Botanic Bleu: Fall French Bedroom With A New Mattress

How do you create a warm, cozy bedroom with French style?

With cooler weather approaching, now is the time my thoughts turn to ways for making my bedroom warm and cozy. While vacationing on Whisper Mountain, North Carolina this summer, I slept in a plush kingsize bed that was so comfortable that I decided that very next morning it was time for a new mattress at home. A soft, comfy bed is my idea of the most important way to make a bedroom warm and cozy all Fall and Winter.

Goldilocks may have thought that one bed was too hard and one bed was too soft, but there is no such thing as a too soft bed for me, and many beds are way too hard for me. I want to sink into the bed and pull warm covers up, to snuggle under all night, just peeking out my nose.

The new kingsize mattress is way too soft for Goldilocks, but just right for me, and it feels warm and cozy.

What are the things that give a bedroom French style? Those things that evoke a feeling it could be in a house in France? With each change I've made over the past several years, I consciously chose items that are French inspired. Furniture is the most obvious way to create a French style. The carved wooden sleigh bed was new when bought several years ago, but it looks like an antique French bed.

A soft blue and yellow color combination is perfect for a Fall bedroom because it is an often-used color combination that says France and are couleurs (colors) in nature each Fall.

Most of the time my bedroom has blue and white quilts and blankets, and blue toile pillow shams, but this Fall I'm using some bed linens that usually are in a guest bedroom upstairs. The Impressionistic print over the bed is always in my master bedroom, and the floral pillow shams coordinate very nicely with it.

The tapestry depicting Chenonceau Château in the Loire Valley is truly a French pillow cover. On one of the trips that I chaperoned students from the high school where I taught on a trip to England and France, I bought the tapestry in the gift shop at Chenonceau Château, my favorite French château (castle).

Tapestries, pure cotton sheets, cotton matelassé blankets, soft mohair throws, down comforters, and down pillows are the right combination of beddings that say France for me. Indeed, even the word matelassé is French. Matelassé is a quilted, embossed fabric used to make a bed coverlet.

The yellow matelassé blanket is just the thing for taking a quick nap during the day or for snuggling under while reading on top of the bed on a rainy Fall day. What better reading in a French bedroom than Words in a French Life where each chapter is devoted to a French word woven into a short story about the author's life in France?

I love the French style curvy legs, deep carvings, and brown marble top on the sofa table at the end of the bed. I had another sofa table picked out at the furniture store and was at the counter ready to pay for it and schedule delivery when I changed my mind. This sofa table cost more money, but I decided I loved it enough to spend the extra money.

Here's what sits on the sofa table. Yes, a small flat screen television. I love lying on my new soft...soft... soft mattress and watching my favorite television shows.

The other end of the sofa table holds a new Fall fresh floral arrangement. Actually, my sister created it as a sample Christmas arrangement for one of her corporate accounts to see as a choice for centerpieces at their annual Christmas banquet in December.

Sprayed gold ivy vines, leaves, and small pine cones work as Fall touches as well as Christmas touches in the arrangement.

Fleur de lis on the candle holder adds a French touch to the Fall bedroom.

On the wall across from the bed and sofa table is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, an authentic antique French armoire.

The armoire is a French antique that came from a booth in a nearby antique mall over twenty years ago. The dealer had received a shipment of French antiques just before the antique mall was scheduled to close. The dealer wanted to sell everything quickly and gave me a fantastic combination price for this armoire and my breakfast table. Straight from the French countryside, the armoire was very dirty inside and out, and I spent several days cleaning it.

The preserved boxwood wreath hangs on the triple French armoire most of the year. Sometimes, at Christmas time, I hang it on the Impressionist print over my bed.

Finally, a small six-drawer antique French chest holds stationery, pens, papers, office supplies, and a collection of projects needing completing. Most of the things on top and on the wall have their own French-connection stories, including the blue bell that The Long Tall Texan brought me from a Paris flea market, years before I ever made it to France. My first French antique, bought for only a few dollars, long before I realized how much I love all things French...

By changing a few bed linens and adding a Fall fresh floral arrangement, my master bedroom was transformed into a Fall French Bedroom. The only new things are the mattress that is hidden from sight and the flowers in the Fall flower arrangement.

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You may also like reading the following related posts.

Whisper Mountain ~ Special Design, Part 3

Christmas Bedroom 2013

Breakfast Sunspace ~ Favorite Spot

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