Hello dear friend how are you!

It has been two and a half months since we moved into our home and realized there were no closets. We’ve been storing clothes in a dresser, in makeshift racks throughout the house, and even in suitcases. Between pulling clothes out of a box to get dressed and not having a good mirror for most of that time, I’m really curious how we physically looked for those two months! Probably bad! Thanks for visiting our lifestyle blog.

So anyway, while our future bedroom suite will have a walk-in closet, we’re still a couple of months out from that being done, so we thought we’d get to work on turning this previously unused bonus room into a nice relaxing space to organize our clothes, get dressed, and see what we look like head-to-toe before walking out the door. A dressing room! It sounds fancy and well I guess it kind of is, to be honest. The truth is that we didn’t budget for a total transformation of this room, so while the bedroom suite and other parts of the home are getting some big reno work, this room’s redesign is relying on fresh paint, items we already owned, and a few new pieces to tie it all together. You’ll notice there are like, three different textures happening on the walls. We’re just gonna call that “old home charm,” okay?

We used Urbane Bronze S-W 7048, which is the Sherwin-Williams Color of the Year (2021)! While we’re all for being bold with color, we’ve never dipped quite this dark. For such a small space, we thought the rich warm and moody tones of Urbane Bronze would add drama and dimension and a feeling of luxury, and to be honest, wow. It really does. We freaking love it. Plus our design plans for other parts of the house are going to be leaning into some darker tones, too, so this small refresh was a perfect chance to gear ourselves up for that later on!

One note on painting with darker colors: make sure you purchase a tinted primer so that the paint color doesn’t have to fight the color of a stark white primer as an undertone. The tinted primer we bought was a dark gray and allowed us to get the full richness of Urbane Bronze with just one coat. You can always ask an associate at your local Sherwin-Williams what primer they recommend for the paint color you’re using; that’s what we did and it was super helpful!

While putting together our plans for this room we knew we wanted to add brass elements to further bring out the warmth of the Urbane Bronze. We used our Fontainebleau Chandelier from our good friends at Sazerac Stitches, the same chandelier from our most recent pink dining room (we’ve had multiple pink dining rooms). Early on we knew the wooded manor mirror from Anthropologie would be the centerpiece of the room, and it really works to open the space up a good bit. We’ve been eyeing that mirror for forever and love it so much. We spray painted a curtain rod and clothes rack in an antique brass color to match, and added a new brass wall hook to the right of the mirror.

To add softness, we brought in some creamy tones and natural textures that really pop against the wall color and counterbalance against the brass elements. And for a little unexpected boho twist on this otherwise more traditional room, we paired a tropical areca palm with a tasseled seagrass basket and our old living room rug. To complete the space we got this nice little tufted bench, which give us something to sit at while we stare in the mirror whispering “all dressed up with nowhere to go”. On the opposite side of the room, nestled beneath the window, is a small vintage nesting table and chairs set we got from my cousin’s vintage shop that we adore, styled with a couple books and a foraged bouquet of weeds :).

The fact that most of the items in this space are pieces we’d already owned is really a testament to how much paint can change a space without totally breaking the bank. I’m so happy we were able to find a new place for a few of our older pieces, as well as incorporating some new-to-us vintage items into the room’s design. While we’re currently using the space as a dressing room until our closet and our new bedroom are finished, the calm and tranquil feel of the space have us thinking we may turn it into a yoga room in the future. Can we be those people? I guess so!

Thanks for stopping by the blog sweetie :)

xoxo Beau & Matt

Our Bronze & Brass Dressing Room