We went to IKEA over the weekend to pick up some shelving for Trevor’s room (stay tuned for that post- when he gets his shelves filled up and his room cleaned I’ll take a picture, but for now you can enjoy this sneak peek):
The primary purpose of that photo was not to showcase one of his new shelves, but rather to showcase his new window treatments: room darkening cellular shades in an off-white-leaning-towards-gray color. Stay tuned for our window treatment post coming soon as well…
But back to the main point of this particular post:
We’ve made another “decorating” decision on our master bedroom!
Here’s the “Before”:
And….drumroll please…….
Ta Da!
OK, there’s a few differences between the pictures so let me direct your focus:
I hung some fabric panels behind our bed! Here’s another view to showcase the panels a little better, along with the detail of our bedding, blah blah blah:
And here’s another view to showcase why the light colored panel is necessary (to bring balance to our room):
And here’s some close-up detail of the panels:
I picked them up from IKEA (hence the first sentence in this post) for about $20 per panel (each panel is 118″ long). Right now the 3 panels are held up with thumbtacks and they are mounted flush to the wall.
I also picked up the mounting tracks/rods/weights from IKEA (for another $40 total) to hang these panels from the ceiling about 1″ from the wall. This is how the track looks (although in this picture it’s mounted to the wall and not to the ceiling).
Here’s where you come in to my plan…..
#1. Do you like the panels? Does this work with our “Old World / Mediterranean” type style or is it too modern?
#2. Should we mount them flush to the wall (so our bed can go against the wall) or use the IKEA mounting system which would have them hanging about an inch from the wall (which I think would be a more modern look)? I would probably disguise the mounting system by hanging a dark barley twist rod in front of it (similar to this):
But here’s my concern with the mounting system…..and where I need more advice from you. If we “hang” the panels loosely, we’d need to move our bed away from the panels so we’re not accidentally tugging on them and pulling them off the track, plus I want to make sure they hang totally straight. I’m thinking the bed would end up about 5″ from the wall to be safe. Having that gap at the head of our bed would be weird- I think- we’d be dropping our pillows and remote down the hole.
Comments please! Do you like it? Does it work? How should I hang them…or should I take them back?
Elisa's Ramblings 
Save the money..hang them flush…it would drive me crazy to have that big of a gap. I’m sure you can come up with (or already have in your head) another way to hang them flush besides thumb tacks…(sticky velcro?, mounting tape?) or disguise the thumb tacks with something slim in front of them….
Looks good! (I love IKEA!)
Thanks Jen! I was thinking about getting some of those decorative thumb tacks (like upholstery tacks) to tack the outer edges of the dark panels (like every 12″ or so) and across the top and bottom of all 3. Or just across the top and use double-stick tape on the sides. Key will be hanging them perfectly straight!!
Can you build a simple inexpensive low headboard (covered in a coordinating fabric) just so your pillows don’t wander, and have the bed out just a couple of inches so the panels can hang freely? ‘Securing’ is the only reason I can see for having the bed right against the panels. And, I think the panels will shift (or possibly fray) somewhat every time you move the pillows against them. Tacking it down you’ll have to be really careful not to have puckers and wrinkles.
I think it will look great either way, and I like them hung from the top of the wall edge. My kids are so clever. Come visit me and help me!!
Thought about building a low headboard, but not sure I want to get into that right now. I think they’ll be ok- minimal shifting of pillows against them…..I’d hope….and if they start to wear we can look at a headboard option at that point!