~How To Turn One Bedroom Into An Elegant Master Suite, A Toddler's Bedroom, and A Nursery All In One~

aSalaam uAlaikum and Good Evening My Stylish Sisters!

First of all, I apologize for the excessively long title for this post.  But I couldn't figure out how else to title it using any fewer words LOL.

After a lot of discussion with the hubster the two of us have decided that in order to save money to buy a house in the future, we are going to stay in our one bedroom apartment for another year or so.  If we are able to stick it out even longer (until mid 2012) there is a probability that we will receive a sizeable buy-out from the city, so they can demolish our building and expand the local airport.  And as good as a two-bedroom apartment sounds NOW....a nice lump sum of money in a couple years sounds even better.  And so begins our attempt at patience. (Allah help us!!)

So, the best part of our plan (other than the lump sum, of course) is that I get to redo our bedroom!  The only problem is; turning one bedroom into a nursery for the new baby, a fun bedroom for my toddler, and an elegant master suite for my husband and I is turning out to be a bit harder than planned.  I've already had my husband rearrange the existing furniture twice, and I still don't like it, so I decided that before I make him rearrange it again I would draw a To-Scale diagram of the room with mini furniture so I could see how it would look.  My husband made fun of me for a couple of days after seeing my diagram, but he'll appreciate it when he learns he only has to change the furniture one more time.

After figuring out how I am going to set up our beds I started searching the internet for different ways to divide the room in order to give my daughter her own space to play and sleep, and to allow my husband and I to have some privacy.  I have browsed literally thousands of different room dividers and chinese screens, and have finally decided on one similar to this:

Although at first I was concerned that this style wouldn't coordinate with our bedspread and other decor, in the end I've decided this screen is the best bet because of the stand at the bottom.  With a toddler playing around the screen, and working with limited space, the ability to have the screen stand straight up (instead of zig-zagged) and be more stable is much more important to me than the style aspect.  And, the opposite side of this screen is plain white, without the grids, so I will have that side facing the door, and possibly hang a nice picture from it or decorate it in some other way.  If you like this screen you can go to iroomdividers.com and check out their huge selection of room dividers ranging from Shoji style (like this one) to modern, and even some with art prints and photographs.

I'm going to use this screen to separate a space for my daughter's bed, a bookshelf for her toys and books, and her table and chairs.  Here is all the stuff that will be on her side of the screen:

This is my daughter's bedding set.  Her bed is similar, but is in a dark espresso colored wood.  Also the bedding looks much more pink in person, rather than the lavendar that is showing up here.  You can't see the polka dots so well at the bottom of the comforter, but they match the canopy I've chosen (shown below).  If you like this bedding, or want to see other beautiful bedding for anyone from babies to adults, check out bacati.com.  Their customer service is amazing, and the quality is superb.

And here is the adorable canopy from ikea.com that I will hang above her bed.

I've looked around at many different bookshelves, and my original plan was to get a bookshelf that I could use two cloth baskets on the bottom shelf, and stack her books on the top shelf.  But then I came across this adorable sling bookshelf with storage bins from OneStepAhead and I loooove it.  I can also personalize it with my daughters name for only $5.00 which is such a cute touch!  The wood is available in Espresso, to match her bed, so I'm sold! yay!

I also found this adorable rug, which is wayyyy expensive (for a rug...and my budget) but I am going to keep searching for one similar, because the style of the bird looks like her bedspread, and the pink color matches perfectly.  This one is from rosenberryrooms.com.

Now...my daughter has this cute set of table and chairs from Ikea (that I can't show because they don't have that style anymore) that are solid wood, and unfinished.  I bought them because I despise (not just hate....but DESPISE) plastic furniture for kids.  (unless it's for use outdoors)  I also chose them unfinished because at that time I wasn't sure what colors I would use for my daughter's bedroom, and I wanted to paint them myself.  After a lot of thought I've decided I will stain them to match her bed, and her new bookshelf, and paint the seat of one chair bright pink and the other turquoise, to coordinate with her bedspread.

Whew!! So....those are the plans I have so far for the "Other Side Of the Screen" (sounds like a cheesy horror flick, doesn't it??? LOL) I'll wait to bore you with the plans for the adult side in the next post.....but I will give you a hint....

I just got a BEAUTIFUL bedding set...and got it on sale!!  And you ladies know...there is not much that makes me happier than getting something beautiful...unless it's getting something beautiful ON SALE!!

Please ladies, let me know what you think of my plans so far!! Feel free to tell me if you think something else would look better, or if you have any home improvement projects of your own right now! 

Ma'Salaama and Happy Home Improvements!

Fashionably Yours,

The (yes I DO use my stilettos to hammer the nails in) Mujahada in Prada