Before:
Jeanne Friedman isn’t Jennifer Mathis’ typical client. The two are best pals from their hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, so when Jeanne said she needed help making over her “depressing” bedroom in the Park West neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, Jennifer jumped on board. Along with spotting steals and finding creative solutions, the name of the game here was teamwork. “We made the bedside tables, the desk, the draperies—even the starburst mirror!—ourselves. But the biggest project was the wall,” says Jennifer, owner of BlueBowl Interiors. “We got the wood by pulling apart old transport pallets. We sanded them and, in a day’s time, paneled the wall with them and coated the whole thing in grey paint. Now it looks like it’s been there forever.”
What They Did:
1. Added horizontal, painted wood detailing to a single wall to add a sense of patina to plain architecture.
2. Anchored the bed on a simple black platform base with drawer storage.
3. Streamlined the color palette. Loud reds and greens were replaced with muted black-and-white bedding and “Gravity” (grey) wall color by Valspar.
4. Framed the windows with white draperies embellished with black panels.
5. Crafted built-in bedside tables from brackets and painted sheets of plywood.
Interior designer Jennifer Mathis (right) and homeowner Jeanne Friedman
Budget Notes
Jennifer and Jeanne pulled off this makeover for a little more than $1,000, scoring deals at Habitat for Humanity and turning raw materials into creative solutions.
