House in Progress: Our Brown Boudoir

So we finally screwed up the courage to paint our bedroom dark brown. (And when I say "we" and "paint," I of course mean Nick. Much as I love to choose paint colors, lately the novelty of actually laboring to put them on the walls has lost its allure. So thank you, honey -- you're the best!)

Before, the room was painted a deep, rich red. It was beautiful, but we were just totally sick of it, since we'd also used it at our old house and thus had been living with it for about seven years. We knew we wanted something really different, but with the same drama and coziness. We hemmed and hawed about the actual shade of brown for about a year, with various paint chips taped up on the wall and big brown swatch painted in the corner.

Finally, Nick made an executive decision and choose Benjamin Moore's Chocolate Sundae (over the even darker, cooler Bittersweet Chocolate that I had been angling for). I think he was right -- the color is deep and luscious, but warm.

Although the room faces north, it gets tons of light from a big corner window and a French door, so I wasn't worried about it being too dark. Crisp white trim, bedding, and a large bookshelf, plus mirrored accents around the room help offset the deep color.

I chose a satin finish for the paint, because I wanted the walls to literally glow at night. (We have 70-year-old lath and plaster, so the walls are definitely imperfect -- a fact that the shinier paint does highlight, but I don't mind the flaws.)

This is why we haven't bothered with curtains yet.

This is our view of San Francisco through the French door. I pinch myself every time I see it.

All the "good" furniture in the room belonged to Nick's late mother, who scoured the Napa Valley 25 years ago to find it. It's mostly French. (By the way, I want to make a fabric cozy to cover the TV. I like being able to watch an occasional DVD in bed, but hate actually seeing the TV the rest of the time.)

I like how these manzanita branches pop against the dark walls. The vintage mercury glass vase is from eBay.

The white bedding and lumbar pillows are from IKEA, and I got the lavender Euro shams and coverlet on super-duper discount from Restoration Hardware awhile back, because I think the color was being discontinued.

The circular mosaic mirror was an Alameda flea market find. Nick kind of fought me about hanging it over our heads (seeing as how our house is pretty much right on top of the Hayward Fault). But I think it's made out of paper mâché, and I swear the thing only weighs about three pounds. When the Big One hits, I think we'll have more important things to worry about than a few pounds of paper mâché showering down on us.

I snagged the vintage cork-and-chrome lamps off of craigslist. The circa-1940s mirrored nightstand is from eBay. (Oh, and the book is hilarious.)

Much as I adore these 1930s art deco light fixtures (which I collected pretty seriously for awhile there, and sourced mostly from eBay), I'm craving something simpler, cleaner, and more modern for this room now. Maybe a George Nelson Bubble Lamp?

We got this Asian-style open bookshelf from Pier 1 a few months ago, on sale for something like $200 (solid wood, and no assembly required!). Unfortunately, I think Pier 1 no longer carries it. I need to get white drum shades for the vintage lamps, which I found on eBay. The stuffed corgi was a present from my kids. The magazine collection represents only the last few months' worth of shelter titles that I still need to tackle. It's a sickness, I know.

The porcelain flowers by Roost are from Vivre. The blue cased-glass jar is from eBay.

The bud vase is from West Elm. I stole the foo dogs from my mom, who got them in China.

This is Louie, who's 13 years old and weighs about 18 pounds. Basically, he only moves from this spot to eat and use the litter box.

So that's where the magic happens, people.

P.S. We decided against the wallpaper I asked about here awhile back -- even on one wall, Nick thinks it'll just be too busy. I still like the idea of wallpapering the wall behind our bed, though. We just need to find a different paper. Any ideas?