Guest Room Reveal {with some DIY projects and a Big Important Question}

It's been 2 months since we've moved into our new home, and I can't believe I haven't shared more photos with you all! Instead of doing a brief photo tour of the entire house like I did last time, I figured it might be more enjoyable to share one space at a time. Also, we still have rooms with essentially no furniture in them so this is my way of sharing with you without making you wait 2 years, and without me rushing into filling spaces. 

Today, I'm going to share how "bedroom #2" has developed. If you remember, this is what it looked like when we first moved in. 

We had some family in town this past weekend so furnishing and finishing the guest bedrooms was actually at the top of our priority list. Honestly, both guest rooms are better furnished and more finished than our bedroom and nursery. Here's a look at it from the same view now. 

The room is painted a pale blue color and the former owners actually left us the blinds for the room {super duper lucky}. We were able to borrow this Ikea bed from Brit's parents, as they're getting their guest bedroom ready for two additional grandchildren. 

The room is not huge, actually it's quite snug, so there really isn't any room for bedside tables. I was able to find those unique little red shelves at Home Goods {as well as all of the pillows}, which fit perfectly. There is just enough space to store essentials {phone, water, book, etc.}, without taking up a lot of space in the room.  

I also added a small frame with our wifi information for guests. The frame background is just an assortment of washi tape, the same concept I used here. The frame itself is actually part of a large transition that I'd been working on {who knew, right? just looks like a standard white frame. Au contraire}.

Last year for Christmas my parents gifted me a 10-piece set of plain black picture frames {here is a similar set for under $20}. My parents, knowing that I love DIY and customizing things, were pretty genius in this gift. They were inexpensive and totally got my creative juices flowing. In our apartment, I couldn't find a good place for them, so I held onto them until now. 

If you look closely you can see I started doing a little work on one frame by painting a little gold into it. I ended up hating it and stopping before I got in too deep. I think you all would be amazed by the number of projects I start and then stop abruptly like, what were you thinking?!

I decided I wanted all of the frames to be white instead of black, and maybe add a little distressed look. I threw in a couple other cheap black frames I had around, put on some recorded episodes of Fixer Upper {yes, I actually record HGTV shows} and had myself a little painting party. I just used some leftover white wall paint for them. I considered spray painting, however I really wanted some of the brush marks to show, just to add a little character. 

Don't ask me why, but after seeing all of them painted white I completely changed my mind about the distressed look. I picked out a few frames and decided to start painting them different colors and adding some stripes to a few others. Using painters tape you can easily add stripes to items like frames. 
I hung up the Ikea shelves we had on display in our old green room {you can see them on display here and here}, and used it to show off all of our "new" frames. 

So happy I can put our Pirates of the Caribbean picture on display again, I'm sure our guests are too 

The other little piece of art you may have noticed in the room is also a DIY project. Brit and I had decided we wanted some kind of simple quote above the guest bed. I was particularly found of this one, and may still add it somewhere else in our home. 

However, Brit's suggestion of a classic Benjamin Franklin quote made me laugh out loud, and we like making people laugh. So I picked up a large canvas at Michael's, they have sales on them all the time, never pay full price. I used pretty much the exact same method as I did with our nursery art. I painted the background using leftover sample paint from our dinning room {Sherwin Williams Bracing Blue color, but a Home Depot Behr color match, for $15 cheaper}. 

I used my computer to outline the quote and sizing for the canvas. 

Based on this genius plan, I thought I'd have plenty of space in between each word and line. Well, let's just say I don't write in the same font as I type. Luckily, I used chalk again to draft up what I wanted. The chalk outline easily wiped away using a towel so I could adjust and edit as needed. 

After I finally got the outline down, I started filling in the chalk lines using a white paint pen. 

 Just look at that concentration!

I used the same red paint used for the nursery art to paint two of the fish. Then, using 3M command picture hanging strips, I hung it up above our guest bed. 

I love that it has little faults to it, like the letters not all being straight and in line. It just gives it so much more character and makes it even more personal to me. 

One big oversight Brit and I had, our first guests were coming and staying for four days... We really know how to make people feel welcome.

One last little bit I'd like to talk about is that trunk. Brit and I were able to pick that up at a tag sale {also called a garage sale everywhere else in the country. East Coasters, man} for $35!! It was the third day of a three day sale so they were basically giving things away. 

I had every intention of painting over all of the dust and grime {sorry, no before picture}. However, my amazing hubby, Brit, got to work cleaning it up one night. You basically could not see any detailing and the wood was completely dried out and looked awful. With a little elbow grease, and some wood oil, here is the beauty today!

So that's the progress of our first guest room. What do you think? Wanna come stay for no more than three days? 

If you've read this far, first of all, THANK YOU! I know, this was a winded one. So, my little gift to you is, Please help us decide what to do about that middle fish! So Brit really wants me to fill it in white, while I'm kinda digging the outlined look. However this may be mainly motivated by the fact that I just don't want to take the time to fill it in. So, I figured we'd ask you all. I had so much fun with the poll last time, so I've been looking for any excuse to use it again. Let us know what you think! 


Thanks for visiting!