Fresh & Feminine
This color-drenched bedroom is just what the homeowner ordered
Most design projects begin with list, itemizing concerns that range from practical (the budget) to prosaic (square footage). This one began with a feeling: The homeowner wanted her bedroom to feel rejuvenating.
She had renovated her 1940s St. Paul rambler, redoing most of the main floor and the backyard landscape before reaching the bedroom. Then she realized her old furniture didn’t feel right here, and certainly didn’t create the restful ambiance she had in mind. “She decided she really wanted to be comfortable in her own room in her own house,” says Lisa Peck, principal of Lilu Interiors in Minneapolis, who also worked with the homeowner on the rest of the house.
Peck and Emily Anderson, a Lilu interior designer, took it from there, designing a bedroom that is fresh, feminine, color-drenched, and restful.
Mix
The homeowner, whom Peck characterizes as a “young retiree,” leans toward an updated traditional style—preferring furnishings with traditional bones, but in contemporary fabrics and colors. Peck and Anderson accomplished that look by using a strategic mix throughout: The French traditional bed is dressed in sleek spring green with a touch of lace; the writing table combines metal and wood; the bedside table features a white-distressed finish and a stained-wood top; the lamp is a traditional shape, but in a clean-lined crystal that adds a touch of sparkle.
Color
To capture the cheerful, restorative ambiance the homeowner wanted, Peck and Anderson pulled in the fresh green and warm colors used elsewhere in the house. The rug, which already belonged to the homeowner, complements the red in the pillow shams and the warm shades of embroidery on the velvet upholstery of the settee. “We wanted to use this fabric for something in the room, but the homeowner was so in love with it, she wanted it on a big piece,” says Peck.
Function
The wonderfully inviting settee faces a wall of windows that overlooks a backyard terrace, fireplace, and U-shaped seating area. It’s the perfect place for the owner to relax, gaze at her garden, read, or write on the diminutive table that curls up to the seating area. The chest, its serpentine shape echoing the lines of the settee, features deep drawers for extra storage.
Mood
The springtime palette reinforces the room’s joyful-yet-serene demeanor, as do the luxurious fabrics. The embroidered velvet of the settee and the custom linens—the linen and lace-trimmed bedcover, embroidered silk shams, and simple silk skirt—add tactile richness. Even the painting, picking up the sweet spring colors from the rest of the room, feels peaceful and a bit reminiscent of the owner’s small-town midwestern roots.
Chris Lee is editor of Midwest Home.
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6 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
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