Our Paris Meets Midcentury Modern Bedroom

[image: my bedroom, which has blue walls with picture frame trim, a plant, a large low bed with white bedding on which my dog is sitting]

Start with the furniture.

When we bought our home, we knew we’d want to upgrade to a king size bed. Jackson is 6’3” and has always had his feet dangling off the edge of the bed, so we both went big and went home and splurged on the California king. This size choice did limit our options in terms of frames and mattresses a bit, but we love what we found! We ended up with a Tuft and Needle mattress on top of our low profile Andes Acacia bed from CB2. We are obsessed with the bed frame. Plus it incorporates nightstands into its headboard, meaning we were able to roll in our budget for nightstands to get the bed frame we really wanted.

Know your style.

We describe our shared style as midcentury modern with a coastal California vibe and some serious color (we especially love gem tones). My sister once described our style as Mad Men but set in Cuba. Last year, though, we spent a month traveling all through France and Belgium and stayed in some really lovely homes and hotels. We wanted to incorporate some of the finer grain details that French and Belgian architecture and design taught us. Enter: picture frame trim.

Before we get into what we actually did, here are some of the images that inspired our bedroom.

[image: A screenshot of my Pinterest board that inspired my bedroom]

There are many different ways to upgrade a flat wall with some exciting trim work. My childhood bedroom had a double chair rail, for instance. And we considered doing some board-and-batten paneling in a guest room at one point. (Guest room design is up next; stay tuned).

After looking around for a bit, we decided to go for some more ornate trim work but stick with a single color for walls and trim. It felt like a pretty bold move. I think a lot of our friends thought we were a little looney when we kept describing “so all this is going to be one color: walls, doors, trim, everything you see” BUT here we are and we love it.

BEFORE

This image is from the listing of the home before we bought it.

[image: a room staged with white and orange furniture and beige walls]

AFTER

Surprisingly, the trim and large bed make the room feel much bigger than before.

[image: the same as the first image on this web page]

This master bedroom from Alisa at A Glass of Bovino was probably the most helpful walk-through from scratch to final product on the trim. Reading her post also showed us just how impactful a bit of trim could be. All in, the trim and paint was around $500. We were able to borrow friends’ miter saws, saw tables, nail guns, and TIME (most important - it’s not a quick project). We couldn’t have done it without help since this was very much our first trim rodeo. We would now be much faster at putting up, say, crown moulding in the living room (hint hint, Jackson).

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HOW TO ADD CUSTOM PICTURE FRAME TRIM

Measure and Tape Everything.

A big part of this room was the measuring, re-measuring, and leveling of all the trim. The actual nailing-the-trim-to-the-wall part doesn’t take very long at all. Since we had the furniture first (which I highly recommend if you’re doing a more detailed pattern), we used the width of the bed frame to determine the size of the rectangles we wanted on either side of it and above it.

Start by measuring the width of each wall on which you want to put trim. We had a few things interrupting our walls like a closet, a window, and doors to the hallway and the master bath. What you’ll want to do is measure the un-interrupted space and split that up evenly by however many boxes you have. Don’t forget to account for the space you want to go between the boxes. We had 3” between each box here and made that match around the room. So, every box is also 3” above or below the chair rail and the crown moulding.

So if we had a wall that was 100”, we’d want to do 3 boxes that were 3” apart from each other and from the edges of the wall (so 5 segments of 3” spacing)

= 100-(3x5) = 85.

Divide that by 3 boxes = 28.33”

Each length for the bottom and top of the three boxes would be 28.33” long and then the vertical sides of the boxes would be however high up to the ceiling minus the 3” spacing at the top.

It sounds more complicated than it is, but it’s just complicated enough that you’ll want to check your measurements twice. It’s also tricky because everyone’s room is different, so no tutorial can effectively say “Just cut x inches of trim and staple it up and there you have it!” Scaling is a pain in the butt and it’s maybe the most important part of this project. We decided to use blue tape to measure and draw out all the boxes after we’d done the math but before we cut any trim. I highly recommend it.

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Cut all your trim.

First, Jackson and our friend Alec put up the crown molding and the chair rail; this is the hardest part because its continuousness around the room requires pieces of trim to be coped.

Once all the picture frame trim was cut, it took us probably 2 hours to get it all onto the wall.

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Paint it all.

Once you’ve got all your trim on the wall, you’ll want to use wood filler to cover nail holes in the trim and to caulk all the seams where the trim meets the wall. I know this sounds tedious and that’s because it is. But it is worth it for the final look. You won’t want to be going back over your already painted wall to caulk and repaint down the road so just trust me on this one. It’s a little scary to start painting a whole room one color. We even painted the sides of the doors that faced in to the room so it’s like a cozy cave when the doors are shut.

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THE FINAL RESULT

We. Love. It. It’s so lush and romantic. We feel like we sleep in a posh hotel room every night.

We got our fabulous velvet curtains from West Elm in the wasabi color. We went for their midcentury modern double curtain rod with the brass ends to match our night lights, which were from Target a while back.

Down the road, we’re swapping out our vintage French armoire for a low midcentury dresser. We’re saving up to commission a custom piece for over our bed and we’re still on the hunt for the right rug and pillows.

What do you think?! Would you put picture frame trim in your home?