Guest Room Redesign

This is so overdue it's ridiculous.

In January, I initiated The Great Switcheroo.  This is where I decided to "rotate" three rooms in my house and change up their uses to better meet our future needs (i.e. a growing family one day).  The first room tackled was the office.  Of course the room is nowhere near done.  It was simply put together to be functional.  I am still up in the air as far as what I want to do in there.  There will be some minor knocking holes in the wall construction so it will probably be a while until you see the full transformation.  As always, I will keep you updated along the way.

Last month, I tackled the guest room.  We had some guests spend the night so it gave me a deadline (which I love).  The "before" pictures were taken mid-switcheroo.  I was so focused on getting all the pieces I wanted downstairs that I forgot to grab the camera.  Here are a couple pictures during the moving chaos.

The pictures are bad, I know.  I don't have a wide-angle lens so it's hard to show everything. Basically it was a giant pile of stuff that was on its way out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The room sat empty (aside from the stripped bed) for a while as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do.  When I decorate a room I always work off of an "inspiration piece".  It can be a painting, pillow, anything.  The piece isn't necessarily the focal point in the room but a jumping off point.  I needed to find my inspiration.

Mark went on a Men's Retreat with our church and that left me with a weekend to myself.  I knew about our guests coming to stay the night so I planned on going to Target to get a couple things to make the room functional.  Well, that trip turned into WAY more.  I started finding incredible deals and then stumbled across my inspiration piece!

The walls were already painted slatey-blue with the light blue stripe.  We didn't plan on repainting (for now) so I wanted to work that in.  We also have tan carpet and I had a white duvet so I wanted to work with that as well.  While wandering the pillow aisle, I found the throw pillows.  They were perfect!  They had the exact blue and tan with the added punch of a deep purple.  I never considered purple so it was a fun addition.  With pillow in hand, and sales deals everywhere, I furnished the rest of the room:

I already had the duvet and tan pillows (they have since been replaced with an awesome duvet set from Ikea but I forgot to take new pictures).  Mark made the floating side tables at of some spare wood (pictures to come). The lamp bases are from Target but the lamp shades were some I had laying around.  I plan on switching them out but I haven't found what I want.  I think rectangular shades would be nice and more modern .. perhaps in a light grey linen/crosshatch pattern or something? hmm...

The photo gallery on the right is of my beautiful niece.  The vertical arrangement on the left is part of our "welcome to our home" gallery that we had downstairs.  The chair and lamp were from other parts of the house.  The curtain (both panel and sheer) are from Target.  The black curtain tie is, funny enough, a grosgrain ribbon that came wrapped around the purple blanket.  It is finished on each end with velcro (to keep the blanket folded) and ended up being a perfect tie.  I just nailed one velcroed end to the wall and wrapped the rest of it around.  I love that little freebie.

The door you see on the left is into the bathroom.  I don't have pictures of that (I'm not doing so well on this picture deal....) but I will update you later.  The "throne chair" is an heirloom piece from Mark's family.  We love that chair.  It is crazy, super formal, could have been in a castle, has claws for feet and tons of scroll work.  It doesn't match our style AT ALL and it makes me love it even more.  The fabric is worn and old and needs to be replaced.  I want an unexpectedly modern fabric, but one that still works with the old style.  We'll see how it goes...

The crooked gallery is the rest of the "welcome to our home" display from downstairs.  Mark is going to build a console table to go underneath the pictures.  It will be a great place for some cute baskets, luggage when people stay over, a TV, etc.

One more last minute addition was the stairwell light fixture.  Once I finished the room, and was looking around, I noticed how hideous the builders grade light was.  It was one of those dome-and-flush-with-the-ceiling fixtures. Bleh!  I went to World Market and bought a giant chinese lantern and light kit.  It's the best $12 I've spent in a while.  It completely transformed the stairwell.  Since you see this stairwell from downstairs, it was nice to do something special.  I like the overall effect.

So, as you can see, the room is still very much a work in progress.  Are rooms ever really finished though?  The projects in this room will probably we on hold a while.  Our focus is shifting towards the downstairs.  We are currently picking paint colors and making plans for the spare room/nursery and office.  There is also an outdoor shed that is top priority as well as landscaping.  Needless to say, we have LOTS on our to-do list.

What's on your to do list?  Any makeovers lately?  Any suggestions for fabric for that crazy chair?  I want to hear from you!