This is part of a little series called Heardmont History. We’re digging back through our archives and highlighting some projects we did before starting “Welcome to Heardmont.” Hope you enjoy!
Our guest bedroom has been on my mind ever since our house tour a couple of weeks ago. Now that we have our master suite all taken care of, it’s only fair for our guests to have a similarly comfy space to sleep when they’re staying at Heardmont. We’ve decided the guest room will be the next on our list to tackle, but before I start painting walls and moving furniture, I wanted to share what we’ve done to get where we are today.
Here’s a glimpse of our guest bedroom about 6 months after we moved into Heardmont. This is the view you’d see standing in the doorway and looking towards the opposite wall in 2008.
Around this time, Stephen and I were planning our wedding. Throughout the wedding planning process, this room served as decor storage and (barely) functioned as a guest room when absolutely necessary. Nothing really matched and the walls were left the same off-white color they were when we moved in.
Turning to your right, this was the bed situation in 2008.
Continuing to turn to the right, you’d be looking back towards the bedroom door and the closet area. The closet was such a mess at that time that we couldn’t even get the doors closed! Since Heardmont is a 3 bedroom house, this room had to serve as both a guest room and storage space for all my crafting goodies.
As soon as we got back from our honeymoon, I started organizing this room and attempted to change the layout to give myself more room to sew and craft. We rotated the bed and got rid of the dresser that was on the entry wall.
After searching for months for the perfect bright floral fabric, I finally found it! Once I had the fabric in hand, I got busy sewing lined curtains for this room and tying the accent pieces together.
By a happy coincidence, the wall color we’d used in our laundry nook matched the curtain material perfectly. I decided to use our leftover paint on the entry wall of our guest room (Marsh Green by Valspar).
We replaced the dresser that had been on the entry wall with my newly revamped craft room desk. The room was feeling pulled together and I was happy to finally be able to do projects in there.
To further unify the space, I updated my grandma’s old sewing chair with white paint and more of my curtain material.
The previous bed was severely lacking a bedframe. We found this metal frame on Craigslist.
Some white bedding from TJ Maxx, green accent pillows, and a pillow cover I sewed out of the curtain material went a long way toward improving the space. I still hated the bleh wall color, but we were proud to have a mostly pretty space for our guests to stay.
The previous nightstand was a $5 find from Target, but the scale was off. When my in-laws gave me this beautiful mid-century modern dresser for Christmas, I was happy to have a replacement for the previous table.
That dresser found a new home during our master closet makeover, so I needed to find another replacement. The side table I rescued from an awful paint job took its place, but not for long! This side table was too pretty to hide away and found a more permanent home in our living room.
The hunt for the perfect guest room side table(s) continues!
Slowly but surely, we’ve added new lighting and accessories to the room, including some floating shelving to the green wall. I love the pop of my white desk against this wall, but I still haven’t used this desk in the current layout as much as I should.
Now that you know what we’ve done to update this room, here are a few changes we’d like to make to improve the function and the overall look of the space.
1. Paint: Those off-white walls and wood trim have to go!
2. Layout: Create designated sleeping and crafting areas
3. Storage: Find additional storage solutions – that closet isn’t cutting it!
4. Decor: If budget allows, tweak the color scheme and decor
I have tons of ideas for item #4 swimming in my head right now, but I’m trying to focus on the most important items – coming up with smart, attractive storage solutions and figuring out a layout that works.
We’ve been much stricter on ourselves with budgets lately, so I’m wondering how little we can spend to transform this room. Assuming we can use lots of items we have on hand and I can sell most of the things I want to replace or change, I wonder if we can do it for less than $50 out-of-pocket?
What do you think? Is it possible? You know we love a challenge!! 🙂
