I can’t believe our guest room doesn’t have a permanent place here on the blog yet! It’s time to change that, and what better time to share pictures of a moody green bedroom than on St Patrick’s Day?

When we bought our house two years ago, this guest room was a little beige afterthought (sounds like a folk band name) and for a LONG time it was just the room that held boxes as we slowly unpacked them. I will never understand people who are completely unpacked a week after a move. What’s that like? Anyway, our guest room became a glorified storage unit, and was home to the giant barnwood bed I had custom made in college. I loved that bed when I got it, but I was over the heavy, bulky barnwood and wanted to lighten things up. Later, I moved a gold bed I didn’t like in our primary bedroom down to the guest room, but it still fell flat. Between renovations and listings, the poor guest room accumulated so many decor items that were on their way in or out of our house that I started calling it Home Decor Purgatory.

I wanted to get things in order (they’re organized and in my office and basement now!) and I challenged myself to do this entire makeover using things we had, with a budget for new things of $500–no small feat! Luckily, I was able to shop our home and go through my decor stash to put together a cozy, eclectic look that I love.

Before we moved in, we had a new roof put on the house because the old one had so many leaks that FIVE rooms had leaky ceilings. There were also so many paint colors happening when we bought the house. From the front door you could see pink, purple, seafoam green, beige, and the dalmatian wallpaper in the dining room (which we obviously kept because i love it very much). We had all the ceilings painted and went ahead and repainted every room but the kitchen Agreeable Gray to give my brain and eyes a blank slate to work from. That way, I reasoned, I could do one room at a time and have everything be cohesive. The only exception was the kitchen, which I knew I wanted to paint a moody green.

Fast forward a year, and it was time to tackle the guest room. I had sold the barnwood bed and moved a gold metal bed downstairs from our room, where it didn’t work. The gray was falling flat, and this room gets such little natural light that it always felt sad. A friend of mine pointed out that rooms without a lot of natural light look best with dark colors on the walls, which is counter-intuitive, but it makes the lack of light look intentional rather than an unfortunate accident. I chose to match the same green I had in the kitchen, and we were off to the races!

We spent so much time painting in here, but I really love painting, so I enjoyed zoning out to hours of design podcasts while I cut in around all the trim and rolled the walls. The moody green made the space feel cozy immediately, and I loved it!

The room had white bamboo roman shades when we moved in, and they were the only ones in the house that weren’t broken, so I kept them. I added these curtains from West Elm to match the ones in our dining room. They puddle beautifully dramatically in here (we bought the 108″ curtains and our ceilings are 9′ tall). I used a curtain rod we had in the basement (read: $0) and spray painted the silver finials black so they’d disappear and not clash with the gold bed and unlacquered brass and crystal doorknobs. I used these simple black curtain rings to hang them, so they hang beautifully and can be easily closed.

Last but not least, we changed out the dated ceiling fan for an inexpensive Ikea fixture that gave the room a boho/eclectic feel, and brought some natural textures in.

We ran into an issue when we put down the rug–the door couldn’t open all the way. Since our house is 94 years old, the floors aren’t 100% level, and in the guest room we even had to sand down the bottom of the door to keep it from scraping the hardwoods. With the rug perpendicular to the bed, the door and the rug were having a battle every time we opened the door. We turned the rug to be parallel with the bed, but then the proportions were all off. Luckily, I had a bench to set at the end of the bed that evened things out and kept all the right proportions in play.

I got creative with the art, and hung a mandolin on the wall and three vintage cowboy hats we had from Jonny’s Grandpa Wagenman over the bed. Two of the hat boxes are sitting under the bench at the foot of the bed. We also used a photo of his Grandpa from his wagon train days, and one of him with Jonny’s Grandma in a vintage brass frame on one nightstand.

Today, our guest room is an eclectic and cozy space and I love being in here. Now that it’s intentionally designed it’s so much harder to use it as a drop zone. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little room tour!

♥

Grace

Sources:

Bed: Wayfair

Dresser: antique from my childhood bedroom

Side tables: Jonny built them for our first apartment

Lamps: Friends made them for us for a wedding gift, same make here

Light fixture: Ikea

Curtains: West Elm

Curtain rod: Similar

Rapper’s Delight Print: Urban Outfitters – 30×40 black frame

Vintage Cowboy Hats: Similar linked here

Mandolin wall hanger: String Swing

Bedspread: Target

Wool blanket: Pendleton Woolen Mills (ours is discontinued, similar linked here)

Lumbar pillow: Similar linked here

Toss pillows: Target

Rug: West Elm in an 8×10

Books: Magnolia Table, Vintage Green Books, Beautifully Organized