One Room Challenge Week 1–Guest Bedroom Makeover

Hello! Welcome to Week 1 of the One Room Challenge. We have been busy here at The Brick Nests working on this project, and I can’t wait to share this journey with you! The room I am tackling for this One Room Challenge is the guest bedroom, which is the last room in the house waiting for my personal style stamp. I’m excited to soon have this project checked off my list, and only then will my home be officially done (insert evil laugh here). Done–yeah, right! With an older home there will always be projects, which is fine as it gives me plenty to blog about!

This is our first One Room Challenge as a blog, and we’re so excited! I’d like to send out a huge thanks to Calling it Home for hosting. I am, however, no stranger to room makeovers. In fact, I have been doing room makeovers ever since buying our dream home five years ago, which was in need of some major refreshing in every room. But this time around, I’m thrilled to be able to document my progress with this room redo and share tips and knowledge with all of you also striving to make your homes stylish and functional! If you are new to The Brick Nests, don’t forget to check out our About page to learn more about us.Here’s a little background info on the room. When the house was built in 1940, this room was designed to function as a servant or butler’s quarters, and is located above the garage with its own bathroom and staircase coming up from the kitchen (see last week’s post for more on that). This was in an era when the kitchen was small and hidden, and was definitely not a central place for entertaining. These days, kitchens are gathering places, as is the case with my own newly renovated kitchen (check out our Portfolio page to see pictures)–but times have changed. Back then, having the servant’s room off the kitchen with a separate staircase kept the servant and all his or her activities separate from the family living there. The result of that is that in my modern-day, servant-free home, that room is a bit removed from the rest of the house and therefore out of sight, out of mind, which is why it hasn’t been a priority for me to redo. We now use this one-time servant’s quarters as our guest room for the occasional grandparent visit or friend sleepover (and I should clarify that I don’t make the people who stay in the old servant’s room cook and clean for me, although it is certainly encouraged!).

This is our fifth bedroom, and for now, serves as a very quiet guest room–though I can imagine the future battles this room will incite among my kids once they are teenagers (what’s better than a room far away in the house from mom and dad, with its own staircase as a bonus???). My oldest son may naturally lay claim to it first since he is the oldest, and will no doubt employ his ever-improving aspiring lawyer (and police officer and debate team member) skills to argue his case. My middle son (who is the epitome of the handsome devil…cute as can be, but Trouble with a capital T) may also request this super rad room–but sorry to say, from this middle child to my middle child, that is NEVER happening! Finally, my sweet baby girl, the world’s most chill toddler, will most certainly want her own bathroom and space away from the crazy and yucky boys. Oh, the fight will be a good one! But we still have a good while before the kids will want it, and for now I have some work to do to make it into an inviting and beautiful guest room.

Let’s get to some before pictures. While the room needs updates, it’s not a terrible space at all–in fact, it is rather quaint (and Lisa’s pictures are of course gorgeous). On top of being very private and cozy, it has a slanted, vault-like ceiling and cute little alcoves that add to the room’s charm.

Oh, but the paisley! The answer “Paisley” (a town in Scotland) once was the winning answer for trivia night that earned my team a first place finish, so in that case, hooray for Paisley! But in this room, I can’t take the matching tiny paisley print in the curtain trim and wallpaper anymore–it must GO!

So my plan for designing and decorating this room is to replace the wallpaper and remove the wall-to-wall carpet, but keep the main elements gender neutral, so that when my kids’ teen years do come upon us (never too early to brace for those!), I will not need to redo the entire room again. But to make the room feel special, I needed some inspiration–and that was provided by the green tree leaves all around the three windows of the room. Below is a view of the spare bedroom from the exterior. Because of the trees all around the room, I refer to it as the tree fort room–talk about a perfect place for a “brick nest” guest bedroom! I definitely want to keep that tree fort feel, letting the room feel inspired by nature and in touch with its exterior.

I used a bulletin board to plan the space for the One Room Challenge, and if you are doing a room makeover, I would encourage you to do the same, as it really helps to have a visual of how all the components play together. I tacked some general inspiration photos to the board, as well as some of the individual elements that I chose for the room.

If you are a super techie blogger like me (LOL), you could try making some more modern 21st century inspiration boards, such as these.

 

 

I would also encourage you to also save some images of rooms that have the look you are going for, and identify what elements in those rooms really speak to you and are attainable for your space. I save lots of room images that inspire me on our Pinterest board–check it out! Having a visual reference will help you stay on track during the many different stages of a room makeover. This bedroom below by Sonya Kinkade definitely had a look that inspired me, and was helpful to reference while planning the design of my One Room Challenge guest bedroom makeover.

 Source: Sonya Kinkade Design

In particular, the bright green dresser popping against the neutral backdrop really stood out to me. I am definitely planning to use my snazzy green chalk-painted dresser in this spare bedroom as a focal point, much like in the above photo.

I will be providing more detailed descriptions about my decor choices and styling decisions in the following weeks, so stay tuned! We have so much more to do and so little time! I will break this One Room Challenge into 6 weekly posts:

1. room plan and inspirations (the easy part is done, now time to get busy!)
2. wallpaper, floors, and color scheme
3. windows, rug, and lighting
4. furniture
5. art and accessories
6. before and after room reveal

Be sure to check back next week to see how my tree fort nest is progressing. You don’t want to miss next week–wallpaper, floors, and colors, oh my!