Guest Room: Before and After

I fell in love with our home because of its 1929 features: original windows, stained glass, exposed brick. But the guest room had none of that; it was just a beige box. I wanted our guest room to be special and have some color and architectural detail, too. So, check out our guest room: before and after.

By adding color, trim, and furnishings that fit the space, I transformed our guest room into one of my favorite rooms in the house!

As I explained in this post about how I was thinking about designing this room, our guest room was a tall, long, beige room.

The bed took up most of the room, and there was just nothing interesting about this room.

I found this picture in a magazine and decided it would be my inspiration:

I love the trim at the top of the wall, and it looks like the trim on the outside of our Tudor-style bungalow home. I wanted a bit more color, though.

I came up with this:

I changed a few things from this sketch in my final design. For one thing, I built a daybed out of old doors, rather than using a quilt hung on the wall as a headboard.

I decided to use bolder colors than the “lilac” noted in the drawing. I love bold, bright colors, so I went with Brilliant Blue by Benjamin Moore on the accent wall and “New Life” DecoArt chalky finish paint on the daybed. I kept the remaining walls the same color.

First, I hung the trim. I used pine 1x4s, cut to size with my RYOBI miter saw. I made sure that the vertical trim was evenly spaced on the wall and I used a square to draw and hang the angled trim. I nailed the trim to the wall with my RYOBI cordless nailer.

Then I painted the trim. First, I filled the nail holes, then primed the wood. Then I painted it semi-gloss Ultra White by Behr.

Once the trim dried, I taped off the trim. I confess that I usually don’t tape before painting a wall but, because the wall color was so bright, I didn’t want to get it on the white trim and then have to fix it.

The wall took two coats of Benjamin Moore’s Brilliant Blue.

Once the paint dried, I removed the tape and the room was ready for furniture.

I wanted the room to be a comfortable retreat for guests. I added lots of pillows to the daybed:

I even made custom pillows from plain green IKEA pillows. I just used some fabric glue to embellish the pillows with bright blue ribbon.

I added a desk that we have had for a while, but didn’t know where to put it, with some reading materials.

My favorite piece in the room is this vintage “Vacationlands” map.

I bought it from a woman who found a box of maps in her mother’s attic. I bought two maps for $25 and had them framed at Caroline Budd Picture Framing in Atlanta. I thought the vacation theme was perfect for the guest room.

The other side of the guest room is Dear Husband’s music room.

Now that the daybed is in the corner – rather than the bed being in the middle of the room – there’s plenty of room for the music room and space for guests.

But if it’s time for the guests to leave, we have this:

I love our new guest room. I hope our guests love it, too!

For the post on how to build a daybed from old doors, click HERE. The daybed was featured in This Old House Magazine HERE! (Eeeeeeek!)

For a tour of the rest of our home, click HERE.

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