This post is sponsored by Walmart.

We’re hosting 15 family members at our cabin for Christmas so we’ve been working double time over the past couple weeks to make it a cozy place to all be together. We’re not aiming for finished or “afters” at. all., but it has allowed us to get rooms headed in the right direction. One of the trickiest spaces has been one of the bedrooms on the lower level. Because the A-frame is built into the side of a mountain, it’s the only room that doesn’t have any natural light. For safety reasons, it still has a window that leads to a window well and then outside with a cover on it so no animals can get inside–but it doesn’t add natural light like most windows do. We have a fun solution we’re going to add to the window to minimize that a bit. But for now I wanted to show you how the rest of the room has shaped up.

Below is how the room used to look. The tile floors extended throughout the lower level along with the poop-colored walls. So. Much. Light Brown everywhere!

During the major renovations over the past couple months, we replaced all of the tile floors with light wood flooring (Oak Aspeland from Stuga Studio) and it feels like it brought us to a starting point. Let’s paint! 

Painting a room with no natural light can be tricky. A lot of times I see people wanting to paint it light or white in an attempt to make it feel light and airy. But the truth is a room with no natural light source will likely never feel light and airy. I’ve seen a room with no natural light painted white a few times and with exceptional lighting and multiple light sources–it can work. But mostly, it just looks dingy and shadowy. For this room, and this setting (the woods!), we wanted to embrace the cozy, den-like vibes so we went darker on the walls.

We chose Benjamin Moore’s Castle Peak Gray–which is a lovely warm green with a lot of neutral gray undertones and once again–the power of paint does not disappoint.

The above photo was taken before the floors were oiled/sealed and the photo below was taken after! You can see they warmed up quite a bit and are a lot less chalky looking. The floors came with the oil and how-to.

When it came time to furnish–the fun part!–we really wanted two queen beds for this room. When we travel, we always get a room with two queens (one for us and one for the girls to sleep in) and this was the only room large enough to fit that option. Of course, buying two queen beds meant double the budget for beds and bedding so I started scouting for affordable affordable options that didn’t sacrifice style. I rounded up a lot of my favorite finds right here but ultimately landed on chic, green tufted beds.

Obviously I picked the paint color to coordinate with the green channel tufted beds.

You’re never going to believe this, but I got everything (besides the checked lumbar pillow covers–those are from Juniper Studio) at Walmart! I think tone on tone furnishings and wall color really modernize a space, especially paired with crisp white bedding–these are my favorite affordable sheets.

Each bed got dressed with white sheets, a knitted ivory blanket and an oversized thick, furry faux fur throw (the 58×84 in Amber Fox) that brings in some rustic flair.

The nightstand is hard to see here, but I’m so incredibly happy with it! It was only $144 and even came with three different knobs to choose from. It’s well made and really good looking. I got this lamp (on sale for $61!) and swapped the lamp shade for this one that has a shape I’m really into right now.

I’ll be back soon to share how we’re addressing that window, but for now we’re so happy with the cozy simplicity of this room. If you’re putting together a room of your own, on Walmart.com, you can now shop by style right here – so you can get all the inspo you crave, while being able to add to cart right then and there. And every order over $35 ships for free–no membership required!

Since making headway in this room, I suddenly feel like I want to name the bedrooms at the cabin. Is that weird? I keep calling this the Den even though that’s a completely different type of room. Weigh in! Hope you’re having a Happy Christmas wherever you are. We’re catching our breath over here and will share more of everything we’ve been up to soon!

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