Mountain House Reveal: Our Calm Scandinavian Master Bedroom

Here we are in the master bedroom, quite literally my favorite place to wake up in. This house didn’t really have a master bedroom. There were four different common areas, this being one of them, but only three bedrooms, so we turned this former family room into the suite. So today, you’ll see the reveal of it as well as hear how we live in it and what has changed since the shoot 2 months ago.

Let’s revisit this space’s original glory with the text of what we THOUGHT we were going to do:

Emily Henderson Lake House Before Upstairs Living Room 1 2 New 2

As you can see, there was a stairway up from the downstairs family room and you guys gave me the genius idea to simply get rid of it. We don’t need it and haven’t ever missed it. Getting rid of the stairs made this room so much more usable, not to mention bigger.

Emily Henderson Lake House Before Upstairs Living Room 1 1 New 2

I BARELY remember this space and can’t believe what we turned it into. We changed everything: all new windows, flooring, and the most important thing we did was pop through the ceiling to vault it and then obviously clad it.

Emily Henderson Lake House Before Upstairs Living Room 3 New 2 2

This room (along with the family room beneath it) are the two that changed THE MOST. It’s basically unrecognizable.

First things first: the wood ceiling/floor. Vaulting the ceiling made the room feel HUGE and by putting in four Velux skylights, it’s flooded with light (they have blackout shades on remotes, don’t worry). We got the wood from Ross Alan Reclaimed Lumber and Ross and his team did the most BEAUTIFUL job cladding the ceiling and trimming it out.

We used the same fireplace from Montigo that we did in the Portland house because we loved the indoor/outdoor nature of it, but this time had our GC figure out a custom steel cladding to fit into my Scandi cabin dreams. We LOVE the look of it, and in the winter we used it a decent amount, mostly during the day while I was hanging out in there.

There are a couple of caveats to it, though. The blower is pretty loud outside if you have it up high, so we have it low which doesn’t create THAT much heat if it’s freezing outside. I guess I thought I’d be able to sit with a cup of hot tea in the evening in the snow, but in order to feel that kind of heat, you have to turn the blower up so loud that you can’t really talk.

Oh and the flue is faux and just for looks; you don’t really need it but we loved the drama of it.

You are likely wondering what is behind that headboard wall—it’s the walk-in closet (which just got installed last week so we are shooting it soon). Why did we do this? Because we needed a closet and didn’t want to carve out a big one that would break up the squareness of the room. We could have taken the wall to the ceiling like normal people but it would have made the room feel smaller and we were used to seeing the expanse of the ceiling all the way back.

So Velinda designed this black steel and glass enclosure that made it look intentional and architecturally spectacular (just having it be empty up top could have looked unfinished). I almost scrapped the whole thing because of budget but ultimately decided for a variety of reasons that it was worth ponying up the $15k to build and install the panel and door (more to come). We worked with Bananas and Hammocks on it (they were GREAT if you are in the market for custom steel/glass doors). If you look into the closet (through the mirror reflection), you can see it unfinished with just a dresser…again, we’ll reveal that soon!

That chair was a gift from the Portland project by the local Oregonian maker, Justin Nelson of Fernweh Woodworking.

He said that after we featured it in Portland, his business bumped up and the press flocked. I love nothing more than hearing that we are helping the businesses of small makers. It’s quite possibly the most beautiful chair in the world and I accepted it with absolute honor.

We paired it with a Target table and that awesome Katy Skelton sconce. My apologies that we wrapped up the cord for another shot but you get to see that unedited blip. A good solution would be to have the cord cut to go directly into the outlet without slack, but I doubt I’ll ever actually get to that.

Speaking of sconces, we worked with one of my favorite lighting companies, Allied Maker, on a lot of the fixtures for the house and these might possibly be my favorite. They are so modern and sculptural and give off AMAZING soft ambient light.

In terms of overall lighting in the room, we didn’t put cans in because we didn’t want to break up the ceiling with them. We did, however, put in LED strip lighting on top of the collar ties (horizontal beams) which lights up the ceiling in a beautiful way, but it’s still soft.

As of now, I don’t miss having cans. The sconces provide enough light. I’d imagine during the winter (when it gets dark so early) if I’m getting ready for a nighttime dinner then I MIGHT wish that we had them, but as of right now I never even think about it (we did put them in the bathroom because you need better light there, and there is cool direct track lighting in the closet).

The windows and doors are the same white oak from Marvin we used throughout the house, which are just stunning. We custom-designed the door to have glass panels with really thing frames to let in the most amount of light. I love them so much.

The window treatments are all remote-controlled blackout shades by Hunter Douglas via Decorview. I’ve worked with them so many times and every time they are GREAT. They send an expert to your house and we went room by room to really help advise on what type of shades you want, depending on light and style needs. We wanted something as minimal as possible so we went with an inside mount, in a clean white fabric and it stacks really small, unlike a Roman shade that takes up more of the window. We really wanted the white oak of the window frames to be the feature.

Here’s a GIF below so you can see what they look like when they are down.

Also, above you’ll see that we styled it cleaner at first (then we changed it and made it more relaxed, so that’s why the bedding doesn’t match throughout).

Speaking of bedding, we used a combination of Brooklinen sheets (they are the softest), with a Target duvet and an awesome faux leather bolster from Target’s fall collection (which was originally supposed to be on sale August 25 but they had delays. It’s coming soon and we’ll do a post about it to let you know).

Ha. Here we styled out the bed even MORE messy and made the pillows more casual (the magazine asked for some messier shots). We couldn’t use the bolster styling it this way because it was too long.

The green quilt is Target and that patterned blanket is, well, it’s my favorite blanket in the world that we borrowed from Lost & Found for the shoot (and returned it right after because it’s $750). It’s honestly a work of art, and handmade in America by the designers/artisans so I respect the craft, just couldn’t justify the cost. I did find a good blanket from CB2 that has a similar vibe but not nearly as special.

We saved on the bed by using this super simple and lovely one from Article, knowing that I like to change out bedding a lot and didn’t want a statement bed because the architecture of the space is the highlight. But I did want the room to feel unique, so I found these vintage nightstands on Chairish that we had sandblasted (thanks MidcenturyLA). The bench is super simple, from Rejuvenation, and ties it all together.

The simple white painting is by local LA artist Melinda Forster. I discovered her the flea market and begged her to do another piece for me—thank you Melinda. It’s so quiet and the black frame really picks up the black steel framing and the fireplace.

I love this room more than I ever thought I could. It’s just so simple and easy to live in it, plus the rug (from Lulu and Georgia) is like walking on a cloud and the bed is so comfortable.

On to the what has changed since the shoot or the “what would I change” portion of the post:

I wish we had put a TV in here. I know all the expert advice that you are only supposed to sleep and have sex in a bedroom, but well, I wish we could also marathon Big Little Lies. The faux flue of the fireplace could be taken off and we could mount the TV but it would drastically compromise the design of the room. For now, we just both watch the same laptop in bed, but it’s not a big TV. If I go another year wishing we had a TV, I might try to figure out a better solution.

The fireplace is GREAT that it’s indoor/outdoor and acts as another window, however, it doesn’t have a shade so we have to shove a blanket in the crack and cover it at night. This weekend I might create this DIY idea that is a blackout square of fabric, with magnets sewn into it and see if that works. Obviously there is a solution, but for now, it’s a weird blanket always shoved over it.

The sconces flanking the bed were supposed to be wired with a light switch to control near the nightstand, but that got lost along the way. We will likely bring an electrician back to do this as it’s pretty annoying having to get out of bed and walk all the way to the door to turn off the light before we go to sleep.

Lastly, we moved the tree down to LA and gave it to a friend because I knew that we couldn’t keep it alive and I didn’t want the guilt.

Okay. I hope you guys love it as much as I do. It’s so calm, quiet and comfortable while still being modern and it feels fresh (to me, at least).

A huge thanks again to my team for helping me execute: Velinda took charge of the closet/steel glass design and the fireplace, while Julie helped project manage and design throughout the entire process.

Come back tomorrow for the master bathroom!!