Progress Report

First, I must apologize. Last week was pretty much a wash for me. Helping to take care of my in-laws and volunteering at my children's school left little time to write a blog post, let alone read or comment on any of yours. What free time I did have I used to write a guest blog post for another blog. I'm trying to get caught up and back into the swing of things, so I thought I would show you some progress I've made on my bedroom. It actually got kick-started when I found some great (and rather inexpensive) chests at a local antique mall.

I was immediately drawn to them and loved their style. While they're not exactly matching they have the same black lacquer base and top with the fronts being dark walnut stained, and both are in excellent shape. 

Of course, one has drawers with massive brass handles and the other has cabinet doors with a shelf inside. 

Both have slight gilded details which seem to have worn off a bit but that I'm thinking of enhancing possibly with some Rub-n-Buff. When I opened the top drawer and saw this, I knew I was in good shape:

Ah, Henredon. I knew they had to be fine quality after seeing that, and the antique mall employee told me the man who brought them in said they were his mother's pride and joy. I could tell. Of course, I got home and did some research on Henredon furniture pieces, and what do you think I found? You guessed it - the same piece (the chest of drawers, at least) only in white lacquer on 1st Dibs . . . 

Source: 1stdibs.com via My Interior Life on Pinterest

And get this, the 1st Dibs site attributes them to Dorothy Draper for Henredon and lists the pair of them for sale at $5,200! I will tell you I didn't pay even one-twentieth that price for mine. Now, I don't have any way to verify that they're Dorothy Draper other than the 1st Dibs listing. All I kept finding when I typed in Dorothy Draper for Henredon was the rather famous Espana chest that everyone in blogland is so familiar with . . .

Source: 1stdibs.com via My Interior Life on Pinterest

I don't really care what they are . . . I just like the way they look and think they coordinate nicely with the Asian panels I got from Tag a while back.

I finally hung them the way I've seen other people on blogs do gallery walls . . . trace the pieces on brown paper then put them up and nail through the paper for perfect placement.

Love this idea, and it worked like a charm.

While I still haven't found the perfect bedding yet (duvet, bedskirt and Euro shams), I did pick up a faux fur throw at Marshall's and mocked up a yellow bolster pillow with some fabric and trim I had. 

Here's a reminder of what my bedroom looked like before . . 

I think the darker bedside chests ground the bed a little more and contrast better with the light headboard. While there's still work to do, I really like the direction it's headed.

Progress is a good thing in my book. What do you think?

You have read this articleAsian / bedside tables / Dorothy Draper with the title Progress Report. You can bookmark this page URL http://ethiopiaawatch.blogspot.com/2012/02/progress-report.html. Thanks!

Write by: AN - Monday, February 20, 2012