Questioning My Choices On Bedroom Details – Drapery Trim And Headboard Fabric

So let’s talk through a few details about this bedroom. Yesterday, the trim for the draperies arrived, so I brought everything into the room to get a look at it.

First, there’s the bird fabric that I plan to use on the headboard (I think — that’s one of the things I’m questioning). On top of that, you can see the orange/coral fabric that I plan to use on the welt cord around the upholstered headboard. And on top of that, you can see the actual grasscloth wallpaper, which is a bit darker and richer in color than the current wall color. And then on the left is the drapery fabric and the trim that came in yesterday.

My first impression when I saw the trim was that it was fine. It’ll do. I mean, when you buy discount trim instead of the $50-per-yard trim, you get what you pay for. It’s pretty. It’s a bit brighter than what I hoped for. But it’ll do.

But then I accidentally flipped it over so that the backside showed, and I loved it so much more. On the back, the dominant color is the orange, and the accent color is the creamy white. I think that looks so much better.

Here’s an up close view of the trim on the right side. You can see that the background is like a satin finish. It’s kind of shiny. I’m just generally not into shiny finishes.

But here’s the backside. I LOVE how that looks. It’s much bolder, which I like. It’s not shiny, which I REALLY like. So I’m going to use the trim with the backside showing instead of the front, as I had originally planned.

But I still think it’s just a touch too bright. All of it — the orange and the white — seem a little too bright for the rest of the items in the room. So I think I’m going to try to do something to tone it down ever so slightly. I don’t want it to be completely dull and dark. I just want to do something to knock down that brightness just a slight bit. The only thing I can think of is to tea stain it with a very weak tea. I’m pretty sure it’s been over a decade since I’ve tea stained fabric, but thankfully, I have six extra yards of this trim that I can play around with. If there’s a different way to take away some of the brightness that you know of, other than tea staining, let me know and I’ll test out that method as well.

The next thing I’ve been wondering about is the headboard. Let’s go back to this mockup I’ve shown y’all a thousand times in the recent weeks. And you can see that my original plan was to use that bird fabric on the actual headbaord.

For example, here’s our bed from our previous bedroom…

Look at how much of the headboard is covered up. Now imagine that headboard being upholstered with my pretty bird fabric, and you can see that most of it would be hidden. It would make more sense to put the pretty fabric on the big pillows, right?

So now that I’m ready to actually make the headboard (that’s the next project on my list), I’m second-guessing. Of course, another option would be to go much bigger with the headboard. Instead of doing the rectangle shape with the curved corners that I had decided on, I could actually go bigger/taller with it. I could actually go back to the shape that’s pictured in the mockup above. That would allow more of the headboard to show even with big pillows in front of it. That’s what I did way back in our condo bedroom. That bedroom had a patterned fabric on the headboard, but because it was a very tall headboard, the patterned fabric still showed even with the big pillows in front.

Of course, now that I’m ready to actually make the headboard, I’m second-guessing myself. 😀 It’s just what I do.

So the options are:

1. Keep the headboard shorter and rectangle with the curved corners, but cover it in a solid fabric. That would allow room above the headboard for artwork, and then I could use the bird fabric on the actual bedding — two big pillows against the headboard and possibly a duvet cover; or,
2. Keep the bird fabric on the headboard, but go with a taller, curvier shape so that it will still show even with two big pillows resting against it.