Elegant Simplicity: In which I show you the tidy parts of my bedroom, but not the pile of laundry over by the door.

A while back, I read an article by Elizabeth Foss on Marian loveliness, which was fabulous and led me in turn to her website and forums, which have given me an incredible education over the past month or so. The women who post on the 4Real forums are just wonderful, faithful examples of virtue and Marian Christianity, and my family has been blessed by my explorations there.

Anyway, many of the things I've read there have been catalysts for my overhauling my futile, ridiculous attempts at having a "show home" and instead focusing on having an inviting, obviously Catholic home, decorated with love and diligence and not necessarily oodles of cash.

Lately, there has been much talk of "Simple Elegance" in the home, and the ladies who blog came up with a Festival of Loveliness to share some of the things they've done to make a beautiful Catholic home a reality, no matter what the budget or skill level.

I had already been thinking of redecorating our bedroom because in the three years we've lived here, I have not yet found a decorating scheme I really like. I would buy (over and over again) whatever struck my fancy at the local shops, and try again and again to make it all work together. I must have wasted a thousand dollars on bedding sets, cheap wall art, fake flowers, and assorted trinkets to try to make our bedroom lovely. All I got for the money was a headache.

Inspired by the ladies at 4Real, I headed to the Catholic Shop. All I knew is that I wanted a statue of Mary. When I saw this one:

everything else fell into place. The serene, loving expression on her face and the sweet way she holds her Son represent everything I want my home and motherhood to be. I set her on my low dresser and she's the last thing I see before turning off the light and the first thing I see in the morning. What an inspiration!

I asked Mary (the real Mary, not the statue, obviously) to pray for me and help me make my home worthy of her Son since we so dearly want Him to be present here. I suddenly started coming up with ideas that made sense, and finding bargains right and left on things that would transform our room into a true haven of rest for my husband and me.

Here are some pictures .... first up, the whole room (well, as much as will fit in the viewfinder of my camera -- my dresser with the Mary statue, an artistic photo of my wedding bouquet and an Italian vase is out of view as I stood right next to it, up against the wall, to take this photo):

Note the white matelasse bedding - this was on clearance at Pottery Barn Outlet during the tax-free weekend. What a steal. It may seem stupid to have all white bedding when we own a salt-and-pepper tabby cat and are blessed with an often-sticky two-year-old, until you remember the secret weapon for white laundry: bleach. You can ALWAYS get whites back to white. Not so with other colors. Long live white! Also, it's kind of nice to know the second the bedding is dirty -- our previous bedding allowed the cat hair and assorted smudges to sort of blend in, which is gross, when you really think about it.

(The pictures above the bed are of ornate doorways in Europe. I like to have pictures of doorways in my house because it psychologically makes my townhouse, which only has windows at the front and back, seem more open.)

Next up, the reading corner:

This is a theoretical reading corner. No one has ever actually read here. The chair alternately holds clean laundry and/or the cat. Reading is really done in our bed.

This is my nightstand. Note the books, which are not anywhere near the faux "reading" corner. I read a lot of books. There is a stack of another five books on the floor, not shown here. The flowers are fake, which puts the "simple" in Simple Elegance because I kill real plants. The mirrored case holds my rosary. The clock, while adorable, is a cheapie $8 Timex from K-mart. Though it looks like it should ring like an old fashioned alarm clock, it has an annoying electronic beep for an alarm. Just below the open shelf are two drawers which hold more books and magazines (of course), as well as my thermometer, a notepad and a pen for NFP purposes.

Here is another view of my nightstand:

I highly recommend the handy 6-outlet adapter you see in the background there. I can have the reading lamp, baby monitor, laptop computer AND cell phone charger all plugged in at once. Oh, joy!

Here, you can see my husband's night stand:


Same deal - books (like mine, mostly faith-related), pictures of family, and he also has the CD player, which I use to play either books-on-CD or soft, spiritual music depending on whether I'm relaxing or working in there.

Here is the top of my husband's dresser, which is one of the most special spots in the house for me:


I don't know if you can see in the small picture, but there are pictures of both sweet and important moments in our family -- our wedding day, the day of my baptism, my husband's first father's day, some very cute pictures of our son -- and then two other very important family members in the form of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I keep my nicest perfumes off to the side, and in the center of it all is a beautiful Crucifix that I found after I had already bought the Mary statue, and when I got it home realized they are complementary to each other, from the same line (Roman, Inc.).


I like how realistic it is, without being too graphic (i.e. bloody). I like to pray in front of it and it helps me to truly see Jesus as man, especially when I turn every once in a while to face the similarly realistic statue of His mother holding Him as a babe-in-arms. Those two inexpensive little pieces of art have done much for my prayer life in the past month or so.

So there you have it. My bedroom. I have tried to make it a sanctuary, and I feel like I've done a good job. The entire room is focused on family and faith and tranquility. The colors were chosen to be soothing and seasonless, so that they'll feel just as inviting mid-summer as in the dead of winter. The fabrics on the bed are high quality to the point where every night when I get into my bed, I think, "This is what heaven must feel like," followed by "Wow, heaven will be BETTER than this. Amazing." (The sheets that will make you meditate on heaven, incidentally, are Pure Beech sateen, $80 for a Queen set at Bed Bath and Beyond. My husband usually balks at those kinds of prices, but when he touched these, he told me to go buy two more sets. They are incredible.) Most of all, I've tried to make the room reflect us, and it does that. My husband would hate anything too overtly feminine or floral, so this works for us. He loves it as much as I do.