This Designer Transformed Her Bedroom Using the Smartest Paint Trick
Upon moving into an circa-1860 Italianate farmhouse in Tecumseh, Michigan, Angie Lane dove into a critical kitchen and bath remodel, leaving the primary bedroom in limbo. "It was a mattress on a platform frame and not much else," confesses the designer, who finally committed to sprucing it up to shoot for the cover of her book, Midwest Modern Manifesto. "I ran with the idea of the room as an abstract version of a landscape painting," she explains. Across the floors, wall, and 10-foot ceilings, she painted a red band, "which creates a 'frame,'" and then within that leaned into nature motifs for the accents and furnishings.
The backdrop to a gallery wall of woody treescapes is Nuvole, the iconic cloud pattern by Fornasetti for Cole & Sons. "The majority of the budget went into the wallpaper, and it was so worth it. It’s so beautiful close-up and so subtle from a distance," says Lane.
Centering the bed on the wall between two windows, the designer then added a custom paneled headboard by altering a door she'd made for a showroom—this way it didn't go to waste. Thick velvet curtains add some verticality and drama, while a punchy floral duvet keeps the playful vintage vibe alive.
Q&A
House Beautiful: How does the space function better now?
Angie Lane: Since I am the client, I can firmly tell you it was a game-changing transformation. It feels like a real room now, and beyond that, it’s so comforting to be surrounded by things you love while having that sense of being within something, which is what that red frame creates.
HB: How did you create the headboard?
AL: I had designed an elaborate, large panel door for a showhouse space and just couldn’t part with it. Then had the idea to repurpose it into a headboard. The panel had to be cut down and reconfigured, and the openings in the door were upholstered to be solids instead of voids (my first time reupholstering anything!). Figuring out how to mount it was a whole other story—there was definitely a large amount of profanity involved. Finding studs in an old plaster wall is difficult, and we were also dealing with clearing the existing window casing so it was a bit of a puzzle. We ended up doing a French cleat which allowed us to hide the mounting detail while letting us be flexible with the thickness of the cleat to clear the window trim.
HB: How much of it did you DIY?
AL: Ah, yes. I hate DIY because I’m not good at it, but this one was 100% DIY. The repurposed door panel for the headboard—that was all me. I also upholstered the two Facebook Marketplace vintage side chairs. I painted the floors, the walls, and even did the wallpaper (which was so much less daunting that I thought it would be). For the nightstand lamp, I had the lamp base and covered a shade from a broken lamp with fabric. My husband wired the light but, literally, everything was me.
HB: What’s your favorite part of the space?
AL: My favorite moment in the space is the notch created by the two different size pieces of the headboard and the artwork within that space. I drew that temple and I just love that shade of blue. There’s something about how all those elements and colors come together right there; the geometry of the lines of the headboard, the softness of the floral upholstery and the cloud wallpaper, and the bright blue of the artwork.
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