Our Guest Room Do-Over, Part 3: The (almost) Finished Room!

 

This Part 3 of how we fixed up our guest room.  See Part 1 and Part 2.

Ecclesiastes 7:8  Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…

We got it done in time for my in-laws visit!  Well, almost done. :-)  I still have things that I want to make or change.  Also, since the paint was barely dry, I didn’t hang much on the walls.  I think the lady at the store told me it would take about a month for it to dry good and hard, especially since we were painting on paneling.

My husband and I picked up the mattress and box spring at Costco on a Friday and stored them in our dining room till we were ready for them.  My neighbor sister-in-law helped me on the following Tuesday with setting it up and arranging the furniture.  We had it set up like this (below) at first because we thought it shouldn’t be on the board covering the weak spot in the floor on the opposite side (mentioned in the last post).  But, I didn’t like the head of the bed against the windows, and it wouldn’t fit with the all the furniture against the other windows.

You can see here that the blinds and valances were not all up yet as well.

My mom came over to look and mentioned that they had had their bed on the opposite wall where the board was.  This made me think, so I measured the bookcase and decided that it would all fit if we flipped the lay out.  My husband confirmed that it was perfectly safe to put the bed on the plywood board, so he and I rearranged it that evening.  He also got the fixtures up for the window treatments.

The next day, the day my in-laws were to arrive, I did the finishing touches.  Here are the results.

I really like the pale aqua paint!  It’s such a soft color that it doesn’t photograph really well, but you can see it in the pictures where I used a flash.  It is a lovely cool color for this Texas climate, I think!

The bed, the “quilt”, and bed skirt were purchased.  We already had pillows and sheets.  Two of the blinds were really shabby, but we had practically new ones in the garage which we were able to install after buying some new brackets.

The “Welcome” picture (see top photo) was created from one of my own photos.  I Photo Shopped it to match the salmon pink in the room and make it look a bit more artsy.

The bookcase was a long-term loan from my sister-in-law who was storing it in our garage. :-) 

I love the way the evening sun shines into this room.

Most of the décor on the bookcase was “shopped from our own stuff”.  The ‘50s items came from my dad – an aluminum cup (perfect shade of pink) made into a vase with a bit of tulle, the pink pottery dish and the three oval serving dishes.  The oval serving dishes were the perfect colors for the room, so I stacked all three.  I put some packages of snacks in them in case my in-laws felt snack-ish at night or early in the morning.

Since my in-laws will be using this room the most and since they and my own parents were all missionaries in Africa, I put in some African touches as well.  The painting and wood carving on the top are from East Africa. [Painting: Lake Nakuru]  I had wanted to line the back of the top two sections with fabric for more color interest, but the painting was so large I decided it was enough.

The framed Bible verses were made in Photo Shop with vintage graphics I found free online.  We did buy the picture frames.  The candle holder and feathers came from other areas of our house. (The candle is artificial – LED, so no worries about fire or damage to the bookshelves.)  I still need to select and add more books from my dad’s overflow collection in our garage. :-)  The trash can was also donated by my sis-in-law.

From the three storage tubs that were in here originally, I picked out the one that best complimented the décor.  I hope to make a cushion to put on top for more comfortable seating.  The painting is another African scene from my parents.  [Painting: Tana River]

The “bed side table” is actually an old T.V. console my parents gave us.  Hopefully at some point it will be replaced with something that takes up less space.  It’s a bit too wide in that spot.  I didn’t put anything on it yet other than a coaster because I thought that might be the best spot for a suitcase at this point.

The smaller nightstand by the door was another donation from my sis-in-law.  The light was discarded by my parents.

As you can see there is no headboard at this point.  As mentioned before, my husband said he might be able to fix up a metal footboard we have, but that may take some time.  We’ll see.  It isn’t necessary.

I’m not sure yet what I’m going to put on this wall.  I’m still thinking I might install a “quilting wall”, but just try to make what’s on it attractive when we have guests.  It would need to be a more finished and nice looking one, if I do that.  The old tablecloth method probably wouldn’t look so great in this room now. ;-)

The valances were made with a combination of fabrics.  The solid and floral came from my stash.  The solid was a “mistake” order – wrong color.  The floral stripe was a strip from a “jellyroll”.  The Swiss dot was purchased for this room.  I had to really pay attention when I was putting them together to make sure that the polka dot sections were on the outside of each set. :-)

Well, that’s it for now.  I may try to do an update later if/when I get some more things done in the room.  I still have ideas of things I’d like to add, change or do.  My in-laws really liked it, but the best part was probably that they slept really well on that bed!  That made us all happy. :-)