How I Spent My Presidents Day Weekend...

I love four day weekends! (Who doesn't?) This weekend, I decided that I would tackle our guest bedroom. I knew what color I wanted to paint it...

And, after buying the tester, I was sure that this shade of gray would work. So, I took a little trip to Home Depot and purchased a gallon. I knew that if I had the paint in the house, I would have no reason to put it off any further.

My inital inspiration for this room was to create a warm, welcoming environment. Since most of our guests will be coming from Massachusetts to PA, I wanted them to feel like they stepped into a hotel-- but still comfortable and fun enough that it feels like a home. The color scheme I had in mind was gray, yellow and white. Something a little like this:



http://audreysdesignblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/gray-and-yellow-decor.html

Or this...


http://www.aestheticoiseau.com/2010/09/yellow-and-gray-bedroom.html

So, I got out the paint, and went to work. Just for fun, here is the BEFORE of our guest room.

(Sorry for the blurry picture..My camera phone is not the greatest)

 .

After finishing the first coat of paint, I knew that we would need to do a second coat to cover all of the white underneath the walls. While it dried, I began to think about how the room would look when it was finished. I knew that I wanted to get a new bed-- a nice, crisp white headboard, and something dramatic over the headboard. 

Then I remembered that I had purchased white spray paint for another project I was working on, and I got an idea-- I would SPRAY PAINT the bed white! If it came out good, awesome! If it came out bad, I'd be getting another one anyways. So, while the paint upstairs dried, I went to town...

NOTE: It is a terrible, terrible idea to spray paint indoors. I am a complete idiot, and thought that, seeing it was freezing out, I could spray paint the bed in our basement. BAD, BAD IDEA! After using about 4 cans of spray paint to cover all of the dark wood, I began to feel light headed...so of course, I came upstairs to google all of the effects of using spray paint indoors. Then I convinced myself that I was dying, grabbed George and evacuated the house. I was not dying, and I was fine after a drive through scenic PA with the windows down. Lesson learned- don't spraypaint inside!

Anyhoo, the bed turned out better than I would have expected! You'll see it soon in the pictures below. 

I awoke the next day, put a second coat of paint on the guest room walls, and decided to do some more PA exploring. So, with my trusty sidekick George in the backseat, we headed out on an adventure.

As I was driving, I randomly stumbled upon a store called QVC Outlet. Let me backtrack by saying that my grandmother (affectionately called Grammy) is my favorite person in the world. And she LOVES QVC. So, I said to myself, I have to stop and see what they have.

I walked into the store and, lo and behold, all of a sudden I saw the PERFECT comforter for the guest bedroom. Everything was coming together so nicely! It was yellow, black and gray...and, best of all, 50% off! So what that the only size they had was King size and the bed is a double..I'd make it work.

I got home, brought my newly spraypainted white bed up from the basement, added a light and rug that I had purchased at Ikea last weekend, and my guest room is well on its way to completion! So, without further adieu-- the semi-final product:

I Loooovveee that bedspread!

So, the room still isn't 100% complete. Not even 60% complete. But, its getting there. I have some ideas for behind the bed, and for some artwork/storage solutions around the room. As Ryan keeps reminding me though, not everything needs to happen over night!

I hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend, and that you enjoyed seeing how I spent mine :-)

Look for more posts soon on changes to the rest of the house.