Cottage Guestroom redo
We finished the guest room last week, and I was able to shuffle around things I already had, to put it all together. Oh, sure, I talked big about not wanting a room that was filled with left over bits and pieces, but once I started looking around, I decided that I liked the stuff that I already owned. Why go buy something else?
Especially when I had so many sentimental things. This quilt square was made by my husband's grandma, and I framed it. It sits on one of her journals next to a cup that was my mom's.
As I was going through some things I had packed away, I was surprised at how much I had that went with the new blue walls ("clear pond" from Behr).
Funny, I'd owned them because of their pinkness. But all had a touch of this aqua-blue too.
I bought this vintage bed spread years ago and have tried using it, but as much as I loved the roses, I never liked the way it looked in a room. But now, it seems ideal for this guest bed.
The oak washstand on the right used to belong to my husband's other grandmother. And the book case on the left was already in the room. I thought about painting them, but after I saw them in place, I liked the contrast. Most of my house is soft colored, so it is fun to have a space that is bright and cottagey, with some darker furniture.
My mother made the little, blue pillow, and I stitched up the curtains from a torn, vintage panel.
One of these tins was my mom's. And the wedding photo is a family picture from the Nathans. I thought the sepia photo went well with the dark furniture.
The heart valance is made of a strip of netting tulle, and three hearts hand made by Lori Oles and Andrea Singarella.
The sign is one that I'd painted years ago, when I used to sell these. It is made from the siding of the old garage that was on the property when we moved in. It was the first garage in Douglas Co., KS, and you know me, I can't toss anything.
Of course I found a use for the wood when we ripped the structure down!
And brought in this desk from the studio. It used to be a drop leaf table. The leaf was removed, and attached facing up instead of down, to make a back wall, and I added a shelf supported with metal brackets and spindles.
One of the butterfly plates was my mom's and so were the two carnival glass dishes.
When Sugarwings saw the completed space, she decided to help out and set out the tins for me, and has claimed it as her grown up room. I don't know if she will actually move into it when she is staying here, she hardly even uses the room that she does have, and sleeps downstairs on the sofa. But if she wants it, I told her she could have the room after Birdsong, when I need it for guests.
The room is small, scavenged from the attic of the old part of the house. When we built it, I asked that the wasted space in the roofline be saved and made useful. So, a storage area was built in.
I don't have much in it, but it is handy to have there. Kind of a secret space to hide things away in, then forget that they are there.
This is what it looked like before. I'm relieved to see the last of the dull, heavy carpet. The room feels so much cleaner now. But, I'm just not a carpet person.
