Guest Room

I'd been wanting to update our guest room for awhile, but never really found the motivation to get it done. This past September my friend Katie was planning to visit me for the first time in Virginia. So of course I HAD to get the room done by then! I was determined, so I set out and worked hard on the room before she arrived. Below is a series of before and afters within the guest room.

For starters here's some of the inspiration that I found on Pinterest for the room. 

I knew I wanted to make this room lighter and more cheery. 

A room that would one day (Lord willing) transfer well into a nursery. 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Here are some old BEFORE Pictures of the room. 

I had taken better/more before shots, but can't seem to find them. :(
This room was originally "suppose" to be an office, music, lounge room.
Not so much. It quickly became more of a catch all, messy room.

I was having a lot of trouble finding the exact color I wanted for the walls.

Can you tell...
I ended up picking the one on the very top right.
It's a very beautiful color.
It looks more blue in some lights and then more green in others. 

I made these four pillows for the room.

The turquoise one was made out of kitchen towels from Target.
All the other fabrics were from JoAnn's.

I was wanting to buy a new desk and bookshelf for the room, but after some looking

I decided it would be more cost effective to try and paint the furniture. 

It actually turned out much better than I anticipated!

:: Before ::

:: After ::

:: Owl painted white ::

:: Before and afters of the globe ::



:: New sewing desk. It's not an ideal desk for sewing, but it does the job for now ::

:: Kevin found this chair at the dump when dropping off our garbage. Nice! ::

:: Bought these tins from Ikea awhile ago ::

:: Mirror painted white ::

Kevin found this frame at the dump too. He's quite the lucky guy!
I need to send him there more often.
:: Mirror and frame before ::

:: I was shocked to find this chandelier for $5 at a garage sale ::

:: Before ::

:: After ::

Here's the before and after of the knight I placed over the bed. 

This was given to me by some friends. It was originally in there house when they bought it,

but they didn't want it, so they gave it to me. :) So kind of them!
Can I pretend this is the Van Wynsberg Coat of Arms? 

:: Before ::

::After ::

The flowers, and Helvetica saying was inspired by Pinterest.
The picture is from my grandmother.
As a little girl I liked to pretend that the girl in the picture was me.
Can I still pretend? ;P

:: Flowers and vase from Michaels ::

Picture from my Grandma on my mothers side.

It was originally given to me in a frame,
but I took it out of the frame and did something else with it in my house.
I plan to reframe the picture though.

I'd like to eventually get a white bedspread for this room. 

My dream bedspread is this one in white from Anthropologie

I'd also like to add some sort of headboard.
Not sure what yet, but one thing at a time. :)

:: Final project (mostly) complete! ::

:: Rug from Ikea ::

:: Curtains from Target ::

Pillows, Dogs, & Friday Nights...They go together right?

So I have this thing for pillows. I've made quite a few of em', probably because they're quite easy to make. 

Fact about me: I prefer making pillows with zippers. I truly believe it's easier to make them with zippers. If you want to learn I can show you how. 

Anyways, I recently bought some plain gray pillows from Ikea, and decided that they needed some glaming up [well one so far]. I was bored last night [Friday] while Kevin did homework [per-usual]. 

It's very relaxing to just create. I tuned into Pandora [Lady Gaga selection; which led to other awesome songs] and went at it.
As I was crafting and singing [well if that's what you call it coming from me <--NOT the next American Idol] some of the songs made me really wish I was out dancing. Do you ever just want to dance, dance, and dance some more? I did, but instead I had to let the energy flow through my fingers; which was fine.


**Can we please have a dance party, someone? Any takers? I'd be down.

Here's the {before} of the boring ol' gray pillow:

Heres the {afters} of the gray pillow 

[WARNING: I got picture happy with the after shots of this pillow]:

All handmade pillow accents.

This pretty little bow wasn't too tough to make, I wasn't sure where I was going with it when I first started crafting it, but then this came into being. I'll take it!

*Kev dislikes the bow on the pillow...gerr. I highly value his opinion, and were usually on the same page, so I'm finding it difficult to stick with what I like when he doesn't. Anyone else married and have this dilemma? 

I really need a girls opinion around here sometimes. Or I need to just learn to be confident in MY OWN opinion. 

All the fabric used for the pillow accents. 

My workspace after crafting. 
It looks like something exploded.

An explosion of craftiness. 

I made this pillow [below] months ago. I don't believe I ever posted pictures of it though. Well here she is. I stitched the flowers and sun design on it with my sewing machine. I had plans to make two of them but have yet to finish the second one [though I did start it!..months ago]. ;)

Glance at the back. *Zipper on bottom.

Leonidas & Bailey recently had their hair chopped off, so they've been extra cold [they're used to having long hair]. Being the nice mom that I am I bought them some sweaters to keep warm. They have doggy sweaters on sale at Wal-Mart for $2.50. Deal.
[& YES, I am that crazy person who calls herself "mom" when referring to my relationship with my dogs. I can't help it, I just love them]

It's a hard life being a dog. 

I especially like how Leo skeezes up the windows all the time. ;) 

I'm thankful the Lord created animals. They're a blessing.

 
Oh & I really hope I'm as spunky and free-living as these ladies 40 or so years from now.