My childhood bed was vintage. Antique. Actually, just “old.” My uncle slept in it when he was a kid because my parents bought my grandparents’ house: furnished. When I came around, the old twin bed became mine, complete with the mattress from 1949. I slept on that until I went to college when I was delivered to a den of luxury: the 4” college dorm bed that, to me, was the most comfortable place I’d ever slept. There was no dip in the center — no indentations at all. When I came home to visit my parents and had turned NYC-snobby, I convinced them I needed a mattress that was not fifty years old.
Fifty years old. It weighed a ton. I know now it was probably fifty pounds worth of dust mites and other microscopic terrors, but at the time, having grown up in a house where everything was hand-me-down and forty-year-old pillows were the norm, I didn’t realize quite how disgusting it was.
At age 37, I bought my first actual bed — not vintage, not even pre-owned (but definitely IKEA). At age 41, I bought my first headboard. This afternoon I shall put that headboard together (also IKEA), and I shall sleep on a bed that is my own.
Despite perpetual wanderlust, I’m yearning for a retreat. I have never cared about the state of my bedroom because, well, my bedroom was always a creaky bed, a dusty old mattress and my grandmothers sewing desk. Today I am desperate for a bedroom that looks straight out of an Anthropologie home catalog.
Is this my rebellion? My mother bought her mother’s house, took the plastic off the furniture and plastered the walls with an Old Fitzgerald billboard. I bought my mother’s house and painted over her 5-colored-dining room walls with the most rebellious color I could think of: greige.
Does hoarding skip a generation? My mother’s retreat was a couch full of dog hair and piles of newspapers. I’m longing for a white bed and floor you can eat off.
Before and after photos to follow, eventually. For now — show me photos of your bedroom? Tips on how to make your bedroom feel like a suite at the Westin?
In the mean time, here’s my before and the first hint of where I'm going:
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| My parents' bedroom after I ripped out the carpet. |
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| Mostly empty! |
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Floors couldn't be saved, so they were painted with Killz
to seal in the dog pee of yore. |
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