be our guest : guest room redo

No matter how small your house is, it is important to have a place for guests to stay 

and feel cozy and comfortable.

Before having our baby, we had a guest suite...which, being the largest bedroom, then became the master suite with the arrival of Baby Mac.  

So we were left with only the pullout sofa bed to accomodate visiting loved ones.  Hubby thought this was acceptable...particularly since we don't have frequent overnight guests. Me? Not so much.  I adore having a guest room in my home.  I don't care if it only gets used once a year...still totally worth it.

Plus, in October both my mother and sister were coming to visit.  

Joy! Wait - panic!  

Where would they sleep?

So, I had to get creative.  

We currently only have 3 bedrooms - 1 master, 1 nursery, 1 office.

Obviously, the office was my only choice.

So now we have an office/guest suite.

This works really well actually...the room has an attached full bathroom that hardly gets used.

I just ditched my own desk space to make room for a comfy daybed.

No biggie, my Mac is portable! :)

Here is the room {before}when we first moved in:

Here it is {after}my quickie recent redo:

 Changes I made were: 

- new window panels {Ikea} -- white brightened up the space!
- lavender-gray walls {Valpsar - London Coach}
- black iron daybed {Ikea - found on clearance for $59!!}
- gray throw {West Elm}
- white bedding {Ikea and West Elm}
- gray and white rug {Ikea - $19!}

{before}

hubby's office space {before}

and {after}

{before}

{after}

So to conclude my guest room tale, 

the visits from my mom and my sister went grandly.

They had a comfy place to lay their heads...

and I have a guest room again!

Does anyone else feel me on the need to have a guest room?

Much love -

g

{decor dreams} two thousand eleven

I like to dream big.

Now that I'm pregnant and spend a ridiculous delicious amount of time napping {I completely adore you Baby for this!} I also spend a lot of time dreaming and planning various home design projects...

Here are my Decor Dreams of 2011:

1.  Baby's Nursery!

It will go in this space...

This is one of the Jack and Jill bedrooms on one side of our 2nd floor.  We currently sleep here.  I have so many cute plans...but we will have to wait and see if we are having a boy or a girl. 

So, when Baby sleeps here, where will we sleep?  That brings us to #2...

2.  Master Bedroom Suite Redo!

This is the room we will one day sleep in...

currently the guest suite.

Pretty boring!

• Going to revamp with:   New wall color! 
• Our modern bedroom furniture, adding a few pieces.  
• Rip out carpet and refinish hardwoods underneath
• California-style closet design
• New window treatments.  Thinking bamboo shades...bliss!
• Dual vanity -- I we need more counter space!
• New tiled shower.  With rain shower fixure.  Uber -bliss!
• Updated floor tiles.  Something more spa-like and less, well, white.  Yech.
• I better stop dreaming there...that already sounds like more than we can handle!

3. Finish my photo wall!

You can't really tell, but these three photos take up a very small portion of a very large wall as you ascend our steps.  These same three photos have been all by their lonesome for the past year.  Honestly I have more pictures and frames...why is it so hard to get them up there?!?!  Oh yeah...I have a beautiful little being sucking the energy out of me sharing all the nutrients I lovingly scarf down. :o)

Okay, enough dreaming for me...for now!  

What are your decor dreams for 2011?

G

no headboard needed!

I typically follow the established rules of bedroom furniture placement.

Rule #1: Always place the bed on the wall opposite of the door. Logic is that you walk into the bedroom and your focal point is your lovely bed.

Rule #2: Don't place your bed in front of a window. (I think this may be more of a mystical rule. Like bad ju-ju may come in your window at night and give you strange dreams...)

Rule #3: You must have a headboard, whether it be part of your bed or some sort of artistic piece that acts as a headboard.

Don't ask me who made up these rules. What I've found in decorating my home is that some rules are meant to be broken!

For example: We have no headboard and our platform bed is placed directly in front of the main window in our bedroom. Which happens to be a gorgeous tri-window with an amazing view of the vibrant red and orange fall leaves on the old trees on our street.

So it is not a headboard. Or a piece of art. But it is rather artistic.

Oh, and I do have strange dreams at times...but I don't blame the window.

{Probably is the glass of wine and plate of pasta I ate before going to bed!}

What is outside your bedroom window?

G

Thirty before 30 #9: Paint my Ikea dresser

Recently I told you the tale of my Ikea dresser. The full version is here, but the short version is that I bought an Ikea Hemnes faux-oak dresser back in my college days {assembled with love} but for the past few years it has sat in my bedroom looking completely out-of-place. The color just didn't match the rest of our modern brown-black furniture that we purchased when we bought our current home.

A re-do was in order!

Because this has been a project that has been nagging at me for what feels like an eternity I decided this was something I had to put on my "Thirty Before 30" list...just to give myself a little, um, pressure to do the dang thing.

So I did!

I bought a quart of black paint (Cracked Pepper, Valspar) and scoured the internet for advice on painting Ikea furniture. In the end, I kind of just, well, painted it! All in one fell swoop, with the help of several cans of Redbull {elixer of the gods.}

Two coats of paint that made the dresser match my platform bed perfectly!

So here is my dresser {before} the transformation:

And here is the dresser {after} - at long last!

I absolutely love the result, and am glad to have one thing checked off my Thirty Before 30 list -- hurrah!

Hope everyone is having a beautiful Friday. I'll be checking in from my trip back home to my parent's farm in Minnesota later today -- to share Mom's kitchen re-design. It is beyond gorgeous, I promise.

Much love from MN!

G

{tale of an ikea dresser}

I bought my Ikea Hemnes 6-drawer dresser back in my college days, when I was living in little studio apartments, working 50 hrs a week and going to school full-time. I needed something cute and cheap. {Ironically, for as thrifty as I was, I also splurged on a Pottery Barn couch for $1400. Which we still have. And I still love.}

I assembled the dresser all by myself, with love and care. You should have seen me beaming with pride when it was complete. {ps: I have a weird fancy for assembling furniture.} The "faux-oak" color matched with my Pier1 living room coffee/end table {also still have} and my cheap Target kitchen table {again, still have, though used now as the kiddo table brought out only at holidays.}

Now my bedroom, shared with amazing hubby, looks like this:

We still have Ikea furniture, but it is the more modern-looking Malm platform bed with nightstands. The old reliable dresser just doesn't match! So, blog friends, I painted it! Believe me, I was nervous as you are reading this, thinking, "Ikea stuff seems cheap, the wood has a faux finish on it that does not seem paintable...seems like a bad idea, G! Why not just buy a new dresser at Ikea -- they are cheap!" Uh, yeah, cheaper than PB, but I decided I'd rather pay $15 for paint than $180 for a new dresser. Sooooo....

...stay tuned for the for the finished product - I will post the "after" pics very soon. You might be surprised at this re-do!

{I know, I know...I'm a total tease!}

Has anyone else dared to paint Ikea furniture???? I'd love to hear!

G

I love a room with an accent {wall!}

Who loves color? Oooh oooh me, I do!

Yeah, I get rather excited about a brightly colored wall. If you don't believe me just check out my very bright dining room!

Unfortunately, many of the rooms in our shotgun-style house are pretty small, so dark colors are definitely out. Unless....

...I do an accent wall!

So that is exactly what I decided to do in our current bedroom. It has the perfect wall for an accent color. There apparently used to be a fireplace there, which I wish longingly was still there; however, when a previous owner did renovations the fireplace was removed and was replaced with new drywall. However, it still juts out -- making it the perfect little accent wall:

So it is really just part of a wall which I thought would be easy to paint over in case of disaster, right? {in my house there are occasionally "paint disasters..."}

And there was a slight disaster. The paint I chose is metallic paint (bronze, Valspar.) Tip: follow the instructions the nice Lowe's paint employee gives you in that handy dandy brochure {that I, um, completely ignored when I first tried to do it.} I was much too impatient and schlupped both layers as fast as I could -- I was so excited!

Then I had to go back to Lowe's and get another can of the top-layer to redo it...and that stuff ain't cheap, folks. In paint terms, at least.

After my second go round I was much more pleased! Here is my new accent wall, all shiny and new!

I added my West Elm wood block ledges, and moved my stone candles from the guest bath to create a simple, modern, organic look.

So here is another look at the before:

{just another cream-colored wall}

And the after:

{shiny, modern, new}

So I didn't exactly go "bright" or "dark"...but I definitely went "unique," and I love it.

Has anyone else played around with metallic paint? This was pretty much a wild-hair design decision -- but I'm glad I tried something new!

Have a blessed Sunday!

G

PS: Linking up to this lovely party...check out other ideas here:

sneak peek: {bedding re-do!}

Can't resist. Have to share something new from my bedroom mini-redo! I changed up my duvet cover...which I know is a small change, but it really brightened up the tiny room we use as our bedroom for the moment.

{duvet before: dark, blah}

{duvet after: light, organic, chic }

Many more changes to follow in this space {new window treatments, accent wall, hardwood flooring?!?} but for now, simple, organic bedding change-up.

{Sweet dreams}

G

PS: Lnking this to this sweet link party:

on your nightstand

I would never ask what is in your nightstand (oh so private!)

but I will ask, in the spirit of finishing up the accessorizing stage of my bedroom redo:

what is on your nightstand?

Here are some perfectly lovely inspirations:

{realsimple}

{realsimple}

{hgtv}

{hgtv}

I've been way to0 tired this week to shop (a first for me!) so the weekend will hopefully be one filled with shopping and finishing touches on our tiny bedroom makeover... flea market here I come! :o)

Bedding Bliss

I am in the dreaming stages of a bedroom remodel....

Where I dream currently looks like this...

...and although I love the simplicity, and I adore chocolate brown....

...I am bored!!!! I've had this simple chocolate linen duvet and beige/cream linen shams from West Elm for the past 5 years and I am ready for something new and a little more luxurious. Besides that, I want to add more personality into the bedroom by adding more accessories and a rug, and perhaps a dramatic piece of artwork in lieu of a headboard (since we won't have this dramatic cut-out window in the new bedroom.)

I am determined that the bedroom redo -- which will occur when we move from this room (the future site of the nursery) to the actual master bedroom suite of our home -- will create a much dreamier dreaming spot.

Here are some master bedroom inspirations that have me barely able to sleep...

{west elm}

{unknown}

{west elm}

{unknown}

{hgtv}

So now I just need to convince my hubby to that we should make the move to the new bedroom sooner, rather than later...

I will keep posting on the progress! :)