DECORATING 101: "GUEST BEDROOM"

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

It was Unanimous.....well, almost unanimous.......there was the one comment yesterday asking to hear about the trip to the nudist camp.....I guess the stick people picture threw him off (see picture)......but aside from that comment, everyone picked multiple choice #2 - A Tour of the Lakehouse.   So, here we go.....we'll start with Guest Bedroom #1.

I must first tell you that Liz does not pay full price for anything.  If I can make it myself, I will.  I negotiate on price for everything; I borrow ideas from magazines; been known to take pictures from my cell phone of pictures inside magazines so I won't have to purchase the magazine and lastly, draw out my idea and beg Chuck to make it in his woodworking shop.

GUEST BEDROOM:
Now, a little history on this room.  When we first purchased our Lakehouse in 2001, it only had two bedrooms and this wasn't one of them.  After owning the house for about 3-4 years, we decided to add a large Guest Bedroom and a large Screen Porch.  This added about 500 square feet making the house about 3000 square feet total.  We were about 2/3 of the way complete with the add-on when we had to "fire" the contractor.   Errrrrrrrrrrr...........I was the only one in the neighborhood who trusted this dude and I had such high hopes for him.  It's very difficult in East Texas to find good competent, INSURED contractors that show up each day, don't blow you off to go fishing, and have all their teeth.  So we finished the job ourselves.....

I looked high and low for a king sized black 4-poster bed.....Now days, you can find them everywhere, but six years ago, they were no where to be found.  I believe I single handedly brought black 4-poster beds into the decorating world.  Found this beautiful bed in a small town in Arkansas, with a beacon of light from Heaven shining down on it.......meant to be mine!  I've always wanted a black/white toile theme and this was the perfect room to do it in.  I found the linens at Target (on SALE, of course!) and decided to make the curtains, canopy and bedskirt myself.  My favorite fabric store is in Dallas called The Fabric Yard and purchased this beautiful lacy fabric for about $2.00 a yard there.  A STEAL!  I've never been known for my sewing abilities (I had to take Home Ec twice cause I "paid" a girl to make my Home Ec dress....got caught), so I tend to use my best friend, hot glue, to hem most everything in our house.

We purchased stock cabinets from Lowe's and made the long window seat on the wall of windows.  Attached some molding to it, covered the backside of it with toile wallpaper, upholstered a cushion out of Target sheets, threw several coats of paint on it and whalla........It is a perfect place to put the granddaughters' books and toys in baskets as well as sit and relax looking at the lake.

The black dressing table was found at an antique auction in Sulphur Springs.  It originally was brown and, for some reason, much lower; too low.  We won the bid at $125, sanded it down, painted it black and Chuck made perfectly matching leg extensions to bring the height up to where it should be.  One of the end tables to the bed also was purchased at this auction for $40 and painted to match.  It's an old piano cabinet.  Found the stool at a furniture store closeout, then painted and reupholstered with sheets to match.  The three wicker baskets at the foot of the bed were purchased to hold the granddaughters' barbies and toys.

Now, the hardest thing in the room was picking the wall color.  I will never forget my brother-in-law, Brady's comment when he first saw the color.  I believe his exact words were "Baby Poop Green".  He has since worked his way back into my favor......lucky for him......but  I totally disregarded his comment because, well......afterall, he is a man, what does he know about paint color??   I actually took a pillow case to a store in Dallas some of you will remember, Gabberts, and asked one of their decorators what color I should use on the wall and he picked this color for me.  This is a perfect solution if you just can't decide, and it's FREE.

I hand painted the wording on the wall with the help of my overhead projetor, reupholstered an old screen porch wicker sofa (again with sheets) and that about did it for this room.  Added some merchandising around the room from garage and estate sales to complete the look.  Two of my favorite finds was the dog bed made out of a chair with red gingham fabric that I picked up at the chuch bizarre this past December and a picture frame with a plate and spoon from the Queen Elizabeth at an estate sale for $4.00.
I hope I haven't bored you too much with this little walk through of our Large Guest Bedroom......I truly enjoy decorating and love sharing my thoughts with you as well as receiving your ideas!

Tomorrow......we'll see our Granddaughters Play Area........