Guest Room Reveal

So we finished with the guest room...I think.

This room has been a work in process for quite some time now, and with so many other projects on the go, I think its pretty much done...for now.

With the baby arriving in September, we wanted to ensure that any work-in-progress rooms we had started, were finished and scratched off our to-do-list, so we didn't need to worry about them.

So we're leaving this room as is for now. We're fairly happy with how the white-washed shutters turned out and still plan on making some changes to the side tables and lamps, but for now they'll have to do as they are!

We incorporated this sewing table that used to belong to my grandmother, and seemed to fit in with the feel of the room:

Other than that, we finished off the curtains, and added a bunch of fun coloured pillows:

We still love how the walls add just a bit of interest, but keep the room nice and neutral at the same time:

 

So there you have it, the finished space.

 

 

 

We've compiled a source list, but please feel free to message us if there's anything we might have missed:

 

Wall Shutters: Kijiji

Bedframe: Kijiji

Bed linens: HomeSense

Side Tables: Ikea

Side Table Lamps: HomeSense

Suitcases (blue): Kijiji, brown suitcase- HomeSense

Laundry Hamper: HomeSense

Ceiling Light: HomeSense (clearance)

Pillow Fabric: Tonic Living

Curtain Fabric: Tonic Living

Sewing Table: My grandmother's antique

Small desk clock: HomeSense

Painted Vases: DIY Project

 

 

Paint Colours:

 

Wall Colours (stripes):
Light Colour- "Fence Post"- Behr (Home Depot)
Dark Colour- "Natural Choice"- Sherwin Williams
Trim Colour: Simply White - Benjamin Moore

 

So that's all for the guest room for now!

 

Melissa and Ian 

Stripes

A while back, I blogged about us starting our guest room makeover. We had gotten tons of inspiration on what to do with the space, but the one idea that kept coming back to us, was to do stripes on the walls.

Although we love the idea of paneling a room (which we actually did in our master ensuite), most of the walls in our house not straight...at all. Which makes paneling very difficult in our home! So we decided to add interest to this room through stripes and paint.

We decided on a bit of a rustic/cottage feel to the room inspired by the fact that this room would be occupied by out of town-guests and visitors. The idea of a "homey" feeling space seemed to be the right fit.

We wanted the colours in the room to be natural and a bit rustic, and to incorporate light colours, creams and turquoises. We searched for tutorials online of how to do the stripes, and were hugely inspired by Layla and Kevin at The Lettered Cottage and their striped reading room:

Source: The Lettered Cottage

Love that room! They've actually modified the room since doing their stripes and it now looks like this:

 Source: The Lettered Cottage

I absolutely love both versions, but still wanted to try the stripes in our space.

So, we got our paint, bought a laser level, and thought we would just figure things out as we went. Once piece of advice if you plan on doing stripes, pick a SMALL room. The room we chose to do is not huge, but it is a decent size and taping the stripes took FOREVER. My main concern was making those stripes level!

We bought 2 containers of frog tape last summer, and figured this was the perfect place to try them out.

Honestly, I was a bit nervous that it wasn't going to work. In the past I had usually purchased cheap tape, and we have always had issues with bleeding, blotchy lines, etc. But we decided to give it a go, and started taping the room:

The taping took us about 2 evenings to complete. In the end, we had figured out a system, and it worked quite well. We started with using a laser line- one person holding the laser to cast a line on the wall, and the other taping below or above the line. That worked for about 20 minutes- its not easy holding that thing straight!

So we tried another tactic- one person holding the level and the other taping just above it. That didn't last long either. In the end we decided that one person holding the level and making small marks on the wall, and the other taping below the marks was the best way to go.

We started at the ceiling and marked 12 inches down. Ian then used the level to go around the room and mark every few inches a small line that we could use as a guide for taping. The challenge we faced was that not only were our walls not straight (they bow in the middle), but the tops of the casings on the doors, did not match the tops of the window casings.

Once we used the tape and placed a line, we levelled each line of tape before moving on. Sometimes we had to fix the tape, but most of the time it worked quite well:

We finished taping and left the tape for one day before painting. We started painting the next day, and let the paint dry for 1 day. Then we took the tape off. At this point we figured if the lines weren't straight and looked terrible, we could just paint over the entire room....sigh.

However....we peeled off the first line....and yea!!! The frog tape worked awesome!! I totally recommend it. We didn't have any bleeding, lines were crisp and straight (phew!) and it turned out exactly the way we hoped!

More about this room to come as we finish it! Thanks again Layla and Kevin for the inspiration! :)

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