Serving Leftovers to Guests

One Room Challenge Week One

It’s quite possible this is the least inviting room known to man. To say the room is underwhelming would be an understatement. As an interior designer, it’s an embarrassment. It's also our GUEST room.

The original homeowner (we moved in two years ago) had gray walls, gray carpet, and wicker twin beds in the space, as shown in this photo. The wicker is cute, but we arrived with leftovers. No joke, the guest room is currently furnished with items that didn’t work in any other space in the house. (Raise your hand if your guest room is outfitted the same.) And the 1980s gray walls had to go sooner rather than later.

This is probably a good place to mention that the former owner liked changing colors from surface to surface as frequently as possible. Those gray walls? Well, they are two different colors, parallel walls being the same. The ceiling? Not white, apparently that’s sacrilege to her. E.V.E.R.Y. ceiling in the house is . . . not white. It’s either a grayish white, bluish white, lavender white, or, wait for it . . . fleshy white. The ceiling in this room was a bluish gray tint.

I know you’re thinking, “What’s wrong with gray?” Current grays and 1987 grays are not the same. Quite frankly, the colors were depressing so I painted the ceiling my favorite white for ceilings, Sherwin-Williams Superpaint in flat finish - no tint, then painted the walls my favorite mildly warm white, Benjamin Moore China White as color matched by Sherwin-Williams, shown below from MyDomain.com, and shown above. Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I just could not decide what direction to go. I had both too many options and too few options. What to do with the “leftovers” - keep, sell, giveaway, repurpose? Add built-in storage, like floor to ceiling bookcases flanking the window? Add wallpaper - on all walls, inside panel moulding, on the ceiling? What color? Change the carpet? Oy!

My entire reason for signing up for the Better Homes & Gardens sponsored One Room Challenge was to force myself to make some decisions and get this space finished, so join me for the next 8 weeks as I share the transformation from to leftovers, to . . .???

Be sure to head to the ORC blog to follow the other participants!