I'll start with a few before pictures. Mr. W didn't paint anything when he bought the house. I kept thinking that if we converted the basement to living space, we might be able to eliminate the furnace chimney that runs through our closet. As a result I never painted this room because I thought I'd want to strip all the painted over wall paper and get new carpet too. The walls and angled dormer ceiling were a light butter yellow. I wanted an all white bed so the butter sort of worked with that anyway. When we were married my grandmother and mother made a double wedding ring quilt for us and I picked out white and off white fabrics. I also had so ivory matlesse pillow shams. The bed I coveted for years in a gardening catalog, Gardener's Eden or Smith & Hawkin? I love wrought iron beds and I loved the curves on this one.
I also made purple silk curtains.I have had this dressing table since 1997 when I first moved out on my own into a bungalow in Sellwood with 2 roommates.
With one bungalow bathroom to share between us I realized I needed a spot in my room where I could do the majority of my morning routine so that other ladies could get in to shower and brush teeth. I bought an inexpensive desk at Stars Antique Mall, a fresh coat of paint, and new hardware from Restoration Hardware (using my employee discount, of course) I also had a glass top made to so make up spills would be easier to wipe up. Then this dressing table moved to New York and back. It became a bit beat down, but still served its purpose.
So the room looked nice enough, if not a bit cramped.Over time though I felt like we needed a more coordinated look and new bedding so I bought a lavender Hollywood Regency style set at Macy's. I began to fantasize about painting the walls a purpley grey. Grey wool carpet. I longed for a bedroom make over but it wasn't a top priority for Mr. W. Once we decided to sell though we knew we needed to replace the gross green carpet in the two unfinished bedrooms. There was left over, unopened paint from my sister's condo, so we decided to use that grey from her bedroom in ours and the blue from her living room in our office. Here's a first coat of the grey.
And with paint complete. I'll admit I was a little worried it might be too dark, and since we have grey skies so often in Portland I question the logic of grey walls, but I am really pleased with how it turned out.
Since we were moving we initially planned to use the same grey, nylon carpet we used for my sister. But in the end, Mr W felt it was worth the relatively small upcharge to go with wool. It will be better to market the house with another green product AND in case we end up staying we'll have better quality carpet for ourselves. There aren't a lot of grey carpet options so we went with this one from . Macadam flooring did the installation. 
We moved most of our furniture back in with the exception of my lingerie cabinet. I'm giving the dressing table a makeover.
This view shows how high the ceilings are once you are in the room and all the light provided by the skylight.
This dresser we bought at Restoration Hardware. We had been searching high and low trying to findsomething wide enough to fit in this nook to maximize our stotage space. We had given up the search and had resigned ourselves to having something made at The Joinery. Don't get me wrong, we wanted a nice piece of furniture from The Joinery, but is seemed such a shame to spend $4K on something that no one would ever see but him and me. Then we found this black stained dresser at Resto for half the price and we were sold. TheI totally scaled back the items on our dresser to sell.
I reused the same curtains. I bought the purple dupioni silk and ribbon trim years ago at Daisy Kingdom before they went out of business. Then I got frustrated sewing them and put off the project for several years. My second attempt was a snap; it's all straight lines! I lined them with flannel to improve drape and to give a bit more thermal insulation over our then single paned windows. (Although now we have nice retro fitted double panes)
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