With guests coming for visits all summer and in the fall, I’ve been busy getting our guest area (I can’t really call it a room since it’s just an area in our basement) ready.
Here is the ugly before:
And although I have big plans for the space, here is where I am currently:
I really liked the idea of getting an inexpensive bed and upholstering it like Julia did at ChrisLovesJulia.com, so I followed her tutorial and the bed I got off of Craigslist went from this:
To this:
I won’t post a full tutorial since Julia (and Daniel) do a great job of it and this post is so long as it is, but here are the highlights:
The bed was listed for $80, but I asked if they’d take $40 which they did. I tracked down army blankets at an army supply store 40 minutes from my house and made sure to get 2 just to make sure I had enough. I didn’t want to make the drive again.
Initially, I left the two top sticking out pieces on the bed and thought I could just upholster around them (being a complete novice, I didn’t know better). They stuck out like a sore thumb after the upholstery job:
So, I undid a small portion of the upholster job I’d already done and cut the pieces off using my Dremel saw.
After cutting off the pieces of wood, I re-upholstered the spots and it looked much better:
I left a little of the red stitching showing on the bed rails and also the bed feet. I also painted the bottoms of the legs gold since they were initially white.
I love the way the bed turned out. Every time I look at it, I think that it looks like a bed wearing a sweater because it looks so cozy.
I dug through what I already had on hand for wall art and found these animal heads in my basement that I’ve had for a few months knowing that I wanted to use them somewhere in my house, but I wasn’t sure where. After painting one of them gold (it was a light wood color):
hanging them above the dresser turned out to be a perfect spot for them.
We’re vegetarian and my kids were a little spooked by them at first, but I plan on decorating them for various holidays a la Rudolph for Christmas to make them more cute than creepy.
The dresser and the nightstands are from Home Goods. The dresser is an artisan piece made in India and is super solid.
The nightstands have slate tops and my Home Goods only had one so I called three others in my area and finally tracked down another a half hour away which I promptly snagged.
There is no closet in this area (or at all in the basement), so I got this hanging laundry rack from IKEA, painted all the silver metal parts gold, and hung it in a corner so that guests would have somewhere to hang clothes.
The plants came from Home Depot. I think that something green and living belongs in every room and this space has two.
I’ve ordered a couple really cool light fixtures for above the nightstands.
They’re from Etsy and I got them with birthday money from my mom and sister (thanks guys!).
I ordered them to plug into outlets since I didn’t want to hire an electrician to install them although the overhead fluorescent lights have to go at some point and when that happens, I’ll have the electrician hard wire the lights into the wall.
I also found a cute kilim rug on Amazon and am waiting for that to come in:
I’d also like to paint the area which would make a big difference, but I still have to finish up the deck before I pick up another paint project. I plan to use a paint color that I already have on hand… I’m thinking a light gray color like Revere Pewter by BM. That’s down the line though.
What still needs to be done is to add some accessories and also hang something above the bed (I’m trying find something other than a mirror since I’m trying to kick my mirror habit). I also need to find a couple more solid color pillows and also a throw blanket to add some color to the bed. For now though, back to work on the deck (meh!).
