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House Milk Master Bedroom Design with Homepolish

I’ve never really had a “grownup” master bedroom. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, aside from Mr. Design Milk and myself, no one really spends any time in there. We always focused on the public spaces of our previous homes, assuming we’d get around to doing the master “one of these days.” And then, we’d move.

However, since moving into our new home, I’ve been determined to get it done and so I called Homepolish to see if they could help me out. Unfortunately, there are currently no San Diego-based Homepolish designers, but luckily I was able to work with Orlando Soria, one of their talented LA-based designers, who also happened to used to work with Emily Henderson, so we’d already met! I was familiar with his work, and felt comfortable working with him. You might remember this amazing beach house he designed

orlando-measuring

The process began with a phone chat and then Orlando made the trip down to check out my space. We chatted and exchanged ideas, ate some burritos, created a Pinterest board with inspirational images and products, and he set to work to create an initial inspiration board. Here’s how Homepolish works: there’s a small consult fee and then you pretty much pay an hourly rate from then on. What’s also great is that they have partnered with a lot of well-known and affordable brands to offer extra special discounts, too. There’s nothing intimidating about the process at all and you’re not bound by scary contracts or crazy fees.

So anyway, we started out with some inspo, feeling out shapes and proportions and color combinations. I knew I wanted a pretty cool bed, a sofa in front of the bed, and some sort of weird geometric or shape-based wall mural over/behind the bed. I wanted brass and warm metals and a mixture of hard and soft lines. Also, I wanted a very large, bold painting for over the dresser.

Here is the first mood board he created:

designmilk-master-moodboard-1

I loved this inspiration board, but many of the products were just not right for us in practicality. With a toddler, we definitely didn’t want a mirrored dresser—fingerprint city! And we needed nightstands with at least one drawer. The couch was a little too fancy for my taste and pendant lamps weren’t ideal for us in terms of bedside lighting. Also, as much as I loved that hand table, it was sold out and we just couldn’t find anything similar that we loved.

However, using these general ideas as inspiration, we landed on some products that were instant must-haves for the room—primarily, the bed, which was the centerpiece. We decided against a poster bed with canopy because it was just too large for our room. I actually discovered my bed while searching, oddly enough, for giant brass and copper beds. I couldn’t even believe it that the company, Clay’s Classics, was based in San Diego—totally meant to be. I was also obsessed with these wall sconces from FLOS and this west elm rug. Those were done deals.

One of the things I knew I wanted was a fun sofa, either green or pink, for the end of the bed. We have a deep room, so there was a lot of empty space at the end of the bed, and a loveseat or apartment sofa seemed an ideal solution, plus it would be a fun place to hang and watch TV with Amelia or a convenient place to put your shoes on. I kind of couldn’t help myself when I spotted this cotton candy pink gem from cb2—it was the perfect size.

designmilk-master-moodboard-2

As we started choosing more products, he re-created the mood board to incorporate most of the actual products I chose. I’m a very visual person, so I needed to see how we were coming along in terms of the design so I could “see” what else was needed. At this point, we had the bed, rug, sconces, bedside tables, tall dresser, and stool. However, we still needed to figure out curtains/hardware, artwork, a long dresser, bedding and accessories. Oh—AND the wall mural. Whew!

Buying a large piece of artwork was very intimidating for me, so I worked with Saatchi Art to help me locate something that would work best for my space. They have a special art advisory service. We sent over our desires, moodboard, and budget, and they selected a handful of suggested works. I ended up with the most amazing piece by UK artist Aimie Herbert called “Something Else”—it’s huge! To contrast the art, we got a simple, large white dresser from AllModern.

We finally found great custom window treatments from Barn & WIllow and super luxurious white bedding from Parachute. The whole room was coming together! We created a final moodboard that incorporated pretty much all of the actual products… the only thing we didn’t have yet was a wall mural. Actually, we’re still working on that, so stay tuned for the big reveal!

house-milk-master-render-final

I can’t tell you that redoing an entire room has been a piece of cake. There were products that came broken, items that were too big or too small, items we couldn’t get because they were discontinued, unavailable or outside my budget. Things took longer than expected, we maxed out our budget… these are all things that, however, simply require good pre-planning and patience. And wine. There have been stressful moments, but Orlando was very helpful in assisting me from afar and reassuring me that it was all going to work out. And, I think it has!

Stay tuned for the end result and source list! In the meantime, you can try Homepolish for yourself here.

Special thanks to Homepolish for providing their services to me and to all the great companies we’re working with on the design. 

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.