, because John was wondering how a consigned rug might smell).

We enjoy a flat weave rug – and have a bunch in our house – but ever since we discovered our enjoy of plush wool Turkish rugs, we have been talking about how if ever there were a spot to add one more, it is the main bedroom. It simply feels like the ultimate place for something thick and cozy underfoot. Plus, that soft green flat weave was something we picked up back in 2011 for our last house’s living room, so the size was not ideal for the bedroom (it was not as long as the space, so it did not extend quite as close to the closet/bathroom door as we’d prefer). But it could not have been that bad because we lived with it for nearly four years this way.

Back to the new rug. It was miraculously the ideal size (around 12 x 16′) and did not smell at all (hallelujah!). And because it was a one-of-a-kind find at a consignment store, we knew it was not going to wait around for us. Cut to John standing there grinning with it on the dolly, ready to be loaded into our car.

And guess who muscled that giant wool beast up the stairs? That is right. This married couple (*points to selves with thumbs*).

Once we got it into the room I fairly much did the Macarena with excitement. It might simply be my go-to rug of all time. I mean LOOK AT THE DETAILS! The COLORS! The SHAPES! The SHEER AMOUNT OF CAPS LOCK I AM USING TO DESCRIBE IT!

There are tons of other rugs I enjoy a whooooole lot in this house (I am looking at you dining room, bonus room, and living room), but this new bedroom edition simply feels extra special. So shh, do not tell them. And do not cry for the old rug Argentina! That green flat weave sold in less than an hour on a local buy-sell board on Facebook and is right now living her best life in a neighbor’s house.

You may also be noticing a couple of other changes in the wide shot – namely the wall behind the bed. This rug’s bolder, more colorful, and larger scale pattern made it much more of a focal point than its soft green predecessor. So when we rolled out the new rug, the frames on the wall felt kinda jumbled and crazy all of a sudden. Like Lady GaGa in a meat dress next to Bjork in a swan costume. Why? Because the frame wall used to be the focal point with a more subtle rug playing backup. But with a big bold rug in the room now, two focal points were fighting for attention.

So we took all of the frames off the wall and tried out a few “calmer” pieces instead. After buying something the instinct might be to go buy a ton of other stuff to go with the exciting new item, but one of my go-to things to do instead is simply to play around with what you have. Sometimes you simply have to shift a few things around the house and a few rooms end up looking and feeling fresher to the tune of zero more dollars spent.

The winner was this painting that used to hang above John’s desk in the office (we picked up it right off of the wall at a ski house we rented a few years back). I may stain the frame to match some of the other woods in the room, but for now it is doing the job of complementing – not competing with – the new rug. And from afar it looks surprisingly similar to some of the gold frames we brought in to the other side of the room (more on those in a sec).

And now in the office there is a mirror we already had hanging where the pink painting used to be – which is pleasant because it reflects the light from the two windows across from it. There is no better feeling than running up and down the stairs with things and trying them in other rooms until the crazy puzzle of “I need one thing for this room and another thing for that room” is solved. I am serious. I ENJOY that weird challenge feeling. It is like Supermarket Sweep, Home Edition. Come to think of it, that would make a fairly good game show. Stop laughing. I am serious.

And I know you were worried about where all of our family photos went (JK, nobody cares about family photos unless they are their own family). We found a few other places around the room to hang some, and I moved some into the guest room above my sewing desk. It is not as many as we used to have on display, but I think we will survive simply fine without having 20+ photos of ourselves in a single room anymore.

I reframed the photos in our room in these gold frames that I already had stashed in the guest room (they are my go-to gold ones from Target that I have also hoarded for the beach house). They created a pleasant little grid above our wood dresser – an antique hand-me-down from John’s parents that had been in the closet. We simply swapped it for the white dresser that used to sit here since the wood one looks so pleasant with the rich new rug colors.

In rearranging our family photos, we realized we are waaaay overdue for printing some updated ones (so many of a compact baby boy and a toddler girl) so we sent a few new 8 x 10″ pics to Target so we can at last update these frames. It simply feels like you “notice” pictures again when you change them out, so this bedroom update was a pleasant kick in the pants to get on that.

The other side of the room still has the gradient dresser we painted back in 2011 for our first book (yes, we have no shortage of dressers in here!). Also, can you tell John is asking Burger why he’s consistently walking into our pictures like he owns the place? You saw him up in the bed squishing all of our pillows a few pictures up too, right? Dude, is Consistently ready for his close up.

The Samantha French print above the dresser (she’s one of my go-to painters – here is her Straightforward shop) is one we have had for years, and we AT LAST got it properly framed! It was in fact a birthday gift from John, who sent it off to a framing company called Simply Framed and they made it look so much more legit and lovely with a pleasant chunky white frame and a perfectly sized mat. This is not a sponsored mention or anything (he paid for it, and we enjoy it). It is not as low-cost as finding a ready-made frame at the store (it was about $120, with a coupon code) but it looks so pricey and well done when it comes back to you. At last feels like the frame is doing the print justice.

It is hard to tell in the pic, but they even emailed us to say “do you want the mat to go right up to the edge of the print or would you like it to be spaced around a quarter-inch away so the penciled title and signature are visible?” We were so glad they suggested that because that little detail that makes it feel much more professionally done and polished.

So that, my friends, is the tale of a bedroom that we thought was going back into dormancy for a few more years, but was propelled into an accidental-but-surprisingly-thrilling makeover, thanks to a rug switch and a whole lot of other free furniture and accessory swapping.

Oh, and that picture above captures one of the cooler things about the rug – see how it looks faded in a few rows? The lady who owns the consignment store said her friend who vends rugs said it is not truly faded in those areas, it is a distinct looming method and type of wool that they use for those parts so the little water-color-like effect is something they intentionally add when they make the rug. Cool, right? I enjoy how layered and soft it looks with those strips of blurrier colors.

And yes, I totally daydream about moving those windows over so they are centered. Except they would look wonky from the front of our balanced brick colonial, so I guess I need to leave them where they are and DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT MY WHOLE LIFE CANNOT BE SYMMETRICAL. Perhaps adding one more curtain panel on that left side and extending the rod would cheat things a little and make it less noticeable? Might give that a try sometime.

Update: Due to a bunch of people on social media asking for something similar they can in fact buy (since our secondhand rug is one of a kind) I tracked down this rug and this rug and this rug that might give you a similar look. And I am also obsessed with this one for anyone going for a more-blue-less-pink/red color scheme.

But so ends our new tour of the bedroom. I will leave you with this performance art piece by Burger, entitled Dog Leaves Bed.

And for anyone wondering where we got things in the room, here is a big ol’ list for you:

bench / faux fiddle leaf fig plant / chandelier / curtains / curtain rods / night stands / swimming girl print / gold frames / similar pink painting / similar duvet / similar bedside lamps / similar dresser / similar tallboy dresser / similar chair / similar floor lamp 

You can also consistently find our room’s paint colors and sources for everything in them right here.

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