BEDDING — Inside the Home

Sheets Chic

How To Wake Up Happy With Shabby Chic Bedroom Furniture

If, first thing in the morning, you tend to look a little less chic than shabby, then why not get some shabby chic bedroom furniture to help? Actually, shabby chic furniture won't help you wake up fully coiffeured and ready for the smart parts of town, but it will make you wake up feeling that you're returning to a happy place.

 

Shabby chic is a style which has been hugely popular for a long while, but which has rapidly gained in popularity in the last few years, largely as a result of more retailers selling such furniture. Years ago the only real way of getting shabby chic bedroom furniture was to create the look yourself, which was often very time consuming, and not always terribly successful.

 

First of all the furniture has to be chic and stylish. If the style of the furniture is too modern, too fancy, too old or too bland then no matter what you try to do with it, it's unlikely to ever look chic. Shabby, yes. Chic, unlikely.

 

But if you were able to get a good piece of furniture then the technique involved painting it, say gold, green or brown, and then letting the paint dry before painting it again in a totally contrasting colour such as white or cream. Because you were painting a pale colour over a darker one it was often necessary to add two or three coats.

 

When the paint had dried the next task involved getting a sheet of sandpaper and artistically sanding key areas, such as corners, edges and raised details, being those parts of the furniture which would have been most worn or knocked over the years. By sanding the top layers of paint away to reveal the colour underneath you could create a shabby chic look that quickly made a nice piece of furniture look like a classic item that's been handed down the generations as a valuable heirloom.

 

It was a technique often used on TV, but in real life it was messy, very time consuming, and didn't always work out successfully. Today it's possible to buy a whole range of very stylish shabby chic bedroom furniture, including shabby chic beds, mirrors, wardrobes, armoires and dressing tables, and by adding a few well chosen accessories such as scatter cushions, throws, vases, lamps and curtains, a very stylish look can be achieved.

 

Lighting is important of course, and a subtle yet beautiful French chandelier works beautifully well in a shabby chic room, providing an atmosphere that suggests a timeless sense of style. It's very reminiscent of an old French château or French farm cottage, and one can't help but suspect that by doing a bedroom up with shabby chic furniture, somehow the view through the window ought to magically transform from Milton Keynes on a rainy Tuesday morning to the verdant rolling vineyards of the Lore Valley on a warm summer's day. Probably a Sunday. It's always a lazy Sunday afternoon in the Loire Valley.

 

So by choosing a few key items of shabby chic bedroom furniture you can not only save yourself quite a bit of time, but you can stop it completely, at least until you open the curtains.

About the Author

Sweetpea & Willow are a leading supplier of stunning shabby chic bedroom furniture including a wide selection of beautiful shabby chic beds and accessories.

Where can I find good bed sheets. ?

I want either funky or original good quality bed sheets. Where could I find them. Please don't say Ebay I've searched and not found.
Sailing Chic

Lands End has some great quality bed sheets. Not too much in the funky category, though. Most of their stuff is a little conservative.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 1:45 pm and is filed under bedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.