At Home Alterations { old & new | cheap & beautiful | him & her | ups & downs }

Guest Bedroom AFTER After

Before

If you travel back in time one year, our guest bedroom looked like an intergalactic space exploratory.

We repainted those walls when we moved in May and by October of 2010 we had room that looked a little more grown up.  Check out the original guest bedroom reveal for details on how that transformation took place and for the budget breakdown.

We liked how it turned out and it got a lot of use.  In Dec-Jan we had guests staying with us more often than not, which was super fun!  Things were good.  Then we threw a wrench in the mix and got a new bed for our master bedroom.  That meant we had an extra queen bed and we decided it would be nice for guests to have a bigger bed, even if that meant less floor space and that we'd have to rearrange furniture.  It was also a good excuse to do some updates to the room since we were never fully satisfied with the mismatched furniture and lamps. 

After

We didn't quite make our own deadline, but we've finished the room and we're ready for some guests!

Along the way

It feels so weird not to talk about painting the walls and finding window treatments!  We had already done all that for the first reveal.  These latest changes were all about rearranging and updating.

Furniture
The bed upgrade from full to queen was the start of this whole bedroom revamping!  We were able to re-use the bed frame and mattresses from our master bedroom as well as the bed skirt and mattress pad from our master bed for the guest room.  Our duvet and pillows from the full stayed (it was a full/queen duvet) so the only thing we purchased for the bed was white sheets and a new yellow pillow. 

We originally had a 40 inch wide dresser that was Katrina's from her nursery growing up and a small nightstand on either side of the full guest bed.  That dresser no longer fit next to the bed when we upgraded to a queen so we had to bring in a different dresser (28 inches wide) that had been not-so-perfectly taking up a corner in the living room.  This smaller dresser was in rough shape so we had a bit of repairing to do on it.  The small dresser became the nightstand to the north side of the bed and we've already told you about the nightstand we cut in half for the south side of the bed.  The larger dresser found a new home in the closet.  We also had a chair gifted by my parents and a bookshelf with unknown origin which both stayed in the room.

Initially, we were leaning towards painting both dressers and they may still get a coat of color down the road, but for now we realized that the wood stain on the dressers matched the chair stain and we both knew we could never paint that chair.  So instead, we turned towards painting the bookshelf.  We gave it a coat of Behr Black Forever on the shelves and sides and Behr Dark Pewter (same as the walls) on the back.  

Lighting
We had a classic "odd couple" of lamps in the original reveal.  One was short and squat, the other was tall and skinny.  If they could talk they probably had English accents too.  We kept the tall skinny one and introduced a tall skinny shade-matching friend for next to the bed and a similar silhouetted shade into the closet.  We like that the lamps aren't exactly the same but they have cohesive shapes and shades.

Closet
First we fixed one of the skeletons in our closet, this big wire-and-pipe filled hole!  We organized and supported those wires and put up some (stolen) drywall to cover the hole.  Read about that adventure here.

As much as we loved  put up with the giant dual sliding doors, it was time for them to go.  We've found that guests don't need a lot of closet space, just enough space to hold a dress and suit if they're in town for a wedding.  When a room is small and you don't need the closet, open it up!  We removed the sliding doors to open up the space and installed curtains to help frame and soften the opening. Wooden hangers instead of our old plastic ones add extra glamor and just enough clothing storage for our guests on the sides of the closet.  Katrina's hanging wedding dress helps bump up the glamor meter too!

A valence covers the top shelf in the closet which is where all of our games have been relocated until the basement renovation is finished.  Because typical window valences were too short, we bought one curtain panel, cut it in half and hemmed both sides to create two shorter panels.  Katrina didn't even have to sew a pocket hem since the bottom hem matched the top pocket!

We centered a dresser in the closet for extra storage.  The top drawer is labeled as "guest towels," the middle drawer as "extra sheets" and the bottom drawer holds an excess of games.  We also added side and back rims to the dresser that had been in basement storage.  These pieces were original to the dresser when it was a changing table in Katrina's nursery as a baby!  Katrina likes that they make it look a bit more like a dry sink and I like that it was one less thing to put in storage!

Above the dresser in the closet, we hung an old window that Katrina got for free from a generous co-worker!  We transformed it into a message board and mirror.  We had a mirror cut to size at the local hardware store for $7.50, cut cork board to size for the right and left window panes and then wrapped and stapled fabric around the cork.  Gorilla glue made it all stick and silicone caulk to seal the edges of the mirror.  When we stayed at a bed and breakfast for our honeymoon, it was so much fun to write in the guest book and read over previous author's thoughts and experiences.  With the message board sitting above the typewriter, we hope to encourage our guests to type a message for us about their stay before they leave!