Wordchick's Profile

Looks like the kind of clothesline that would be designed by someone who's never used one. As pointed out, it should be in a open, airy, space to maximize the drying power of wind and avoid snarling clothing in nearby flora.

Duane Hill: A clothes line is a line (or lines) strung outdoors to hang clothes up to dry on. I'm curious: where do you live, that this is an unfamiliar idea?

I've also seen "armwah" -- I kid you not.

One more thought: I have seen, either in an RV/camper or one of those super-tiny houses, a stainless steel toilet and sink that are basically *in* the shower, in order to save the maximum amount of space. I imagine they need a fair bit of wiping down; not sure how it works. But the effect is probably that of showering in a phone booth with a toilet crammed in there. I suppose it might be worth living like that for two or three weeks on the road, or if you're super-committed to minimizing your footprint. But I sure wouldn't buy a house where an already small master bedroom had been made smaller with a cramped, atypical bathroom requiring a ton of upkeep.

What is the source for that cabinet handle? It's lovely, and a friend and I are going shopping tomorrow to look for brushed stainless handles to update her almost identical honey oak cabinets.

it's also possible that this woman is mentally unstable herself and possibly her claims are to be taken with a grain of salt. It would be ideal if you could get some other tenants' perspectives on not just this guy, but her, too.

I hope I am understanding your question correctly. The first two pictures represent the bedroom in the house you’re moving into (so it’s someone else’s furniture and décor), and the last picture is the bedroom you’re currently living in, with your actual furniture? I hope I’ve got that right, because I’m basing my advice on it.

And I guess I will be a dissenting voice here (although you’re getting a really wide range of advice generally), because I *would* paint the fireplace. Not just because I am the sort of person who generally prefers painted woodwork, but because I think the fireplace is way too dark and heavy for the room – even if you were to paint the walls a richer, warmer colour, I think the fireplace is still too dark to work well with the floor. (And the colours of the fireplace and the floor clash.) If you are planning to use the dressers that are in the third picture (which have kind of a midcentury modern look to me), I do think it’s going to be quite difficult to pull all these disparate elements together. It will be a little easier if the fireplace is painted to match all the other woodwork in the room. That will also give you much more freedom in choosing colours for walls and accessories, because right now there are so many competing elements I don’t know what to suggest. If the fireplace is white, you can pull colours from the surround (is it tile? Really hard to tell on my monitor), and make that into the focal point of the room. It looks like there are a number of medium greys and greens that would work well. I wouldn’t go too pale or dark in this room.

I also think it would be great if you can avoid putting so much furniture in the end of the room with the fireplace. In this photo, it just looks and feels crammed and a bit chaotic. The eye still goes to the fireplace, but there’s a lot of competition for it. If there isn’t enough storage elsewhere in the bedroom closet/house, maybe some kind of low, wide storage unit at the end of the bed would work better. (I don’t suppose that window seat has been designed to provide storage, has it? On my monitor I can’t tell if the seat opens anywhere; it looks like it might.) The suggestion for maximizing underbed storage is also a good one.

If you have the space and funds for good closet organizers, you may find you can fit more in there than you imagine, and do away with at least one dresser/chest of drawers. We have rows of wooden shelves in our closet, and I lined up a bunch of baskets from IKEA on them. I put all the stuff that was in our dresser drawers in there, and got the dressers out of the bedroom. It works and feels so much better not to have them taking up space in our bedroom. Where the dresser is next to the fireplace, the one with the TV on it, it would be lovely to have a small tub chair in an inviting fabric, as a place to read by the fire. (If there's space; it's hard to judge from these photos.) For a number of reasons, not all of them décor-based, I agree with those who suggest not having a TV in the bedroom. (Although this is something you may not care about, this room has a number of feng shui issues and the TV isn’t helping.)

A custom-made cushion for the window seat would add a feeling of much-needed softness to the room. If you or someone you know is at all handy sewing, you can custom-cut a piece of inexpensive foam rubber for the padding and sew a simple seat cover. It doesn’t have to be an expensive project. No toss pillows, though; the seat is too shallow and too close to the windows for that. If you’re going to leave it uncovered, though, I agree with the person who suggested painting it white to match the rest of the woodwork, because it’s just another choppy, distracting element.

Hope this is some help. This has the potential to be a really wonderful room! I wish our bedroom were this big and bright.