Our Guest Bedroom

So I just realized that I’ve never really done a post about our guest bedroom. Probably because it’s one of the rooms that has had the most changes over the last few years, and was never totally happy with changes. Well now that I’ve had roughly two and a half years to figure out what to do the room, I feel like it’s in a really good place. Maybe 80-ish percent done.  I repainted the walls from a medium tan color to a light, creamy yellow-ish color (Parchment Paper (710C-1) by BEHR) and have gone with a rust red and yellow color scheme, with more neutral colored framed art. Here’s what the room looks like when you first open the door or enter the room. I hate the ceiling fan, but it’s not a top priority to change out. Side note: I think I would change out every ceiling fan in our house if it were my choice.

and a wide view… The two windows face the north and west and let in plenty of light during the day. Tim decided to add the American flag in there for good taste.

Tim made that white gallery shelf for me using these plans, and modified the specs slightly to fit the space. I love it. It’s just thick enough to rest frames on without sticking out too far. The shelf was actually made with much longer pieces of wood that we trimmed down. So I now have another shelf just like this to use elsewhere. As for the framed art, I have a gold-leaf, letterpressed ampersand from Inksie, a K sign that I picked up at a local shop, a Tad Carpenter print, a vintage Nebraska map found on Etsy, and a print done by Drew Melton for The Phraseology Project.

I really wanted a mix of patterns in this room, which is happening between the duvet cover, accent pillows, curtain, and rug (which used to be in the office.)

You can see here how the room really isn’t all that big—the bed is a full size, not queen. But as long as I keep it picked up, it’s plenty of space for what we need. The ballerina print my mom gave me for Christmas a few years back and has been hung up in the last few place I’ve lived.  Oh, and this is the only room in the house that has the wood trim around the closet and door painted (thanks to the previous owners), but I plan on stripping the paint this spring once I can open up the windows.

Because of the smaller size of our house, the guest bedroom also serves as my “dressing room.” So the dresser and closet are full of my clothes, shoes and everything else—which means that on any given the day, there is normally a pile of clean clothes laying on the bed waiting to be put away and a few pairs of shoes to be put in their proper place. Of course, I always make sure the room has been picked up with fresh linens before anyone stays (which isn’t terribly often.)

So for several, several months I had been wanting a mid-century style dresser for this room. I checked out antique stores and kept a close look on Craigslist. And wouldn’t you know, my Craigslist searching paid off because I picked up this beauty a few weeks ago.

I love the dresser’s lines, the swooped drawers and its color. The only thing I’m not a huge fan of is the laminate top and sides, but considering I wasn’t willing to pay more than $250 for a dresser, I knew having the style and size I wanted with a wood top probably wasn’t going to happen. I did end up getting this dresser for $250 when they were originally asking $300 for it. And it came with a tall mirror! The mirror is in the basement for now until we decide what to do with it. It needs some TLC in a few places, but for the most part the dresser is in great shape and the drawers are solid wood. Oh, and I love the pulls.

The mirror above the dresser I made myself. It’s actually much larger in person than what the picture depicts. I bought a twig wreath from Hobby Lobby, spray painted it rust red and hot glued it to a mirror. Presto change-o, a mirror!  I think it’s a bit unexpected, but I love the extra texture it brings into the room.

And one last shot of this side of the room… I’ve decided that that wall there on the right looks pretty barren, so I will most likely hang up the other gallery shelf with more prints there.

So there’s our guest bedroom! So other than adding art to the one wall, replacing the ceiling fan (someday), and stripping paint from the wood trim, the only other real things I have left to do for this room is to buy new blinds and proper curtain rods. It feels good getting a room to this point—on the home stretch.

—m.