Guest Bedroom – Week 1

IT’S ALL HAPPENING! If you’re asking yourself – What is happening? What is “it”? then follow along why don’t you. I’ve decided that a six month old, a full-time job, the usual design projects, and a Project Management certification program just weren’t enough. I absolutely HAVE TO participate in this Spring’s One Room Challenge as a Guest Participant.

But what is the One Room Challenge? I’m glad you asked. Every year designers and decorators participate for 6 weeks (in the Fall) or 8 weeks (in the Spring) and transform one room from blah to ahhhhh.

So, as I say to my baby every morning when I get her out of bed, — “You ready to paaaarty?”

For this challenge, I have decided to tackle my less than inviting guest room. Call me optimistic but I’m hoping that we will be able to start having guests soon and right now the room doesn’t exactly scream “please come back and visit again”. Let alone “please come back and visit again, but also maybe watch the baby so I can sleep a little. k thanks.”

The Before

As you can see, this room is not ideal for prisoners and definitely not for guests. Full disclosure: when we moved into our house last May this room became the place where I put the furniture and decor that I didn’t really have a place for in the rest of our house. Then I just closed the door and convinced myself that there was nothing to see behind door number two. Fast forward a year and here we are.

The Plan

Honestly, I’m still working this out in my head because I just decided to do this yesterday… But I have some basic guidelines that I told myself I had to follow.

• All the furniture and decor that I use has to either be thrifted, bought off Facebook Marketplace, or repurposed from my stockpiles.
• I will DIY as much as possible but I refuse to paint the walls. About twenty minutes in to every project I remember I hate painting and I’m terrible at it. (It’s important to know your strengths and your weaknesses)
• This is a phased approach. Right now this room is our guest room but one day it will be Stella’s big girl room so I have to keep that in mind when I’m making my choices.

And there you go. I’ll keep you updated each week and check out my instagram to follow along with the struggle.

Update: I finished my design board last night. All of the things pictured are the furniture and decor are things I already own. I ordered my paint samples from Clare paint and I’m hoping to get my main man Alfredo in during Week 2 or 3 to get the painting done.

I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do for the bed and the closet doors but future problems. I’ve got a design board.