Master Bedroom Remodel; Guest

I meant to feature this last week but ran out of time, either way here it now in its beautiful peaceful state.  Check out what The Fresh Fossil did to revamp master bedroom!


After reading the title of this post, I'm sure you must be asking "Has she lost her mind? An iBoard?".

Well, hear me out.

As you may or may not know, we've been kicking butt in our Master Bedroom recently. It's actually starting to look like something you'd stumble across online and think "now that'srelaxing", rather than the white shoebox prison it was before. Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.

Either way, there's no denying that it's definitely seen an improvement due to the closet remodel, paint, crown molding, and our fabulous DIY $20 headboard solution:

So far we're loving the changes, and it makes me more relaxed just looking at that last photo.

But back to the iBoard.

Most people love television, and quite a few have more than one television in their house, and lots have a tv in their bedroom. Not us.

Nope, we digg music. Alot.

We currently only have 1 television in the house - in the basement. But stereos? We have at least 3 or 4 scattered throughout (yes, computers count, too!). What can I say? Nothing quite gets us in the mood for whatever we're doing - be it chores, working out, or lounging with friends and family - like a little music.

And our bedroom is no exception.

Unfortunately, our bedroom measures a measly 10 x 12.5 feet, and once you add all the furniture, door opening space, and our oddly-angled-bed, you don't have a whole lot of room left for a boxy stereo or speakers. What did we have? A homemade-ready-to-use iBoard.

Let me explain. Remember last week when we blogged about our Super-Easy-DIY-$20-Fabric-Headboard-Solution-Thing that we rigged up and hung just behind our bed's actual wooden headboard? Since the bed is placed at an angle to the corner of the room, we had a whole triangle of wasted space back there, and thanks to our canvas fabric headboard contraption, it was also well-hidden.

And not soundproof.

Tom snagged some simple computer speakers he wasn't using anymore (USB plug-ins for his laptop, about $20 on Amazon), hung them up on the wall behind the fabric headboard with a couple of screws, and simply plugged them into a power strip. All the wires were hidden behind the floor-to-ceiling fabric headboard except for the one cord that's intended for plugging into the computer's headphone jack. We simply plugged it into our iPod and hello, instant ambiance!

The best part? We had all the materials on-hand so our fancy-schmancy iBoard wascompletely free. Add to that the number of hours we'll spend listening to some tunes while we're getting ready or cleaning, the easy install, and the hidden wires and speakers, and we couldn't be happier. Seriously, we're pleased as punch about it.

Oh yeah.

But then we ran into a problem - we needed something to set our iPod on, along with our cell phones and other miscellanous bedside items. And thanks to the funky angle our bed was situated at, we knew it was gonna be tricksy trying to fit some sort of bedside table on each side and still have space to walk around in the teeny tiny room.

Thank goodness for shelves.

We bought 4 small floating shelves from Target and installed them on each side of the bed. They work great for holding our glasses of water at night, functioning as a charging station for our cell phones, and of course for holding our iPod for easy access to the music selection on our homemade iBoard.

We also added a small black magazine rack below the shelves to hold our collection of books. Because, you know, we like to read. Especially now that we have those fancy schmancy swing arm lamps. I think one reason we like them so much is because sometimes we feel like we're in a nice hotel.

We love our new bedside shelves. And if we want to grab our book for a little pre-sleep reading, all we have to do is slide out the magazine rack and snatch our good read.

I don't think we ever told you about the deal we scored on the new comforter. I found it at Target, on clearance. Originally $100, we scored it for $25. Not bad, huh?

And we found this little ceramic garden stool marked down 50%, and took it home with us for $30.

I think it adds a little touch of texture to the foot of the bed, and I love the little cutouts on it and the round shape which repeats the circular shape of the wooden bowl hung on the headboard. Why do we only have 1 at the foot of the bed?

You should know by now that we love things that are a little unexpected.

So that's how we turned our boring headboard into an awesome iBoard for free, and then created side "tables" out of floating shelves and magazine racks for stashing our water glasses and charging our electronics without sacrificing valuable floor space. Our improvised bedside "tables" ran us about $60 for both, and considering that most real bedside tables cost much more than that for just one, we think it's a steal.

What do you guys think? Are you digging the new improvements as much as we are? Anybody else going to use shelves as their next bedside table, or make their own fabric headboard so they can put hidden speakers behind it? Stay tuned because next we'll tackle the furniture - starting with refinishing our wooden headboard we've been brainstorming about!

I love the way the room is set up!  And I think the room looks calming and comfortable, don't you agree?