Our retreat

Oh, that Nester gal.  She does get me thinking.  I have to admit, she has influenced me in more ways than one – all good, mind you – and as completely and utterly corny as it sounds…..my life is different because of her blog.

I don’t know if she listed these in order of offense, but if she did, then the Nester has admitted to us that her number one decorating mistake was failing to make her master bedroom a priority.

Those are some pretty strong words, coming from a home style maven like she.  So, I took note.   After all, when her final results turn out looking like this, you tend to listen to her.  And seriously?  When she takes the time to write a manual on how to get stunning results for $200 or less….well, how do you come up with an excuse to put off this room any longer?

So, with the Nester holding my virtual hand, and with my browser windows open to this post and this post, I began.

Here is a glimpse of the bedding:

All the linens on our bed, except for our Nautica duvet, came from Home Goods and cost less than $60 for a queen sheet set, extra white pillowcases, quilted pillow shams, and two new pillows.

The paisley print in the middle is what the sheet set sports, and the Nautica duvet that sits at the foot of the bed is that taupe-y/khaki/tan color in the front print.

Once the linens were chosen, I felt the freedom to begin looking for window treatments.

Even with how easy our dear Nester gal makes her mistreatments seem, I was still scared to attempt them myself, so I continued to waste my time look diligently for pre-made curtains.

No surprise that I didn’t find any that I liked, let alone loved.

So, on a whim, I dragged my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law and Seth to JoAnn’s, and headed to the interior fabrics.

Wouldn’t you know it?  I found a decorator fabric that I adored that would make perfect drapes.  And wouldn’t you know it?  The fabric was $39/yd.  And wouldn’t you know it?  I needed between 10-12 yards.  People, there was NO WAY THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN that I could justify that cost to Jim.  Especially since I don’t sew, so I was already going to have to sell him on the whole mistreatment concept anyways.

I wandered forlornly to the clearance section, browsing quickly over the fabrics that need no explanation for their presence in the cheap bin.

And then.

Golden light shone down onto a bolt of  gorgeous material.

And wouldn’t you know it?  It, too, was $39/yd.  Le sigh.

BUT.

It was $39/yd. marked down to $15, marked down to $6.

And that day they were having a green tag 50% off sale.

My fabric was only $3/yd.!!!  At this point, I wished the Nester were holding my REAL hand so that we could have done a little booty-shaking happy dance around the cutting table.

Despite the fact that the sales associate cut my fabric wrong (ahem, ma’am, have you not heard the phrase “measure twice, cut once?”), causing me to drive my posse 80 miles round trip out of the way to another JoAnn’s to pick up the last 3 yards I needed, I returned home that day with the perfect dressing for my two master bedroom windows.

I was on such a high from my fabric find, I decided to ride the confidence wave and get right at clipping-and-poofing.

I don’t have trim yet that I love, so the edges are still raw and unfinished.  But you can hardly tell.

The inner edge kind of folds in on itself, and the outer edge…well, see for yourself how great that looks:

What’s that you say?  What is that pretty egg print?

Why, it’s more Nester inspiration, of course!

Remember when I won the L. Herbert prints from the Nester herself back in February?

Well, here they are between my beautifully imperfect windows:

I LOVE how our room is coming together.  It’s not 100% done, which is why you are only seeing snippets of the finished product.  But I’m picking up some more items very soon, so a full reveal should be coming later this month.

But so far….what do you think?  Would Nester be proud of me?  I sure am!