Good day! How are you all doing out there? It has been exactly six months since I last wrote. Hopefully it gave you enough time to read my previous post though, as that was quite a long one. Today’s instalment is the final reveal for the Master Bedroom at The Ilkley Project. Yay. Let me show you the Purple Brown room!

If you’re not aware of the Ilkley project, then here is a little refresher of some of the rooms we’ve done so far:

The Striped Guest Bedroom

The Kitchen/Dining Room with the yellow ceiling

Which you might have spotted on page 168 in last month’s Homes and Gardens magazine….

There are also two home offices i’ve not photographed, mainly because they’re in use most days. But if you’d like a more thorough look of the room’s i’ve photographed at the Ilkley project so far you can click over to the project’s portfolio page.

For those of you still here, let’s see the master bedroom as it was when Mr & Mrs C moved in in 2020.

The room is a great size with beaut high ceilings, but the space was lacking somewhat. Both in terms of storage and style.

The chimney breast was calling for a proper fire surround, the alcoves were crying for some new fitted wardrobes and the room was practically bellowing for a bold new outfit.

I remember the initial consult, Mr & Mrs C were leaning towards something darker for this room, perhaps a blue or green. Buuut I just wasn’t seeing this colour for them in here. After more chats and dishing out oodles of paint and paper samples over the bed I asked them how they’d feel about wallpapering the fifth wall, what with their high ceilings and that fact you’d be lying down looking up, it seemed like an exciting prospect.

Turns out they liked that idea as much as I did…

Master Bedroom Moodboard

The starting point for this room was House of Hackney’s Artemis wallpaper in Ecru which you can see top left in the moodboard above. From there the room colour, lighting choices and individual pieces of furniture began to evolve and over a few weeks the plan for this room was formed.  It was now time to turn a moodboard into an actual room.

December 2021

September 2022

The room was painted in Little Greene’s Purple Brown, a rich, mahogany brown. It’s like walking into an all-encompassing, delicious chocolate-y hug. The Artemis paper for the ceiling was printed as a bespoke order in the exact size we needed, almost like a mural so the pattern repeat worked perfectly across the length and width of the ceiling. And it was definitely worth it – it looks absolutely stunning against the dark walls.

Before

Whilst everything in this picture was new to this room, not everything was new. Lots of antique and second hand pieces were sourced to help make this bedroom feel like it had always been there. The creams, browns and mustards provide a “sepia” backdrop which help create a timeless, traditional design with a twist. This stunning Victorian chest of drawers with ebonised handles was sourced from antique dealer, Erfman Vintage.

A picture rail was added around the room providing additional detail and to hang mirrors and artwork from. A mirror opposite a window helps to bounce the light back into the room and by having lighting at low (on bedsides/chests of drawers), medium (wall) and high points (ceiling) it provides various combinations of layered, ambient lighting.

Before

It was commonplace for a door to swing into the room back in the day. Apparently it was to offer more privacy to those already in the room, those who may need a few extra seconds to delete their browser history (of whatever the Victorian equivalent was). However, we all agreed as we were already rewiring for new wall lights, sockets and switches that it made sense to re-hang the door so it opened towards the wall and we’d relocate the light switch to the opposite side.

During – after first fix re-wiring, entrance door re-hung and plasterwork patched

The newly hung door provided a more direct route into the bedroom whilst also avoids the door banging against the new antique bedside drawers. Nobody wants their antique bedsides being banged do they?

After

Little Greene – Purple Brown

This room needed a LARGE bed. Mr & Mrs C had a super king so as the bed itself was super sized, the headboard needed to be too. Especially with these 2.8m high ceilings.  I’d earmarked beautiful Christobelle bed from Love Your Home but asked for the headboard to be made taller; 1.6m tall to be exact (about 2cm taller than me).

The bed was dressed in layers of ruffled, frilled and floral bedding – like at your nana’s.

Before

The newly fitted wardrobes by TF Building and Renovations were a much needed addition and despite being only a few months old in this pic, they look like they’ve always been here. Once fitted they were hand painted by Rob Greenwood Decorating who also took great care in prepping and decorating the rest of the room.

The window was dressed in velvet curtains in Linwood Omega Mole fabric with a cream pom-pom trim to help define the line of the curtains against the dark walls. For privacy during the day, a sheer cafe style curtain In Clark & Clark’s Matteo fabric was fitted to a slim brass curtain rod. Simple and elegant.

Antique mahogany bedsides with drawers at the right height and size were not an easy find by any means. But we finally came across these beauties from an antique dealer on Etsy and they were worth the wait. As was the fireplace with emerald green, marble insert which was supplied and fitted by Carlton House Fires.

The artwork above the fireplace, well, yes, that’s a Degas…. but it’s also a Samsung Frame TV. In fact, another reason I wanted to add the picture rail in this room was so that I could hide the TV even more by making it appear like a piece of art by “fake” hanging it with picture hooks and chain. The traditional frame itself was made by a local framing company, The Art Works. I think it worked out rather well.

So there you have it, The Purple Brown Master Bedroom final reveal. Thank you to Mr& Mrs C for letting me share the photos and write up on the blog and for saying yes to a lot of things that a lot of others would have said no to. I hope you guys like it as much as we do!