Be Our Guest - Room Re-Do

When I decided that we needed a guest room "this year", I was forgetting just how close 2007 was to ending! Yikes! Where did the time escape to, evaporate and disappear to these past few weeks?
Here are the results of our efforts to create a comfy guest room in Charlotte's former bedroom.

We began this project on a snow-day in mid-December and promptly launched into Christmas and festivities with three little ones...We were off to a good start (see 12/18 post for the dino inspired "before pics"), lost some momentum here and there with the holidays, but finished strong and just in time for our first guest...the lovely Lisa...on December 26th.

We made it happen with a mushroom colored paint, new laminate flooring in my favorite “butterscotch hickory” (Bob and Jeanette you can do this!) and rearranged accessories and furniture pilfered and reapportioned from other rooms about the house and my stash in the basement (more on the basement and its wonders another time).

Thanks to my Dad Jim and Micah for their handy efforts and use of power tools – what a wonderful Christmas gift this was!

I've added pieces to the room with friendship's sentiments... Does anyone recognize this handwriting…yep, Nicol Sayre...from a handmade gift tag when she first visited my home.

Leslie McCabe made this "sailor's valentine" which perches on a stack of my favorite children's books for guests' perusal

My Mom spotted the “cottage” dresser at the Layfayette Mills Antique Center in nearby New Jersey…I fell in love with it from the tiny cell-phone picture she'd snapped and I bargained with the dealer – everybody I’ve brought there knows Joe – to take it home in time to serve as a prop for the Spring Soiree.

I love the way its shape and color anchor the medley of textures. (Robin do you like the hat there?)

The tureen came from York, PA and one of Stacey Bear’s haunts…it looked great in my dining room but I like it better here for a bit of elegance and sheen. It's one of my favorite pieces of transferware...

This chair was a contribution from Jennifer Lanne. It was marked a whopping $5 at the barn sale she hosted in conjunction with her open house last month, but when no one grabbed the lavender blue beauty...she made it a present for the room she will sleep in on her next visit. I added a vintage linen open-ended sham with a 12x12 pillow as a comfy seat cushion and a blue toille neck pillow for back support. I know Michelle will be using the laptop at this desk too!

Though I love the look of the vintage daybed, it is small...I am thinking we will have to hunt for a love-seat sized pull out couch…any suggestions are welcome. I have heard a rumor that there is a delicious red corduroy sofa bed at IKEA…hmmm.

This is the heaviest cabinet in the world. Stacey and Ro found it for me in the same booth where I found the horse, but I had to go back and pick both up in New Oxford, PA since we had no room in the car! The blue milk paint is fabulous.

I am hoping that the spindle-legged, two-sided desk (nabbed at a garage sale in town from folks who called it the "lambie desk") can double as a second-story workspace for me -- have laptop will travel -- and sometimes it’s good to change the scenery when corresponding, writing and such.

I am hoping this cozy guest room will gather friends to our home.

Anne and Ann, we are long overdue for a visit!

xxoo Jen

Earth Angels