I'm back in the guest bedroom, working on furniture placement. You know, I changed the layout to allow for more room on either side of the bed, which is great, but now I actually need a bedside table.
I'm going for an eclectic, collected, cottage feel. But it also needs to be functional, provide storage and most importantly fit my budget constraints which are cheap, cheap, cheap.
Enter the basket with tray combo. The texture and warmth of the basket feels so cottage-y to me. And the tray helps to make it more functional. And it definitely fits the budget criteria because I already had both! Perfect. Of course, they did have previous lives.
This campaign style tray used to be part of a butlers tray table that held decanters in the dining room. Unfortunately, the stand part of the table broke a couple of years ago, sending all our decanters crashing to the ground.
{Can you believe only the cheap ones broke, all the vintage pieces made it. Just goes to show, they just don't make things like they used to. But that's another topic for another post.}
Anyway, I painted it the same color as the dresser to help tie the pieces together. {Color inspiration for both pieces came from the sheet set, which I am slightly obsessed with. I don't even want to think about what I will do if this set ever wears out.} I also used a bit of Rub n' Buff on the corners to help them pop.
And if you ever need to access the storage space, you just lift the whole tray instead of each individual piece. Easy, peasy.
The extra storage provided by the basket is great. Seasonal blankets and extra pillows can be stored in the room instead of the downstairs linen closet. Plus, the closet in this room is super small, so leaving that space free for guests is nice.
Have I mentioned how much I love this basket? I bought it several years ago at Ikea in the UK. Unfortunately, the basket they carry now is more modern. If they still carried this model I'd buy them by the boat load. It looks great everywhere from the mudroom to the living room to the bedroom.
Great, this side of the bed is sorted. Now, I must move on to the bedding. As you can see I finally washed and changed the bed. The basic bedding is staying the same - sheets, bed skirt, matelasse bedspread and quilt were all pre-existing {everything but the quilt dates back almost 13 years!}. It's just a matter of adding on some layers to make it feel like a nice, cozy cottage bedroom. Wish me luck.
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Until next time,
