Guest Bedroom reveal

Guys, we did it!  We finished our guest bedroom quite a while back, and it's already had visitors in it TWICE.  Granted, it was my parents the first time and just my mom the second, but it counts, right?  I've literally had this post in my drafts since June, so I thought it was time to show off what we did.

Before:  Vertical blinds, builder beige, and stains galore.  Out of all of the spaces in this house, we knew it would be a big win for us to get this done, and an easy place to start, if a bit time consuming. Carpet is staying for now, so it was a matter of sprucing up the walls and getting rid of the ugly blinds.

After:  I mean... Wow.  We impressed ourselves on this one.  I wanted to create a homey space, that almost anyone would feel welcome in.  I realize that lovers of ultra-modern would probably loathe to spend the night, but luckily, we don't have any super-hip ultra-modern friends or family.

First up, I spent 4 hours scrubbing the heck out of the walls.  It was brutal, but paid off in huge dividends.  There was so much stuff on the walls, that it would have been a  nightmare to try to cover.  This is that same corner shown above.  Look Ma, the black stains are mostly gone!

Next up, I painted the ceiling and we primed the walls.  Ceiling painting is my FAVORITE thing, guys.  I don't know why, but I really, really like doing it.  Plus, who doesn't love being covered head to toe in paint spatter when you're done?  We ended up doing 2 coats of primer - the walls soaked up a ton of primer, and we were also covering over paint samples, which took some extra attention.

We were amazed just how much brighter everything looked once the beige was gone!  Also, pro tip:  just go ahead and buy your Kilz (primer) in 5 gallon buckets.  If you're doing more than one room, you will definitely use it, and it applies really thick, so it doesn't go as far as a gallon of paint does.

We also did 2 coats of paint.  It's a pretty standard sized room that holds a queen, and we used about a gallon of paint for both coats. The color is a super soft, pale blue by Glidden called Blue Frost.  Yep, like the gatorade flavor.  But the paint color is soooooooo much prettier than the beverage color.  Trust me.

From there, everything else was pretty simple.  We found the headboard on Wayfair, and added in furniture we already had:  The nighstands were our old ones that Ammon made to match our old bed.  We found the rocking chair and the dresser at our favorite thrift store back in CO.  There's still some small details missing, like a mirror to go over the dresser, and something for the top of the dresser.  But really, this room is ready for any guest who wants to come visit.

If you want to come next summer, though, you might need to get in line - apparently the new baby is quite the draw with our close family and friends.