Category Archives: Guest Room

How I changed my life with a wire shelf

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This whole post is going to sound sarcastic but seriously, the tiniest little thing in the world got rid of a good 5 minutes of frustration that I feel everyday.

Basically, my pots and pans cabinet is a disaster because the lids are (were!!) in a complete state of chaos. Every single time I opened it they came tumbling down, or I couldn’t find the one I wanted, or I’d have to rearrange it completely because they were in the way of other things I needed. And then yesterday the heavens opened up and a light shined down and it was SOLVED.

I have had this white wire shelf sitting around in the office doing nothing since we moved here, we couldn’t find a use for it with the new desk but I did want to throw it out because, well, I don’t want to throw anything out ever. Then yesterday it suddenly dawned on me to turn that sucker on it’s side and use it to organize my lids. BAM:

IMG_1781

holy organization, Batman!

 

Everything is good and right with the world now. You can go about your day.

 

AND ALSO, bonus, we got an awesome wall map from Matt’s parents the last time we visited them and I’m super in love with it. Right now it’s just hung on the guest room wall with push pins (gasp!) because I’m trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with it. Originally I was just going to frame it out with some trim or molding and call it a day but now I’m thinking I want to coat a board of mdf or drywall with magnetic paint, adhere the map on top of it, and then frame it out. That way, whenever Matt and I travel somewhere together we can mark it off on here without having to put a hole in it.

I am totally on board with the map fad.

I am totally on board with the map fad.

Because I’ve declared December to be the month I get all partially finished projects completed I have high hopes this map with be taken care of by January 1st.

So now I invite you to join in on a little impromptu Facebook chat- are you a 95%-er? Do you get so close to finishing a project and then get distracted by a new one and never finish? Or do you follow through like a rock star?

The Guest Room

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I am slowly but surely taking pictures to add to my Paint Color House Tour tab and I thought I’d do a little post about the guest room, it doesn’t make an appearance on the blog too often and it’s starting to come together a bit more.

Our guest room is orange. Extremely orange. Orange and gray are my favorite colors, and while I totally wouldn’t want this color on my own bedroom wall (or really anywhere else in the house), I think it’s totally appropriate for a spare room.

The guest room is teeny tiny, and has come a long way from what it used to look like  but it’s definitely the slowest progressing room in the house. I really don’t want to spend a lot of money on a room that’s maybe used once a month, and not even by us (no offense guests).

It’s cozied up with lots of blankets and a white comforter and a nightstand, but it still needs wall art.

Sometimes I think I want a giant map to hang behind the bed, which would tie in to the map that’s on the landing right outside the door way. Sometimes I think I want to take all my leftover wood shims and great a big DIY white starburst mirror behind the bed. Sometimes I want to leave it completely bare and let the orange speak for itself.

 

Either way, one thing’s for sure- orange and batman is here to stay.

Thank you Ms. Deschenes for this amazing quilt- we absolutely LOVE it. And one day when my nephew is old enough to sleep over he totally will too. (PS- I totally vacuumed that blanket after seeing how it looked in this picture)

So what do you think- leave the walls bare? Art it up a bit?

 

Here’s the super simple source list for the room, which shows about $0 of spending:

  • Yellow blanket: TJ Maxx about 10 years ago, maybe longer
  • Pastel quilt: hand made by my Nonna
  • Orange and turquoise picture frames: Marshall’s about 2 years ago
  • Silver picture frames: gifts from high school graduation!
  • Batman quilt: a gift from my friend’s mom
  • White down comforter: TJ Maxx about two years ago
  • End table lamp: Ikea
  • Change plate: Italy! (my brother and sister and law’s honeymoon destination)
  • Gray pillow: TJ Maxx about a year ago (originally meant for the living room)
  • Husband pillow: TJ Maxx about 10 years ago

 

And while I’m randomly sharing…. my faux bubble necklace HAS ARRIVED:

Matt’s reaction: “Well… that’s a lot of necklace.”
YES IT IS.

 

AND WHILE YOU’RE HERE… don’t forget to click on over to Vintage Revivals, scroll on down to entry #36 and click the star to vote for me to win the Epic Room Giveaway contest!! I will love you forever.

 

 

ONE YEAR LATER: Landing & Guest Room

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All this week I’m going to be posting before and after photos of the house, so keep tuning in to see what a completely different place we live in now!

Our house is a split level ranch so there’s 5 or 6 steps leading up from the living room to the second level, and on the second level is the bathroom and the three bedrooms.

The landing itself looks much better in the before pictures then it did in real life- it was filthy. There were dirty little hand prints all over the wall (because she ran a day care out of the living room), the wallpaper border was peeling and yellowed, and it was very outdated. A few coats of Behr White Truffle paint later though and it is fresh.

If I ever think I want to put up a wallpaper border, please stop me with brute force.

 

Clean, bright white makes this space look so much larger.

 

There were nail holes in such strange places all over the walls, I can’t figure out what on earth they were hanging!

 

The molding still isn’t great, but everything else is vastly improved.

 

And how about a few close ups of the art:

This is actually just one frame all stuck together. I purchased it at Target a few years ago and then used blank note cards that I got from Etsy (for like $3!) as matting and art.

 

The two smaller pictures are more pieces I got off Etsy a few years back and the large map came from an old atlas my school library was getting rid of.

 

 

Now to move on into the guest room, which was originally a young boy’s room. This room is tiny so after we painted I put as little furniture as possible in there to widen it up. I also haven’t put anything on the wall yet because I don’t want to crowd them in, but I plan to make something with a mirror for behind the bed to add a little more reflection to the space.

Beige and navy- that navy took SEVERAL coats of primer to get rid of.

ORANGE YOU GLAD I PAINTED IT?! (sorry, couldn’t help myself there.)

 

 

Who painted those awful stripes? Why didn’t they measure? Why don’t they go all the way to the half way mark? AH!

It was really dark and cloudy out this morning so the wall color didn’t really photograph right, I added a swatch of it so you could see the real deal.

 

Yes, I know that four walls of orange is a bit crazy. But you know what, it’s a spare room- there’s no need for it to be serious. I also painted it fully knowing that a future niece  or nephew (turns out it’s a nephew!!) would be sleeping in there sometimes and I think orange is super fun for a crazy aunt to have around. Also, it is my absolute favorite color.

 

Here’s the round up of what we’ve done:

  • Took down wallpaper border, primed and painted all walls and ceilings
  • Painted the built in hall cabinet and replaced the handles
  • Decorated

 

Here’s what’s still on tap:

  • The hunt for a new white wooden hamper
  • Art for behind the guest room bed (I’ve got plans for that)

 

 

So overall nothing huge besides the difference a few gallons of paint makes (which is apparently a pretty huge difference). What do you think?

 

 

Simply Glowing

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Yesterday we got nine inches of snow, so my work was closed and Matt’s classes were cancelled. Hooray! We got right to business on the guest room and it is now painted a very, very bright orange. Even I have to admit it’s a bit over the top… but I’ve been able to reel in my crazy in every other room of the house so I think I can go a little nuts in an extra room.

Have you noticed yet that Dutch likes to run into whatever room I'm in and lay on the softest spot that room has?

Bam! You don’t ever even need to turn on the lights in here, it literally glows when the sun is shining. All you see in this room is all there is- a bookshelf, a nightstand, and a bed. It’s not a huge room so I didn’t want to load it up with furniture, and it’s just an extra space so I don’t really want to spend money on it. Eventually I’ll get a nicer white curtain and hang some things on the wall (to split up all the ba-zamming orange), but that’s about it. I’d like to have everything I add to this room be white, it’s already overpowering enough.

Also, I’ll have you know that orange is my absolute favorite color, which is why we went with it. We toyed with lighter and darker shades before we decided to just go for it, but in the end why not. It’s loud, proud, and here to stay!

Making Due

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We are clearly not made of money, and I’ve gotten to the point where we need to hold off on the big purchases for a bit. I still have plenty of crafts and painting (we stocked up on paint) to do, but we’re going to have to make due with the furniture we have for a couple more months.

Eventually, we would love to have a little white tea cart in the kitchen to put our coffee maker, tea, tea cups, mugs, etc. We’re big tea drinkers, and we have a LOT of glassware so any way we can move things around and store things in new places is helpful. Unfortunately, for now this shelf from Big Lots will have to do. We got it from Matt’s parents and used it in a nook at our old apartment to store all our cleaners and laundry supplies.  For now, it’s our make-shift tea station. The top shelf has our coffee pot (blocked by a cute little knick knack) and our ceramic cookie jar- which is full of tea bags, and is kept out all year because we love Halloween. The next down shelf holds our japanese tea pot, cup set, and loose tea balls. The middle shelf holds our Ikea mug set, decaf tea, and loose tea leaf containers, and the bottle shelf is just for art’s sake. Inside the handy dandy draw we stowed away our ipod speakers and mixing cups. This freed up a lot of space in our cabinets for spreading out dishes and glassware.

 

Upstairs in the guest room I stationed three mix matched Walmart shelving systems into one big old book shelf. It’s really important to me that things are cozy and lived in, I hate when people just put things on shelves without thinking of the aesthetic of it, so I tried to balancing out stacked books and display books and rows of books. It insane how much time I spend thinking about these things… I call it “shelf styling,” and Matt calls it “insane.” Right now, the crazy painted walls will have to stay. I have enough primer to cover them up, but I’d rather wait and start the walls when I can afford to finish them.

 

Also in the guest room, we made use of our extra bed, my old nightstand (from my parent’s house), an Ikea lamp I used to have in my office, and some picture frames we used to have in our dining room. With the sunny window and white accessories it almost almost makes the crazy walls bearable. But it’ll do for now!

Stars & Stripes Forever

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Staying upstairs, let’s take a peek at what will be the guest room. This room will also house Matt’s closet because it’s the only room with functioning closet doors and Matt seems to hate when his clothes are covered in cat hair… weird.

The seller has this room set up very adorably for her little boy, but you can clearly see why it won’t work for us. For the few few months, this room will just have white walls done with the leftover 2+1 paint and primer we should have from the other rooms. It will also house our miscellaneous white furniture. We’ve got a tall bookshelf, a nightstand, 2 small organizers, and a full sized bed for this room. Once the rest of the house is taken care of I’ll go back in here and paint the walls a nice pale orange- so you know, like 7 or 8 years from now. We live a good 45 minutes-1 hour from most of our close friends and family so it’s important we have a nice room for them to stay in. And in the far, far, far away future it will turn into a nursey- either orange and pink or orange and navy. Don’t tell Matt I’ve planned this, because maybe it’s totally weird that I’ve already thought of that.

I haven’t figured out what art I’m going to hang in this room. I have a collection of old cameras that might look nice on some shelving, I could always hold out hope they leave the New England patriots pennant behind… or maybe not. Either way I want to try and work a really serene setting in here, a less is more thing. That’ll be more of a challenge then it sounds because I find comfort in clutter and do dads, and I need to move away from that.