Guest Room Re-design

A few months ago, I decided we were going to give our guest room a face lift. 

What originally began as a full-room makeover was halted when we decided to sell our house and move out to the country.

The room still made it through a re-design, but not as drastic as we originally intended. 

When we first bought our house, this room looked like something from the Barney cartoon.  The window sills were painted purple and dark green.  Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of this room when we first moved.

This was the room that Imani, Jason and I all slept in for the first several months after we moved.  The house was in such disarray that we moved both of our beds into this room while Jason worked on the upstairs bedrooms.  Nothing brings a family closer together than sharing a bedroom for a few months!   Let's just say that we could never be a "family bed" kind of family.

The guest room also was a place of refuge for a good friend who lived with us for a month while she separated from her husband.  At that time, it had a single bed and Dora the Explorer bedding.  It has certainly come a long way.

Somewhere along the way, we bought shiny bedding from TJ Maxx and decorated with dark browns.  We used to have a thing for anything shiny.  I didn't realize it until my sister pointed it out to me when she came to stay with us one Christmas. 

Our bedding was shiny,  our shower curtain was shiny, and a number of other things were shimmery and shiny throughout our house. 

Anyway, here is the room as it was before the redesign in all its shiny glory:

The computer/office area was also housed in the guest room before we created the office nook under the stairs.  It was a major mess with the printer just sitting on the floor!

The main goal in the re-design was to lighten everything up and make it feel more welcoming for guests.

First, we changed out the light fixture.

We replaced this:

With this:

When Jason first hung the light, he wasn't sure he wanted to include all of the light's "female parts" (his word for all of the chandelier's crystals), but now that the chandy has been up for a while,   I think they've grown on him.

We moved the desk, computer and accesories out and created a new office nook under our stairs, which I hope to reveal soon.

We replaced the dark brown curtains with lighter, white ones, which were purchased at Target.  We also pulled out the old shutters that were in the basement, gave them a fresh coat of paint and put them back on the window.  

A word about the curtains:

I was stressing out about what kind of curtains to buy when, one night when I was quilting with my friend Claire and Jason called me because he found the perfect curtains at Target.

Claire was in disbelief . . . "Seriously, your husband shops for curtains?!"

Yes, he is a keeper.  To all the single ladies out there -- pick a guy who actually cares about how your house looks!

See that picture on the left?  That is the fireman's certificate from 1890 that we found in the house.

 

In the corner, I propped up the mirror I bought and some of our antiquing/junking treasures.  The nightstand that we got from Sally Ann's is placed next to the bed.  The iron wall-hanging was spray painted white.

The bed was given a fresh coat of white paint and we purchased new bedding from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

One more time:

Before

AFTER