Beautiful Blogger Bedrooms: Alaina from Live Creating Yourself

Day Four of my series brings us Alaina of Live Creating Yourself.  She has great style, and works fast! Her bedroom re-do is a lesson on mixing the feminine with the masculine: 

Hello Emily A. Clark blog readers! I am so honored and excited Emily asked me to take part in the Bloggers Bedrooms series. If you are not a regular LCY reader, then I should probably tell you I recently moved into a new apartment with my boyfriend on the north side of Chicago. I worked like a busy bee to get the main living spaces ready for my NYE cocktail party (mind you I played hostess two days after moving in) but I pretty much ignored my bedroom and office until recently. Actually, it was Emily's request to show off my bedroom to the world that lit the fire under my seat to get things together.

Needless to say it's not entirely finished so I can really only show you half the room. But because that left me with two pictures to share, I thought I'd do a little comparison of how my bedroom furnishings changed from dwelling solo to sharing the space with a boy.

Below: my old bedroom

Again, if you are not a regular LCY reader, I should tell you now that I have an unhealthy obsession with the colors yellow and grey. My old room was smothered with my favorite, cheery color and had feminine touches here and there - i.e. the floral duvet cover and white, country chic nightstand. I knew I'd be changing both items to make my new bedroom less feminine and more gender neutral.

The duvet and frames are from Pottery Barn, the Euro shams are West Elm, the yellow ikat pillow is Fabricadabra, and the cockapoo puppy is from Kratzer Puppies. : )

Both pieces of furniture were on loan from my mom and did not come with me in the move.

I did, however, bring all of these accent pieces with me to my new apartment. The lamp (which I purchased two of and had been waiting to use on either side of my bed), faux calla lilly, and pocketwatch clock are all on my new nightstands.

And here is my new bedroom!

As you see, the main change is the bedding and wall color - both of which are now (pause for reaction) grey! I had talked Nate into purchasing this beautiful, organic matelassé duvet cover for his DC apartment last year, and we're currently using it at our new place. I also convinced my mom to buy the same duvet in white for her guest room - she loves it, too. Moral of the story, I highly recommend it if you're in the market for new bedding.

I recently bought the embroidered throw pillows on super sale at my West Elm store. Other than that, I transfered most of the items from my old, yellow bedroom into my new, grey room! As you can see, changing the bedding and choosing a new paint color made a drastic but inexpensive difference!

On a final note, I received this this gorgeous duvet cover from Anthropologie as a gift and plan on using it during the spring and summer months. Just to mix it up a bit.

You can check out more detailed shots of my new room over at Live Creating Yourself.

Thanks, again, Emily!

Source List

duvet & shams • lamps • clock • books • gallery frames • faux fur throw • sheepskin rug • zebra rug

the marble-top end table and white porcelain vase are antiques from Nate's family

photography above bed is my own