The Guest Room, now taking reservations for 2012

Throughout our renovations it seems like we're always planning ahead. We haven't completed our dining room or the second floor bathroom and yet we're already planning the guest bedroom and breakfast room. Please understand this is easy to do because everywhere we look we think of how we can make it feel more like our home and how we can refresh every room with our current style yet keep the classic history of the house. With that let's talk guest room.

The Before. This room is also commonly referred to as the "death room" as it's our educated deduction that this is where dear Joan (aka Ghost Joan) died. So once you got past that fun fact you were still face with dated wallpaper which was peeling and a musky smell.  The room had great antique furniture but was stuffed to the top making a large room with great natural light feel cramped and dark.

The Current. After many nights of excruciatingly time consuming wall-paper stripping. *Helpful Hint* The best way to strip difficult wall paper is to score it, spray it heavily with fabric softener/water mix (1:5 ratio), wait 8 minutes, and scrape away. The fabric softener is cheaper and works better than all the chemicals at your home improvement store plus as an added bonus makes the room smell delicious.

looking towards office

window view

 As always, I searched high and low for inspiration and as this room will be using furniture from what we already own, it's transformation will come mostly from our paint choice. I found this latest inspiration in the latest issue of House Beautiful which focused on paint color (side note: yes, I have a design magazine addiction! I subscribe to this magazine along with Architectural Digest and Elle Decor and buy others on the side). The article showcases a house completely painted with high gloss paint. Not sure how I feel about that but really love the transition of colors between these two rooms. When I saw the photos I envisioned replicating the contrast between our office and the guest room (which share a doorway).

The Future. Thanks to Benjamin Moore's online color preview tool I was able to play with color options and have to admit I do like the darker wall colors although I haven't ruled out the lighter blues/greens.

Deep River Gray, Bright White Trim

Rural Earth Brown, Bright White Trim

Bath Salts Blue, San Diego Cream White Trim

Appalachian Green, Natural Wood Trim, White Molding

That's not quite it...
Let me continue that while even the simplest of rooms we approach (this one just needing paint), they always tend to complicate themselves through the process. I take full responsibility for most of these complications because while work through the simple, I manage to come up with "wouldn't that be cool if we..." statements. In response, Gregg ultamitely falls in love with my ideas (either I have really good taste or he's just a sucker for my ideas) and then decides we should follow them through and won't take no.

An example of this was the living room which started as a simple project of just moving the chandelier (to the dining room) and finding a replacement fixture. At that point I said "While looking for fixtures I found this but wouldn't it be cool to have sconces?" After visualizing the placement of the sconces I envisioned built-in cabinetry flanking the fireplace which is yet another "cool" future project.

But back to my point of complicating even simple rooms. Right now I'm approaching the hopefully 'simple' guest bedroom on the second floor. While right now we just want to eventually tackle painting the room I have come up with some future projects as well, here's my list so I don't forget:

• add shelves in day closets*
• expand and lower turret seating to fill complete space with lounge/reading nook
• add fancy curtain entrance to nook
• find appropriate furniture for television (between closets)
• find perfect antique trunk for foot of bed

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*What is a day closet? A day closet was popular during the periods when servants or help lived in houses. The family's main clothes would reside in large closets in other rooms or upstairs while the owner's rooms were equipped with shallow closets with only three or so hooks where the help could place their clothes for the day. Now don't say this blog never taught you anything!