The recent bout of rainy weather in DC (not to mention the current arctic blast) was awful for my running habit but perfect for my nesting obsession. It all started when Andrew and I decided to rearrange some furniture upstairs. You see, he prefers to be able to view the contents of a dresser while I’d rather keep that stuff hidden. So we switched the Elfa see-through storage bins in the master bedroom with the dresser in the guest room/man cave.

Trading places: we moved the white Elfa storage organizer to the guest room.

In return, the master bedroom gained another dresser.

Of course, my grand plan is eventually to get rid of these twenty-year-old, hand-me-down dressers altogether. They look heavy in the space, plus the particle board in back is cracking and the drawers no longer effortlessly glide. What would I replace them with?

Fantasy splurge: mix-and-match Brix storage system by Niels Bendtsen, available at Design Within Reach. I’d go with a combo of putty and charcoal. High-gloss lacquer finish. Hidden levelers for adjustment on uneven floors. Made in Italy. (But geez, for the astronomical price, I’d expect the drawers to come pre-stocked with some cashmere goodies.)

More affordable option: Shop White Chest at cb2. It’s $399, and I’d need two. High-gloss lacquer finish. It’s a bummer that the only colors available are white or navy blue.

But I digress. For the time being, I have to work with what I have. And I became preoccupied with how to decorate my bland dressers.

I’ll create a vignette!

A what, you ask?

You know, those curated displays of ephemera, shells, busts, terrariums, etc. that people artistically arrange on coffee tables, consoles and dressers. Yes, there’s a faint whiff of “precious (pretentious?) hipster” but I was getting desperate. As a newbie, I didn’t know how to start so I visited Apartment Therapy and typed the search term “dresser vignette.” Among the results, I took note of this apparel designer’s lovely Brooklyn home because many of her walls were painted light gray (like our bedroom).

A spare and sleek vignette in the living room of a Brooklyn house.

More inspiration, though not very practical. Too much stuff crowding the surface area! And this designer recommends turning the books so the spines don’t show in order to avoid visual clutter–not very useful if you’re looking for a title in the stack. Bright spot: I adore the pink pop of color against the otherwise neutral palette.

In the end, I realized the trick is to make the vignette look personal, visually appealing and cohesive yet not contrived. And since mine is in the master bedroom, I wanted it to feel serene too. Including objects of varying heights and texture is supposed to help. But honestly, there is no right or wrong way. As long as you like it, that’s all that matters.

Images via dwr, cb2 and apartmenttherapy

Coming up next: my own attempt at creating a vignette.