Bedroom Redesign Post #3: Sheets of Egyptian Cotton

Anyone remember the cheesy song from this movie with Brittany Murphy some years ago?

Well, we did not purchase Egyptian cotton sheets for our newly designed bedroom, but we did get a significant upgrade in terms of comfort and style than our previous arrangement.

Starting out, I knew that I wanted four things: one, a duvet cover to slip over our current comforter until we are able to buy a real down comforter. There are a few at Macy's and IKEA I have been coveting for the last several months. Alas, our wedding gift cards can only go so far and they went mainly to our new cookware, stand mixer, and a new set of knives--pretty good loot, but plans for a down comforter have been put on the back burner. Since we have a perfectly good comforter (and no second bed to put the soon-to-be discarded one), I decided a duvet cover was the best bet.

My second requirement was that it somehow tied together our pale yellow walls (we rent so no painting allowed) and the newly painted dresser, which was a steel blue color (more about the dresser in a future post!). Looking back, I would probably try to find fabric first then paint, but it all worked out in the end, as you will see. It just took more driving around and more sleuthing than if I would have just waited to paint :)

My third requirement was that the design not be too masculine or feminine. The comforter we had at the time was from before J and I lived together and was definitely more masculine than I preferred. At the same time, I did not want to settle for something that screamed feminine. Our bedroom is a shared space and I wanted the fabric choices to reflect that.


My final requirement was that it hide cat hair better than our previous comforter. While one side had solid stripes (as you can see from the picture) the other side was a dark brown. Not a great color for orange cats, especially ones that like to crawl under the covers at night and leave their hair everywhere. While we found a pretty inexpensive solution to the hair, I wanted something that would hide it better between treatments.

With these criteria in mind, I headed to a few stores to find the perfect comforter for our redesigned bedroom. We had originally wanted this duvet cover from Macy's, but since this duvet will only last us a few years (we hope to eventually get a bed bigger than the full we have now), I didn't want to necessarily spend that much money on something that will eventually end up on our guest bed (when we have one)!

The first stop was Target, which had some great options online, including this beautiful grey and yellow duvet. Unfortunately, they did not have any DwellStudio duvets at the Target we frequent and I didn't quite feel comfortable buying a duvet cover sight unseen. Most of the other wares at the store were all comforters. Strike Target.

The next stop was Bed, Bath and Beyond. We found two reasonably good options there: this citron and grey duvet and this amber and grey option, both of which would have been great if I hadn't already painted the dresser steel blue. Strike Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Our next stop was Urban Outfitters. My friend Ashlee had recently gotten a duvet cover there, so I thought I'd try my luck there as well. Online I had seen this beauty but after we called the local Urban Outfitters, we learned they did not have that one in stores. Because of my aversion to buying duvets online without seeing them first in stores, I about gave up hope. Ashlee then had the idea to go to the local Urban to see what else they might have that could work. That's when we struck gold. With this sweet little number. It had the exact blues that were in my dresser, yellows, and was bright and cheery without screaming feminine or masculine from the top of its lungs. It was (and is) perfect! Even better, it complimented our existing sheet set enough that I didn't need to buy new sheets! Success!!

I opted to just buy the duvet cover and not the shams that go with it. Because the pattern is bright, I decided to bring in solid colored pillows and bedskirt in coordinating colors from the pattern. I bought both of these at Walmart, which has a fairly decent selection of colors, I might add.
One great bonus of the Urban Outfitters' duvet covers is that they come in these handy little bags, which was great to tuck into my purse when I went shopping for pillows and a bedskirt. No guessing on the right colors only to bring them home to find out they are slightly off.
As far as pillows, I had two dark brown pillows from the living room that I moved to the bedroom, and I slipcovered a third one in a gold color. None of these colors were in the pattern, but they compliment it well, so it didn't matter.
Woods likes the new duvet cover a lot, especially when it hides some of the many hairs he leaves for us as presents. He is not so thrilled that I took this picture of him however. You would think with all the photos I take of him, he would be used to it by now! If you look close, you get a sneak peak of the dresser, my next redesign post!
So there you go, a somewhat long post on how, with a little leg work, we found the perfect duvet cover to compliment our newly designed room! Next up, how I repainted a dresser (sneak peak above) and our existing furniture to match! Stay tuned!