Guest Bedroom Makeover

You may remember a few years back when I completed a DIY upholstered headboard. That post was one of the first few blog posts I ever wrote (back on WordPress.com, before I was on Blogger and moved to WordPress.org). If you’re up for a few laughs, check out the tutorial for hundreds of bad photos (seriously—don’t photograph rooms at night!). Also, I was in my adventurous color phase and teal apparently was the ‘it’ color.

#shudder

Our guest bedroom is on our first floor and, unfortunately and is one of the rooms I decided to tackle lately. My sister-in-law stayed with us for a few weeks late last year, and I enlisted her help to paint the room. The same dingy peach beige color throughout the house desecrated this room. To be fair, it doesn’t seem to be a terrible color in certain lighting, but not even GE Reveal bulbs (see them in our kitchen) can save this paint color. We went from dirty beige to a clean greige with Valspar Oatlands Subtle Taupe. (This was originally the color I chose for our living room but once I put it on the walls, it clashed with our kitchen backsplash and fireplace.)

The main challenge in this room is the darkness. It sits on the north side of our house with an awkwardly placed window. This window is the only source of natural light our laundry room and one of our hallways receive, so I guess I can understand why the builder chose this placement, but it leaves the other half of the room in almost total darkness.

These nightstands were Craigslist finds that I painted gold a few years ago. They definitely did not turn out the way I expected. The gold paint took on a greenish hue in this room. #diyfail I love gold spray paint, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it’s best to step away from Pinterest. Or at least let things simmer overnight. The white paint (I used Rustoleum white paint + primer in Satin).

Next up, were new lamp shades from Target. They were seafoam green and, with the darkness, they just ended up making the walls look green and they didn’t brighten up the space. Just painting this room, painting the nightstands and new lampshades immensely brightened up this room. I also painted the underside of the glass.

I bought this area rug for our master bath, but the beige tiles and wooden cabinetry picked up the browns in the rug and it didn’t look grey. In this room it works! Plus, it was a $50 Black Friday steal on RugsUsa.com so I couldn’t say no. Know what I’m saying?

Now I needed to dress the bed. So when Crane and Canopy approached me about their bed linens and bed spreads, it was a sign from above that this room was meant for bigger and better things. It was a very hard decision, as Crane and Canopy have such gorgeous bed spreads to choose from, but I went with the beautiful Valencia pintuck duvet cover in white, and the yummy grey and white Linden euro shams. If this room were to have better lighting, I would have gone with the Valencia pintuck duvet set in dove grey. It’s just absolutely beautiful!

The white pintuck duvet cover reminds me of a young bride’s gown. So fresh and clean and innocent. It also reminds me of suspiro, Dominican fresh cake icing that resembles meringue (but that may be my sweet tooth talking).

By and large, I’m still not done with this room. However, it’s made great strides. In order to reflect more light back into the room, I decided to place a mirror above the headboard, and place DIY art on the nightstands. (I drew ‘vignette’ inspiration from Julia’s nightstands. But, baby steps.) It’s worked because the room feels much lighter now. Down the road I may “extend the ceiling” down by painting a band of white 12 inches down to make the room cozier. All I know is, I’m usually never done decorating by the time I begin a new project, and our house is a perpetual work in progress.

Ask Brian how much he loves that :)

You may have noticed that the headboard looks different. I decided to dress it up with a light grey suede to complement the shams and the new paint color. I also made three grey and white throw pillow covers and one small peach throw pillow cover, the icing on the bed as Heather says, and used pillows I already had at home. They truly make such a difference. The DIY art was a nod to the peachy color of the small pillow. I prefer color in small, replaceable items that I can swap out depending on ~~my mood~~ the seasons.

I am truly happy with the transformation of this room, and am no longer embarrassed when guests come and stay here or when visitors see the room. Life’s too short to have things you’re embarrassed about, isn’t it?