Category Archives: guest bedroom

Third Floor Overhaul.

Posted in guest bedroom, house, third floor by

So it took us almost five years from when we first bought the house and the impending arrival of a new baby to motivate us to remove the old carpets from the third floor.  While the carpets weren’t old when we moved in they nevertheless were not attractive.  Carpets are just not my thing.  Especially old carpets really gross me out.

We discovered that there were old pine wood floors under the carpet and layers of linoleum.  I had no idea what condition the wood is in.  Nevertheless hoping for the best we hired someone to refinish the 100 year old pine sub floor.

We  moved everything out of the third floor (by we I of course mean Scott).  I felt totally incapacitated not being able to paint, move furniture or do any other type of renovation.  I was dying to paint the third floor but I’ve been advised it is best to avoid paint fumes when pregnant.  I decided to hire someone to paint the third floor and I was shocked to realize how much painters charge.  Scott and I painted the whole house ourselves and we were totally clueless as to how much money we saved by doing it ourselves!

Here are the “After” pictures of the third floor bedroom (used previously as an office room) and Hallway.  The floors look amazing.  I am really pleased with the way the third floor turned out.

The paint is Benjamin Moore Aura, Tropical dusk in Matte.  The butterfly chair was moved here from the living room.  The rugs are a Turkish Kilim runner and Persian rug purchased a while ago on eBay.

The Mid-century credenza is from eBay (a birthday gift to Scott).

The hallway is painted in Benjamin Moore Aura, Moonlight White, Matte.  This runner was also purchased on eBay a while ago.

 

Here’s what the room looked like after we moved everything out:

I had already painted the doors in Benjamin Moore Studio Finishes Chalkboard paint.

Here’s a close up of the hallway of what the floor underneath the carpet looked like.

Under the carpet we found an old Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper from 1960.

 

I will post some pictures of the new office room on the third floor soon.

Advertisement

Re-dcorating the Guest Room.

Posted in guest bedroom, house, Inspiration by

After spending some time in November and December vacationing I realized the importance of having a very comfortable and beautiful guest room. This is what the guest room looks like now:

Our guest room is pretty tiny but it faces South and is always filled with light. To make it more guest friendly I need to make it feel more fabulous than it is now. I think we need to add some shelving, maybe in the alcove (next to the window and not seen in this picture) and over the bed. I would like to fill the shelves with some books about Philly and other great reads. We have no shortage of books in the house and this would give me more storage for the books and also provide our guests with some good reading material. I love the shelves in the images below and would like to use these images as inspiration to build our own shelves:

(source unknown)

Since the room is pretty small I want to paint it a dark color, maybe a greenish grey and attempt to obtain a cocoon effect. I think that smaller bedrooms look much better in a darker color. I don’t think that a small room ever looks bigger with a light color. Similarly, I think a small room looks better with larger pieces of furniture, even if they take up a lot of space, instead of tiny furniture scattered around.

I think that I will also paint the lamp base in black and get a smaller end table. Also, the batik peacock art will be moving to the basement temporarily. I want one large painting over the bed.

I hope that this will be a short and inexpensive project!

Guest Bedroom.

Posted in guest bedroom by

What is now the guest bedroom was at one time going to be my closet.  The room is tiny and I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to make the space more inviting.

Finally, after being stuck inside because of the snow storm and in desperate need for something to do, Scott and I decided to move the bed around in the guest room and this is what it looks like now:


The bed faces the window and the view is great (as great as it gets for a house in our neighborhood). 

The room faces South so the room is generally filled with great light.  What a huge difference a small thing like moving the bed around does for a room.  The room looks so much more inviting and restful. I love these bamboo blinds.  They filter the light beautifully.

I bought the blue and white batik wall hanging in Sri Lanka in 1990.  It has been tacked to the walls of all the apartments that I have lived in since 1992.  The other batik wall hanging is also from Sri Lanka and we bought that in 1999.  I am glad that my peacocks have finally found a permanent home.

We still have to paint this room but that will have to wait until we’ve removed the wallpaper on the second floor landing, fixed the plaster on that wall and put on new wallpaper.