Before & After: Guest Room Revamp Ready For Christmas
Long time readers of this blog will know that I've been working on my guest room for a loooooonng time. The room is in the basement of the house below ground level, is small and is therefore really dark. When we moved in I painted the room, but the room still just felt cold and had no homely, cosy feel to it at all. Being the guest room it also became victim to having furniture put in it from our old house that had no place elsewhere in our new home. Here is what it looked like before:
I ended up Ebaying all the old furniture then procrastinated about adding wall decals to add pattern to the walls. In the end, I decided to redesign the room from scratch and put up some amazing wallpaper by Harlequin in the summer. The aim was to have the room guest-ready by Xmas and I am delighted to say that thanks to some amazing sponsors the room is now finished!
Adding wallpaper to the room made a huge difference to the space. I don't think painting this room in another colour would have worked. The room really needed a pattern to warm it up and make it feel more cosy and this wallpaper called 'Sumi' by Harlequin provides a modern geometric pattern while still keeping the room light.
Of course, the absolute star of the room is this beautiful burnt-orange Chesterfield sofa bed by DFS. Yes - it really is a sofa bed!! I did struggle to look for a new one for the room as I found most sofa bed designs basic due to the way they folded to make up a bed frame. They also always tended to be 'safe' colours of black or grey. However, DFS have this sofa bed game nailed. I could choose to have this design in a range of fabrics and colours, but this orange 'Marmalade' in Abbey Velvet was speaking to me. It's so soft and the colour and texture give the room the much-needed warmth it required. The bed folds out easily as it has a mechanism that means I can pull out the mattress with one hand. I know my Xmas guests will have a very comfy night’s sleep on this when they arrive!
As the room is so small, it just required one small side table and this stunning gold number by Bloomingville from Out There Interiors is a glamorous touch that complements the wallpaper and the sofa perfectly. The base is gold but what makes it so special is the top is a glass mirror-gold, which sets it apart from other gold side tables. I absolutely love it and can easily move it around the room to put drinks on when sitting on the sofa or have it as a place to rest a book or your phone at the side when the bed is folded out. If you are looking for quirky or unusual pieces for your home then you should really check out Out There Interiors which stock drastically different furniture and homeware. The good news is also that this gold side table is currently on sale!
The room has spotlights but required atmospheric lighting for the evening. I didn't want a lamp on the side table taking up space, I preferred a floor lamp, so this Bobby lamp in black from Habitat is perfect as the stem bends in 3 places so that you can use it as a room light and a reading light. You can also twist the shade in any direction you require. As you can see it folds over the sofa bed so perfectly and the simplicity of the design is modern and sleek. I think it's great value at £65.
For a bit more light to brighten the room in the day, I brought this 'dream' neon sign from Etsy. I wish I was better at photography to be able to photograph this turned on better, but hey, something to work on in the New Year, right? The new rug was also a bargain buy in the 40% off La Redoute sale they had recently.
As the room was taking on quite a 70's glam touch with the orange sofa I wanted to add in a hanging plant. As this room wouldn't be a room I went into every day there was no way I could have a real plant - I'd totally forget about it and it would die very quickly! Instead, I got this amazing faux trailing fern from Audenza and potted it in dry oasis in a gold pot I already owned from H&M home. The hanging string was a bit of a DIY job with some shoelaces and super glue! I then hung it on a screwed-in hook on the ceiling.
Another DIY job that I did in the room was design and build this wardrobe. I'm going to talk about this more in the New Year on a future post so stay tuned!
So, what do you think to my guest room makeover? It looks so much more inviting than before, don't you think?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
* I would like to say a huge thank you to the companies who helped me with this project and provided me with gifted items in exchange for this post. Style Library supplied the wallpaper, DFS provided the sofa bed, Habitat provided the floor lamp, Out There Interiors provided the table and Audenza supplied the faux fern.
