What I like most about the Heritage bedroom is while all required pieces are accounted for — fancy bed, nightstands and vanity — nothing matches exactly. I don’t mind a bedroom suite, but I rather like the idea that grandma has chosen pieces simply because they spoke to her not because they made up a matched set.
To that end, grandma still needed a dresser. I picked up a furniture and accessories lot from craigslist some time ago, and in it was a Houseworks bow front dresser kit.
I made no changes to the base kit, though I did add a mirror made of frame strip wood.
To fancy up the mirror, I added laser cut embellishments from Heritage Laser Works. They have such great things!
I made sure the dresser wouldn’t be too tall for the corner with the added mirror. I plan to angle the dresser so I can see more of it when looking into the room from the open back. Here I’ve used The Chair from the parlor as a stand in for the one I plan to make. I think everything will fit well in the room without seeming crowded.
I wasn’t keen on wiring this corner, so I picked up a battery operated LED lamp for the dresser. It’s been noted on other blogs and forums that these lights have a blue cast that’s not like candlelight or incandescent bulbs. A Greenleaf forum member, Debora, found a wonderful fix for it. She dotted some peach/orange glass paint on the tip of the bulb. The complementary color softens the blue and makes for much better light. The light from this lamp is actually a bit green.
The paint I had on hand for glass and ceramics wasn’t transparent, but I used just a little bit of it so it didn’t block out too much light. I had to mix red and yellow, but it worked! :D
The red paint on the bulb is somewhat visible when the lamp is off, but I’d rather have a closer approximation of candlelight when the lamp is on, so it’s not really an issue for me.
