Project House Update: Guest Room

In a post that's been meaning to happen since before Thanksgiving, we painted the guest room! Actually it's been meaning to happen since roughly March 13th, 2012, when we painted samples on the wall. We actually finished painting the room the night before my in-laws came to stay with us for the holiday. It still smells like new paint, so I can't imagine how much it must have stunk while they slept in it months ago.

Here's what the room looked like before we moved in.

And here's the best before picture I could come up with (I swear I took a bunch of "before"s. How do I always forget?)

It wasn't too bad, but it was like every other room in the house: the walls were beat up and never cleaned up. Also, like the master bedroom, there was the problem of the fixed reading lights over the bed. Additionally, the ceiling fan with a chain was bugging the crap out of my husband.

My husband, being the smart man he is, ran the wire for the fan waaaay back in June when the roof was redone. Then, he patched over the holes where the reading lamps used to be. My one handy job was to spackle and sand because it is my one skill. I can make a patched piece of drywall look invisible. (Sidenote: I don't know if this is how it is all over the country, but in Tucson, ALL drywall is textured. It's not that noticable, but it is a huge pain in the ass when trying to fix up a house. Another step in the drywall process that most people just can't do by themselves.)

Finally, we sanded away the sides of the paint samples and began painting. We chose Behr's "Silver Drop" for the walls and the ceiling is "Polar Bear", like every other ceiling in the house. The results are subtle, but really gorgeous.

Still haven't found the right place to hand my ticket box.

Also, like every room we redo, we installed a new ceiling fan. We really liked this fan, but we couldn't decide if it should go in the guest room or the formal living room. We pulled the trigger and, if we didn't like in the guest room, we could always move it to the living room. While it's a lovely fan, it does not give out much light. Very little light at all. With the bulbs that you are supposed to use for the fan, it was basically pathetic. It barely lit the small bedroom, let alone the much larger living room. Dan was determined so he switched out the fuses for the large ones and then threw in some much brighter bulbs (Sidenote: I'm not recommending you try this at home. Dan is very good electrically, so I trust his judgment on this one. That and I am as determined as he is to make this fan work.) He broke one bulb in the process, but while waiting for the second bulb to arrive from Amazon, one bright bulb is better than the two small, dimmer ones.

While the paint and fan upgrade make the room much more livable, there still a bit to go. Here's what's left to do on this room:

• Hang curtain rod, curtains, and new blind blades. I've mentioned before how much of a pain the curtains in the master bedroom are being. This room is no different, EXCEPT that we knew it would be before we painted. Dan came up with an alternative solution to cram in curtains: move the blinds down. Before painting the room, he removed the trim around the top of the window. 

• Then, he notched out a couple of strategically placed groves in the back of the trim for the mounting brackets for the blinds. He left everything off the wall while we painted, then he mounted the blinds brackets lower, reinstalled the trim, and hung up the blinds. 

• For the moment, we cut a bit off of the bottom of the existing blinds and hung them up. When the mood strikes, we'll go to Home Depot and buy some sparkly clean new ones. Once we're past all of that, we'll tackle curtain rod and curtains.

• Refinish headboard. We inherited the bed frame and while it works well, it just looks like it belongs in a B & B from the 90's. But I have a plan! Some strategic cutting with a Dremel, some finials, and a good coat of paint.

• Hang some art. Dan's got a big old world map that I think could work well over the bed. Only problem? It's second hand and the frame is broken. Been broken for 2+ years and has yet to be hung on a wall.
• Finish turquoise night stand. Waaay back when, I found this end table for $15. I painted it turquoise and it looked great. But now, months later, it's starting to get a bit beat up. So, I've decided to give it a coat of sealer. I'll get to that...someday. That and put Christmas presents away...

• Refinish half-moon night stand. Another inherited item that has seen better days. I need to figure out how to give it a new top or finish it or something. I like the look of it, but it's been my end table since I was about, oh, 6 years old, and it looks its age.

• Figure out what to do with the pink love seat and furniture arranging. I will be the first to admit that the room isn't laid out very well. I'd like to find a new chair to replace the pink loveseat (as seen above), another inherited item. Some day, we'll have to figure out a better lay-out so we can fit in things like a dresser and some more storage, but we'll worry about that later. 

That being said, when this room is "finished" it'll feel something like this: