Of all the rooms in our apartment, our bedroom is the space that I’ve always been the most unhappy with. With small updates here and there, it has increasingly gotten better over time, but it’s never been my favorite space in the house. Recently, I’ve done a few updates that I’m hoping will spark some others to help shape up this little room.

To start off, here is what the room looked like the last time I showed it to you (nearly a year ago, in my November 2012 House Tour):

So dark, right? This room has four large windows, covered in dark, wooden blinds. The previous tenant of this apartment bought those blinds and then left them for us when we moved in. They are really nice quality and real wood, but they make the room feel so closed in. For the entire first two years we lived here, I left them closed all the time. Mostly for privacy and the fact that lights from the neighboring houses shine into our bedroom windows at night if they are open.

But last week, when I was making the shower curtain for our bathroom, I was in here ironing and it was so dark, I just had to open the blinds up. I fell in love with the bright, airy, open feel of our room with them open!

So much better, right? It just makes the room feel much more balanced. I love that you can see the beautiful original windows, and I can also finally have plants in this room as well! I can’t believe it took us two years to open the blinds! (Not that we hadn’t ever opened them, we just never left them open) It is so nice outside in New Orleans at this time of the year, we also have several windows open as well. I just love having the breeze blowing through the open windows. My favorite time of the year!

We’ve lived with them open for a few weeks now, and while we might have a slight bit less privacy in there (there are several houses close by), it isn’t really that big of a deal. We do have to close one of them at night, since a light shines right in our faces, but opening and closing one of them daily isn’t so bad.

You might notice that this corner has gotten a little makeover as well. Several months ago, when I was doing updates to my office, I moved that chair and table out of my office and into the bedroom. I love this little reading corner in here! I use it so much more than I did when it was in my office.

It makes the room so much cozier and a lot more functional. The two landscape paintings are vintage paint-by-numbers that I bought off Etsy for a great price a long time ago and painted the frames white. I really like the paintings, but Drew doesn’t really like them, and I wasn’t in love with the colors in this room (I feel like the colors are too dark/orange/70’s-ish and kind-of clash with the other things going on in here). So I took them down (I’ll use them elsewhere, don’t worry), and put up a Lulie Wallace painting instead.

Lulie Wallace is one of my absolute favorite artists and I just adore her work (not to mention she shares my maiden name!). I just love the color, pattern, and interest this piece brings to the room. I love waking up to it every morning.

Aren’t the colors fabulous? Mint, lavender, plum, chartreuse, olive–all colors I’m loving right now. This painting is giving me a whole new perspective on the room and where to go with it. It doesn’t need much, just a little more art and perhaps some colored/patterned pillows! Can’t wait to see where it ends up!