Dean and I are taking the winter off from renovations to ski and enjoy our new puppy, Rory. But I still cannot resist the urge to tackle a home project from time to time. Before the holidays, the dismal guest room was just begging to be updated.
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| Rory, our Wheaten Terrier, is 4.5 months old. He makes our home very cozy, |
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| Before. The paint was chipping off of one wall, so I decided to strip the whole thing. This is mid-project. |
The “before” photo is particularly gruesome because the guest room was a construction staging area during the bathroom renovation. In addition, one of the walls was water damaged from an old leak from our upstairs neighbor’s bathroom. The leak caused historic wallpaper and the 5 layers of paint on top of it to buckle and crack. I spent about 15 hours scraping the wallpaper off one wall to make it smooth. (BTW, I found that soapy water in a spray bottle worked just as well as pricey wallpaper solvent to loosen up the old paper).
My budget for the whole room was $750 and I didn’t quite make it. But I came close.
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| I have a hard time choosing my favorite elements: the dhurrie rug, red bed and light blue walls are all great. |
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I painted the walls light blue, using the leftover paint from our half-bath (Farrow & Ball’s Borrowed Light). I repainted all of the trim in the same white we have used throughout the house—Halo by C2 Paint. If you want to spruce up a room but don’t want to make huge changes, I recommend repainting the trim. It makes such a big difference and only takes a few hours. Cost for paint was $0 because we already had it on hand.
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| The white glass Ikea lights hung by the bed have an amazing glow. |
I looked far and wide for an 8-foot square rug. It was important to find this size rug, as the guest room is 10’x11’ and a double bed and an antique armoire take up much of the square footage. The rug will only be visible in a limited area beside and at the foot of the bed, so it had to be the perfect fit. I found that Overstock.com has excellent rugs with the best selection of sizes. I choose and brown and ivory
Moroccan wool dhurrie rug made by Safavieh and paid $269 with a coupon.
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| Winter cabbage, San Francisco books and quarters for the bus on the bedside table. |
I bought an old pineapple post bed on craigslist for $50. The original bed seemed to have a varnish on it so I choose a paint-and-primer-in-one from Behr in the color Apple Polish. Cost for paint was $15.
The sheets and a comforter are also from Overstock. I picked the best-reviewed linens with the most reasonable prices. The Supima cotton
ivory flannel sheets cost $53 and they are so cozy and rich-feeling. I highly recommend them. The zinnia fitted sheet that I used to cover the box spring was from Garnet Hill—I have had it for years. The blue blanket is also an old-but-loved linen that I bought at Selfridge’s department store in London. Total cost for linens, including down comforter: $98.
The bedside lights are two Ikea pendants from our storage room that were intended for the hallway, but did not work out. I had a lighting guy re-wire the pendants to plug into a socket and turn on with line-switches. It is nice to have hanging lights at the bedside because they do not take up space on the bedside table. Cost: $115.
A new mattress and box spring was $300. That included delivery and tax was waived.
The storage armoire and nightstand are antiques that I already owned. I also hung artwork that I already had—including a framed .25 cent buffalo target from a hunting store. Even less expensive, the artwork above the bed is a creased piece of white paper that Dean and I made after seeing Ed Ruscha’s work in the Museum of Modern Art New York.
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| The storage armoire is large but holds so much stuff--bed and bath linens for the whole house and other miscellany. |
Hopefully this is a restorative and stylish retreat for our friends and family when they visit our city by the Bay. I still have a few more finishing touches to do, including searching craigslist for another bedside table. We hosted a non-stop stream of guests over the holidays and they all liked the room. I also slept in there once too, because it is too cozy to resist.
Total cost: $847.
