Peek-a-boo for you

After re-upholstering the storage bench with fresh fabric

[After: reupholstered bench chest]

painting the Dahlia desk and adding new curtains,

[After: New look for a vintage sewing desk]

our guestbedroom went from looking like this war zone

[Before: Chaos reigns supreme]

to showing like an actual guest bedroom!

[After: Ahhhh, like a bresh of fresh air]

It's obviously still a work in progress lacking art, night stands and other sweet finishing touches, but for the most part this room is done! Catching a glimpse of it every time I'm upstairs, makes me giddy with joy. It's bright and airy and sweet, and I can't wait to have guest!

New look for an old chest

Part of the furniture of the guest bedroom is a cedar chest in which I keep my fabric stash. In order to work with the new design of the room, it definitely needed a new look. And since I forgot to snap a Before picture, you simply have to take my word for it that the old dropcloth top just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Oh lucky day, when I found a piece of black and white acanthus leaf swirl fabric in my stash.

[More or less after: New cover is on!]

Upholstering the top with a new piece of fabric took 10 minutes and has been covered in tutorials and rehashed on so many blogs I'm not going to bother going into detail here. Sufficient to say that you straighten out the fabric and then staple it to the wooden part of the top all around.


Just the red cedar wasn't looking too sharp next to the black and white fabric now. Sigh! Does it ever end?
So I gave the the cedar chest a light wash with black paint, pretending it were a stain. This allowed the grain of the wood and some red glow to show through, but the black wash tempered and mellowed the bright red of the cedar which made it a better match for the new top. Phew!

[Close-up]

[After: New color and new upholstery]

So much better, don't you think? And again, a fab freebie since I had all materials on hand.

Dahlia Desk

Vintage furniture and stencils are a match made in heaven. You've gotta try this! In order to offer my parents a cozy room for their stay here, we had to break out the big guns when it came to improvising style on a serious budget when paint and things you have around the house already are your main ingredients.
I've had this little old sewing desk for a couple of years. It's sturdy, folds out to a large sewing table with a sunken spot for a built-in, but missing sewing machine and 3 deep drawers for stuff. Since I prefer to set up my sewing sweat shop on the dining room table instead though, it was severely underutilized and merely collected drywall dust in our bedroom when it wasn't buried under a laundry basket or tools.

[Before: Mahogany sewing desk with drawers already removed]

After a thorough cleaning and rub down with deglosser, the first coat of primer went on. For a moment I was tempted (notice a trend) to keep it white, but then braced myself and pushed on. I'd chosen a mellow yellow as an accent color to the soft grey and crisp white in the room, and wanted to use the desk to introduce another pop of color.

[In-progress: A mellow yellow desk]

In the spirit of using what I had (and avoiding having to run out to the box store for more supplies) I grabbed the bucket of yellow paint we'd used in the kitchen and painted the desk. The color is lovely, albeit a bit too pale for a piece of furniture. It looked sweet but incredibly bland.
What's a DIYer to do?


Stencil to the rescue! Armed with a stencil and some of the blue-grey paint we'd used on the walls, I wrapped the stencil around the corner and down the drawer front of the little desk.

It's a little hard to see so maybe this project will warrant a bit o' photoshopping the photo rather than using it straight from the camera. Hmm ...

The handles were next. While I like the honey-golden glow of vintage brass, it just wouldn't do for the mellow yellow and grey desk.


This stuff is "Da Bomb!", I'm telling you! It adds a silver shimmer and nice even finish to your hardware without making it look like it was spray-painted. And it dries quickly. Very rewarding!

[After: Drawers with trailing dahlias and fresh hardware]

Cost? Nada. Not a single extra penny spent! Fabulous!

Before & After: The Guest Bedroom

Blah

Before

So much better

After

[patiently waiting for furniture and window treatments]

Work in progress - the guest bedroom

One of the things on our must-have list was a guest bedroom dedicated to that exclusive purpose. Not a sleeper couch, not a catch-all room, but a real guest bedroom. Both, the husband and I, have family spread out all over the place: his over this continent and mine all across the ocean in good ol' Germany, and we like having them visit and stay. Being able to provide them with a comfortable room means a lot to us and was non-negotiable. So after painting the Little Man's Cave we proceeded to freshen up the guest bedroom.

Mrs G had already taken care of the windows in the room. Weights were restrung and locks refitted and she even took one sash to the shop to give a thorough once-over. Now they work like new! [Sorry for the not so great "Before" picture]

Here's what we started with: a cute but bland bedroom that gets great light through two big windows and features one small closet. When we brainstormed what we wanted the room to look like we ended up with a silver-blue and white color scheme with dashes of black for contrast. [You can find the mood board here]

After some deliberating we choose Dutch Boy's "Silver Slate" for the wall color and went to town. The ceiling received a coat of Ultra Pure White which is our default white for the Ugly Duckling.

[After: fresh paint on ceiling and wall and trimwork prepped and taped for painting]

[The other side of the room with view of the hallway through the open door. The smaller door is the closet door]

What a change! We fell in love with the color all over again once it was up on the walls. It doesn't overwhelm, it is light and airy which we felt was important for the room since it's a bit on the small side and it makes all of the trim really pop!
As an added side effect it works at all times of the day in the room: in the morning it is the truest ,a soft silver grey with a hint of blue to give it body, during the day it gains a periwinkle blue hue and in the afternoon when the settling sun reflects from the hardwood floors it appears almost lilac. Love!