Welcome to my newest blog series, Annie’s Home Style.
You guessed it, it’s all about my personal design style, featuring my biggest (and never ending) project, my own home! I decided to start the series with the room I get the most questions about, my primary bedroom. Now before I get into the details, there is one very important person you need to meet.
This is my partner, Ryan
Ryan and I bought this ranch style house in Old Seminole Heights a little over 5 years ago, gutted it, and gave it a complete renovation (don’t worry blog coming on that process too). It’s been quite the project.
Important things to know about Ryan for this design series:
Ryan is drawn to modern lines, leather, wood, and dark hues.
He cares about good quality and researches absolutely everything.
Loves technology, can honestly be entertained for hours with a new gadget.
He works with me at Ann Cox Design!
In case we haven’t met yet, Hi! I’m Annie!
You all might already be aware of my design style if you are following me on Instagram or Pinterest but here is a little more context:
I love COLOR! In interior design and in my personal style. This shows through my constant changing hair color and nail designs.
Pleasing color palettes and mixing patterns is my happy space.
My personal design aesthetic would be a mix of modern, organic, and boho, but with a contemporary spin.
As I mentioned before, we completely gutted this house and renovated every aspect of it. For those of you who are familiar with the neighborhood we live in, Seminole Heights, know that these old homes are usually built in the 1950s and have a very beautiful aesthetic to them. Keeping to the original style of the home while still modernizing it was extremely important to us.
Which leads me to our first “must have” for designing our primary bedroom, the wood floors. These old homes have very specific wood floors and for anyone who has also renovated one of these old Tampa homes, you know how hard it is to match. Luckily we didn’t have any major architectural issues when renovating the primary bedroom, just replacing some floor joists, but we did have to get the whole back part of the house threaded into the original wood floors from the 1950s. It was 100% worth it.
The only other fun hiccup we had with this part of the renovation was the squatter. Ryan’s mom went to check in on the renovation for us when we were visiting my aunt in Colorado, and she found residue of what was clearly a fire used to cook squirrels in our primary bedroom. Luckily the person had left before she got there, but he left his dinner, so that was interesting. (sorry no photos for this part of the story)
Okay! Now on to the fun stuff, designing!
The best part about working with Ryan everyday is that when it came to designing our primary bedroom, he ultimately trusted my choices and went with what I wanted. He is a pretty easy going guy and knows I know best (when it comes to designing). He definitely provided input when it came to researching the quality of all of the products I selected and making sure our mattress was incredibly comfortable. We have a purple mattress and we love it.
We ultimately landed on a design that was a good blend of both our styles. Our primary bedroom is our ultimate oasis that combines some boho design elements, a lot of clean lines, a pop of color and some quirky contemporary pieces.
Bed and nightstands: Greenington; Mattress: Purple
Art: Wendover Art Group; Lamp: Surya
Accent pillows: Loloi
Mirror: Selamat and Justina Blakeney collaboration; Art: Justina Blakeney; Hanging Planter: Tampa based creator Elizabeth McTague
My favorite part about our primary bedroom is our bed and nightstands. They are made of bamboo and are 100% sustainable (purchased from Greenington). I had the bed before we moved in and then we bought the rest of the furniture pieces to match that. I like to invest in good furniture, I usualIy will wait to buy something nice so it is long lasting and something I will have for a while. This is also something I recommend to all of my clients, buying good quality furniture is so important, you want to make sure your investment will last you a long time.
I also have this old vintage tapestry that hangs to the right of our dresser, it has moved with me a lot over the years. It reminds me of all the places I’ve lived before and I love that I get to incorporate it into this space I have made with Ryan.
I asked Ryan about what his favorite thing about our primary bedroom was for this blog, he told me the smart lights… I told you, gadgets.
Dresser: Dimond Home (note: we had a very difficult time working with them, we love this piece but we will probably not work with them again); Lamp: Surya; Tray and Tapestry: vintage finds
Vases and candle: West Elm
Okay, I have one more favorite thing, my custom window treatments! I just love them, I think they really make the space. I also really love making custom window treatments. It’s something I usually do for my clients as well, because all homes and windows are different, you might as well make something custom that fits your home and your style.
I have probably changed the rug and bedding out in our room a hundred times. It’s just such an easy way to update the room, it makes the space feel new even though we have lived here for 5 years.
Window Treatments: custom design
I think in the future Ryan and I might make some bigger changes to the bedroom, like raising the ceilings and I would love to have a door to our backyard. So obviously those are bigger changes than just switching out the rug, but it’s something we already started thinking through. If we go down that path, we will be sure to keep you all updated!
What are your primary bedroom must haves? Let me know in the comments below!
Cheers!
Annie
Photography: Ashlee Hamon Photography