Looking for some simple and helpful ideas for a main bedroom refresh? We recently updated our bedroom and now I never want to leave it!

I honestly did not even realize how badly we needed a bedroom update until we slapped up the grid wall in my youngest daughter’s bedroom in the summer of 2020.

We had a good friend of ours do a pallet accent wall in our main bedroom about seven years earlier which I loved at the time.

And then 2020 rolled around and I just needed everything to be cheery.

And bright.

Thus my quest for some simple and helpful ideas for a bedroom refresh began.

And I realized how much I just didn’t like the darkness of that pallet wall anymore.

Or the browns.

OR THE QUEEN SIZED BED!!!

Omg how on earth did my husband and I last 25 years of marriage in a queen size bed??!!

Tell me below – are you still in a queen sized bed? Cuz OMG I got a king size bed last summer and now even staying in a queen at a hotel is TORTURE 😂.

Here is the before. Well technically there is a before the before but I cannot seem to find a single photo of my bedroom before we did the pallet wall 🤷‍♀️.

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In a rush?

Added a Built In with Window Seat for Storage

One of the first changes we made to our main bedroom from that before photo above was to add storage to our room.

A lot of it!

Our builder grade home builder pretty much forgot about storage.

Like completely.

Not sure how or why he did that.

But luckily for me, I am a Pinterest addict and have found creative ways to add storage to a house lacking in it.

One of those ways is built ins.

And window seats.

So I had the same friend that did my pallet wall, also build me a storage cabinet in my room.

For those of you that follow me on Instagram, you know my husband is an avid guitar player.

And we own A LOT of musical instruments. Said instruments need to be stored someplace.

So this bedroom built in is very helpful in storing bedding, pillows, AND guitars!

This is the photo of the corner of our bedroom BEFORE:

And this is the after:

It makes such a huge difference in our room – doesn’t it?

Plus I just love to sit on that window seat and stare out the window :).

You can find my post with all the built ins in my house here!

Changed the Rug

About three years ago, I replaced my brown Pottery Barn rug with a more neutral blue and gray rug :).

It was the start of the lightening and brightening of the room I guess!

The exact match of my current rug is not available anymore but I found something really close for you here.

Upsized to a King Size Bed and Mattress

Like I mentioned above – up until last July, my husband and I had been sleeping in a queen size bed (for the 28 years we have been married!!).

Whenever any of my girlfriends would be up in my bedroom (like last summer when I was excited to show all of them my main bathroom remodel which you can read all about here), they would ALWAYS comment ‘how on earth are you sleeping in such a small bed?!’

And now that I have a king size bed, I am wondering the same dang thing!

We have been sleeping on this Mattress Firm mattress since last July and my review is that IT IS AWESOME!

Before we switched, I had a lot of neck and back pain – which I kept thinking was just because I had just turned 50 😂.

And then I got this better mattress and realized turning 50 was not the reason for the aches and pains ;).

The bed frame is from Living Spaces and you can find it here.

Bought a Cabinet for Storage

I mentioned the lack of storage in my builder grade home above.

And in the last few years, I have finally been resourceful enough to come up with solutions to that problem.

Again – don’t ask what took me so long… I have no answers to that 😂.

The cabinet I bought and made a few changes to is no longer available however I found a pretty close dupe for you here!

And you don’t have to paint the back of the cabinet like I had to.

I added linen curtain material to the bottom half of my cabinet so that I could hide all the random things I needed storage for and not see any of it!

I have an Instagram highlight showing you everything I did to the cabinet that you can find on my Instagram account!

Changed the Accent Wall

And thennnn we changed the pallet wall to a grid accent wall!

This is when my love affair with my bedroom refresh was becoming real.

We just did this project in June 2021 and I still wake up every morning and stare at how pretty it looks ;).

I have written a step by step tutorial for you on how to do a grid wall here.

Added a Bench at Foot of Bed

Once we changed that pallet wall to the grid wall, I didn’t like the way the mini sofa at the end of my bed was distracting from the view.

Plus as I have mentioned a few times – I am looking for ways to add storage to my house.

So when I found this storage bench online at Living Spaces and the price was PERFECT – I got pretty excited ;).

Painted Dresser and Bed Stands

But of course, I couldn’t leave it at that.

We have two dressers that are rarely seen in photos on the left side of our bed that are different species of wood and stain colors.

One of them is super special to us as it was the very first piece of furniture that we bought at an estate sale in New York when we first got married. We hmmmed and hawwed over if we should splurge on the $150 asking price for the dresser. And now we both love it.

Maybe someday I might try to stain it a lighter color and change the handles but for now – it is still a reminder of our simpler days and I treasure that.

The longer one on the other hand came from Ethan Allen when we first moved to San Diego in 2000 (by the way – if you happen to be interested in learning more about me – you can go read my story here).

So in my quest to lighten and brighten as many things in the house as I could in 2020/2021- painting that dresser was kind of inevitable…

Changed the Gallery Wall

I didn’t have the best wall decor before all these bedroom refresh ideas were put into place.

In fact – I don’t even have any photos of the wall decor above my dressers because I kinda always knew it didn’t look right.

Tell me I am not the only one that did a bedroom refresh in her own bedroom after all the kids’ bedrooms looked perfect?

Although, I guess if you are reading this post, that pretty much gives me my answer – doesn’t it?

Frame it Easy is who I turned to for help updating the big wall above my dressers.

I have an entire blog post dedicated to how to do a gallery wall that you can read here!

Got New Bedding

And lastly but certainly not least, I got new gorgeous bedding!

The beautiful duvet and Euro duvet shams are from Scandia Home.

I didn’t even think my room could get any prettier until I switched out my old covers for these blue accented items.

Not sure if I have ever mentioned it before but blue is by far my very favorite color and just looking at my new bedding makes me happy 💙.

You can find the blue throw here and the accent pillow here.

I hope this post gave you some inspiration for simple and helpful ideas for a bedroom refresh!

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Have a wonderful day my friend! I hope something makes you smile today ;).