After years of having a guest room that was "good enough," a string of planned visits from guests in the upcoming months had me taking stock of our little guest room. This is the same room we gave a light makeover to some seven years ago, but since has been largely unimproved. Well, I recently looked around the room I realized that it may have been close to good, but wasn't what I wanted it to be. Besides not looking how I wanted from a decor perspective, we've been using it to store rugs we've moved from their prior rooms, the central vacuum attachments, and various miscellany that had been misplaced from other locations in our home. It was time for an upgrade.

This all started pretty innocently. Besides the accumulation of junk, the bed and box spring were sitting directly on the floor, where it's been since our last update in 2011. There it sat, still waiting for the bed that Alex will eventually build (but hasn't yet). I had grown sick of the bed on the floor look. When a neighbor gave us a metal bed frame he was planning to throw away, I figured it was a good chance to overcome this single annoyance with our room. 

Having the bed at a normal height made me realize we needed a proper bed skirt. Simple enough, right? And while we're at it, it was spring, so time to swap the heavy comforter for the lighter white matelasse coverlet. Here's how the room looked as we tried to prep it with what we had.

Besides missing a skirt, the problem I ran into is that the white coverlet we put on the bed from Spring to Fall has a large brown stain on it, courtesy Mel and a cat vomit incident last year. Now, I don't know about you, but as a guest staying, well, anywhere, I'd prefer to not have cat vomit stains on my bedding. Beyond the stained bedding, I felt like the red stool and recycled wicker baskets as night stands, both "rescued" from the curb, were far from ideally functional.

In order to make this a truly inviting space, I felt it was a pretty good time to make a few minor decor updates.

I headed to HomeGoods to pick up a new bed skirt and quilt, and that's where the decor monster grabbed hold of me. As I wandered the aisles of HomeGoods the effort quickly began to escalate. What started as a trip for just a couple items quickly turned into new bed pillows, a crisp white coverlet (preferably without cat vomit stains) and matching shams that would work well for the summer, and a long grey bolster pillow that I simply couldn't leave without. This pillow was my gateway drug, and before I knew it my habit had quickly spilled over into the lamp section of the store.

The mismatched brown holy ball lamp and silver Restoration Hardware lamps in the room were okay, but how much better would a matching set of white ceramic lamps look? So much better, that's how! Before I knew it I was wandering into the rug section of the store.

Stark geometric patterns were whispering in my ear beckoned me to the selection, double dog daring me to replace the rug in the guest room. Yes, the rug which was once on our family room floor and had found a second life in our misfit hand-me-down guest room, had to go, or at least that's what the decor monster told me. It was shockingly easy to justify this purchase to myself, as the new rugs I'd somehow found myself admiring would work much better with the look I really wanted. White and grey are more in line with my aesthetic, are calm and inviting, and the old rug not only wasn't what I really wanted in the room, it was also faded, (surprise) also stained, and has a hole in it from a nervous digging incident courtesy of Lulu.

Before I even knew what was happening I'd selected a 5' x 7' rug and seemed to almost be levitating, carried by some unknown force -- perhaps the carpet I'd selected was magic -- over to where I'd find two matching grey tables that would work perfectly as bedside tables.

This was all some sort of crazy HomeGoods fate that had a hold of me. I was in the decor zone, I couldn't be stopped!! And how rare it is to find a matching set of lamps and tables at this fabulous discount store. It must be fate.

I gleefully skipped to the car carrying all of my HomeGoods bounty. The guest room was not only destined to no longer exist as a tired excuse for a guest room, I was going to make it so dang cute that I might even want to start sleeping there after our guests have left.

When Alex got home from work we launched in to our light decor refresh. Though I'd gone to HomeGoods to find a bedskirt, I'd failed in that endeavor (turns out I had more pressing matters to fulfill). We have a partially fitted sheet that was intended as a skirt for an inflatable mattress, so we decided to make it work as the skirt until we can find one that's better suited...or Alex builds the bed, you know, whichever comes first.

We stupidly did much of this in the wrong order. We put the new bedding on the bed, then put on the makeshift bedskirt. I think we were just excited to have the new coverlet without a stain. As you can see, we're sticking with the headboard that we made from our old bathroom door.

Once that was done we realized we needed to take up the old rug, which required us to move/lift the bed. It was truly a series of poor choices that caused us to take much longer to get this done. And in typical Lulu form, she helped by standing on most of what we were trying to put in place.

But as we progressed, the room slowly started to come together. Bedding, end tables, lamps, the rug, it was all looking wonderful! I was so excited! I loaded in a few interesting books on the end tables (including "Ghosts of Virginia" for a little fun late night reading), arranged a few fresh flowers, and placed a few small grey accessories we had on hand in other rooms of our house.

Beyond the decor, getting all of the extra stuff out of the room felt liberating. The house started to feel less junky and more how I wanted it to feel for our guest's arrival.

After all was said and done our guest room is now the fresh and welcoming space we wanted it to be.

In order to make it just a tad more inviting, I added a bottle of water and glass on the dresser, and a chocolate bar in the event a snack is necessary. This will have to make do for now, but Alex thinks we should add a stocked mini-bar to round out the experience.

We're far from done with this room, as we have plans to completely overhaul it, complete with windows that open, correct moulding, repaired plaster, refinished and repaired floors, and a large exposed brick wall. But as far as the room is concerned today, it's exactly what I wanted it to be for our guests. The major overhaul to the room can wait, we have a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable guest room today.

Throughout the remainder of the spring and summer we'll have a long list of visitors that will be coming to stay in the Old Town Home B&B, and we really hope they enjoy the little updates we've made to this room. This was by no means a difficult or time consuming update, but it's one that I feel has really refreshed and improved the room. All told it was about $380 for everything, and I think it was money well spent.

Have you ever been in the situation where you feel you need to quickly get your guest accommodations in shape before someone's arrival? Were you successful in your endeavor? Did you every get a little beyond your intended scope when you went to HomeGoods for something small? Would love to hear your experiences.

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One of the best parts of this room's quick and dirty makeover (and one of the most popular blog posts on our website) was ultimately our DIY that transformed an old door into a fancy headboard.

I have to admit, I was rather skeptical of the concept and our ability to pull it off, but Wendy's grand vision and my modest knowledge of woodworking allowed us to embrace a true trash to treasure moment. The headboard served as a perfect backdrop to our inflatable mattress for a solid year and a half, making an otherwise temporary bed look rather permanent in its home.

However, after we purchased a new mattress set for our master bedroom in September 2012, we were faced with a somewhat difficult dilemma -- what to do with the old mattress? Rather than put it on the curb, we figure it's at least as comfortable and useful as our inflatable mattress, so we might as well put it to use. We collapsed our air mattress and moved our old box spring and mattress into the guest bedroom, where it's sat on the floor since that fateful day.

Moving the old inflatable mattress out of the room also eliminated a critical storage area (and by storage area, I mean shoving stuff under the bed). From our central vac hose and wand, to random ironing supplies, and of course some of Wendy's hoarded shopping bags, they all found some way to he nearly tucked beneath that inflatable bed. Now that our old box spring and mattress are right on the floor, there is no "under the bed" available to stash our stuff.

This brings is to our current situation. We have a guest room that has a mattress and box spring sitting on the floor. The bed is low and offers no storage. Our headboard is too tall for the mattress, and the whole exposed box spring just looks, well, like something you might have seen in my college fraternity house. Rather than continue to be frustrated by our guest bedroom, we're going to do something about it. Today I'll fill you in on our plan and we can see just how long it takes us to actually implement the grand scheme.

Given how much we like our custom headboard, we want to stick with the theme and look of what we have, so we're planning on building out the rest of the bed in a similar manner. This means we'll have a proper bed frame of sorts to complement the headboard. But our plan doesn't stop with a simple bed frame. Oh no, that wouldn't suit our style. In order to complicate the matter, but to make it look far more functional, we're also planning on building it quite a bit taller and including a significant amount of under bed storage in the form of drawers. We've taken our inspiration from several styles of bed that we've seen in various catalogs. Here are a few from Pottery Barn that demonstrate the style we're going for.

The $1500+ price tag though just seems crazy, especially when we can build it exactly to our liking for just a couple hundred. In our design we're planning to incorporate two drawers on each side of the bed, each with a paneled drawer front to mimic the panels of the headboard. We'll also add two panels in the foot board area, again to mimic the headboard. The foot board will not extend much higher than the sideboards, if at all, and each drawer will offer a significant amount of storage.

That photo represents a rather crude sketch of what we're trying to accomplish, as well as a simple list of the lumber we'll need. I've also placed an order for a few sets of full extension drawer slides that will ultimately support the interior. But hey, anything will be better than this travesty.

I'm actually pretty excited to get this project moving along. Sure, we have a ton of other things ongoing right now (ahem, the dreaded master bathroom project), but I haven't done any substantial woodworking lately. I'm hoping this can be one of those projects. 

Do you have any experience building drawers or a storage system? Maybe you have plans for keeping things neatly tucked away in your bedroom? We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

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The wicker storage cubes next to the bed in our guest bedroom are the home to our travel toiletries, including the little shampoos and lotions I've gladly accepted from hotels over the years, along with my travel sized makeup bags. 

When I walked between the bed and the window to return these items to their storage location, I had the unfortunate realization that the wood floor was wet. Thanks to my bare feet, something I may not have noticed in the dim light had it not been made blatantly apparent.

My first thought was that Mel had started peeing on the floor, either in protest of my trip or Lulu's permanent resident status in our home, or that at his ripe old age of 12 was no longer able to hold it. Upon further inspection, I realized the water was dripping in from the top of our bay window, had soaked our throw pillows, saturated the bamboo blinds and rug, and most destructively, had seeped into the heart pine floors.

The floors were so water logged in this area that the poly had actually peeled up from the boards. (As is evident by the lighter areas in the above photo.) I immediately called Alex at work. I'd like to be able to tell you the call went like this:

Wendy: In a calm, even tone...

"Hi Honey. We had a bit of a rain shower here, and I've noticed the slightest bit of moisture near the bay window in our guest bedroom. Do you think you might be home sometime in the next few hours so we can take a look at it together?"

In reality, it was more like this:

Wendy: In a frantic, borderline hysterical tone that may have been verging on tears...

"Where are you?? It is almost nine o'clock! We had a huge storm, and water has poured in through the bay window destroying the original heart pine floors. They're now black with damage, and we have no chance of saving them. Not to mention the curtains, blinds, pillows, and rug are so wet we'll probably need to throw them in the trash. Get home now!!!"

When Alex did return home roughly 20 minutes later, his assessment was a bit different than mine. Yes, it does appear we have a leak, but we think we've been able to pinpoint the location. In the meantime, we've been working to dry out the rug and floor, and have some curtain and pillowcase washing to do. 

So now the $64,000 question: how is the water getting into the top of the bay window? We're going to need to do a little inspection from the outside to hopefully determine the source of the leak, but Alex seems confident we can knock it out. Hopefully this is a sooner rather than later task that we can bump up our priority list. I'd say it's important.

Don't get me wrong, even with the more mild damage assessment I'm not happy about it. Adding this project to our lengthy to do list isn't my idea of fun, and it just means one more thing to fix before we work on the master bathroom. <sigh> Any bets on if we'll finish the bathroom by 2013?

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A few years ago we were working on our master bedroom. As you may know, I am a real stickler for original and accurate architectural details. The main door to our bedroom (on the right) is one of the old original 1880's four panel doors in the house, but the old door to the bathroom (on the left) was a 1980's six panel door that didn't remotely match the style of the rest of the doors in the house. It had to go!  

The photo above is pretty much the only one I could find that shows both the original door and the 1980's bathroom door. It also shows our master bedroom in all of its un-fixed-up glory. Missing transom, brass door knobs, thick and nasty paint...ugh.

The door was a good, solid wood door, not something hollow core, but it still didn't belong in our house. However, once we removed it, Wendy and I opted to save it and it sat cluttering our home for several years. First it sat in the master bedroom while we worked on that room, then it sat in the master bathroom as we began work in there, then it sat in the basement "wood shop" area, and finally it came to live in our guest room/junk room (you can see it hiding behind some of the junk in the photo below). 

We kept looking for people that would take it or hoped to find an alternate use for it in our home (maybe an eventual door in the basement?). Then, one day a couple of months ago, as we were coming to grips with potentially throwing it away, Wendy looked at me and pronounced, "That old bedroom door is going to be our new guest bedroom headboard." A new project was born, and joined the many other projects on our all too long list.

Well, we knocked this project out a few weeks ago and wanted to share the steps with you in the event you would like to create one of your own. Using an old door you have on hand, or visiting a local salvage yard for a style of your choosing, you can pretty easily transform it into a low cost headboard that looks great and will last for years to come. Here are the steps that we followed:

1. Inspiration

We credit two headboards from Pottery Barn as the inspiration for the project. They gave us an idea for the look we wanted to achieve, but we planned to significantly adjust the scale since Pottery Barn always assumes you live in a 5,000 sqft+ home and not a 15' wide row house. More than a specific look, I was paying attention to the details of the headboards. The little shelf on the top, the "crown" detail, the panels, and the side support pieces were all items we wanted to mimic in our project.

2. Measure the Bed

The first and most important thing is to measure the width of the bed you are building this headboard for. Our project was intended for a queen size inflatable bed, and we determined that roughly a 60" width would be good for our needs. Given the various heights of doors available, you can accommodate most size beds. In our case, we were lucky that our existing door worked with our existing inflatable mattress. 

3. Door Selection

This step was easy for us since we were reusing a door we had on hand. But if you are buying a salvaged door for the project, you have a lot of additional flexibility. (Many times you can find old doors for purchase at your local salvage yard or Habitat for Humanity ReStore, flea markets, etc.) You can use almost any setup or style of door out there, and there are so many to choose from. However, there is one important aspect to this selection process, the configuration of the door needs to have symmetrical paneling at least the length of your headboard when turned horizontally. 

On our six panel door, the top two panels were small, but the other four were the same size, which meant that the door could be based on just these four panels by removing the top two panels. But you could easily use something like a five panel, two panel (perhaps for a king bed), or Christian door similar to the photos below. You just need to make sure your measurements work to ensure the symmetry around the center point.

4. Cut Door to Length

Once you've selected the door and know your measurements, lay the door on its side against a wall and mark the center point of the headboard. Then measure out of this center point to establish the cut lines on the door where you will need to trim the top and bottom. We recommend trimming both sides to ensure you have a good and square end on both sides of the headboard. This is important later when attaching the sides, or "posts," to the door.

We used a circular saw to cut the two ends off of the door. You can use a jigsaw as well, but make sure you use a guide to give you the best possible chance at a straight cut.

5. Make Your Plans

This may seem like it is a bit out of order and perhaps this step should come before cutting the door, but nonetheless, this is the order that we proceeded. (Not that we ever do anything out of order!)

Once the door was cut, we could better envision what the headboard would end up looking like. With this improved vision of our implementation, I was able to create a small sketch of plans for the headboard. This sketch would allow me to plan out the different pieces of wood and cuts that would be necessary. It would also allow me to make my shopping list for wood and other supplies.

As you can see, there's nothing overly technical about my plans. And, full disclosure, if you look really closely at the measurements, you may see that my math was off and the end results were actually different. Luckily for us, we were able to adjust our plan on the fly and still make it work.

For our plans, we decided that we would use the details from the inspiration headboards shown above. The side support pieces were an important aspect, as well as the shelf and crown details on the top. Rather than try to get large pieces of 4 x 4 wood and cutting them down for the sides, I decided we would fake it by using two pieces of 1 x 3 boards that wrapped around the door's ends. This would give the impression of a more substantial piece of wood on the edges, and would be far easier to find and less expensive.

For the top of the door, I used three individual pieces of wood. The first piece covers the top of the main middle section of the door between the end "support" pieces, while two smaller but wider pieces act as caps on the posts on either side of the narrower middle piece. I don't have an in-progress photo of this, so I created the following line sketch as a visual of what I just described.

This approach would allow the visually interesting detail of changing width along the top of the headboard, and a more intricate crown detail. The one major question I had was what kind of small crown detail would we use? We decided to leave that decision up to when we were shopping for the wood, though this would leave some lumber aisle calculations as a necessary additional step in the project.

The final important piece in your plan is to determine the proper height for the bottom of the headboard. This should be based on the height of the top of your mattress, but slightly shorter. You don't want to make it the same, or you will run the risk of your pillows falling into the void. And you don't want to make it too low, or you will not have a substantial enough reveal of the headboard above the bed. This is based on personal preference. In our project, we made it 24 3/16" for a 28" height on the bed, but realized that was too tall while building and had to cut off some of the support. I think the end result was around 22". Sometimes it's necessary to be flexible and make corrections mid-project.

6. Buy Your Wood

Your plans should be sufficient enough to create your shopping list. We purchased everything we needed from the lumber department of a home improvement store without much issue. I wanted to use poplar for the project, but unfortunately their lumber was picked over and they were out of 1 x 6 boards. As a result, I ended up using clear pine instead. 

I mentioned that we had left the crown detail until shopping for the wood, so it was important that I brought my plans, a pen, and the tape measure with us on the trip. We went to the molding aisle and decided on a small 45 degree crown with a simple cove that is similar to the crown we've installed in many of the rooms upstairs. This crown required a 1 1/2" overhang, and I wanted to give it an additional 1/4" reveal. So my "on the fly" calculations let me determine the necessary width of the board for the top of the headboard. 

We loaded up our cart and headed home with the spoils from our quest. All told, it ran us about $50, not including the extra piece of crown I purchased (and later returned). I tend to buy an extra piece when the cut will be close. I've been known to make horribly inaccurate cuts slight miscalculations from time to time, and would rather have an extra piece to return after we're finished, instead of making another trip for more wood mid-project if a mistake happens.

One of my favorite parts of woodworking and projects like this is setting all of the wood up, looking at it in its somewhat raw form, and knowing that in a couple of days it will be something totally different. It just makes me happy. I know, totally nerdy.

7. Assemble the Sides 

Once you have all of your wood and you are ready to start working, the first step is to give yourself the rough frame of the headboard. Since there is probably a hole in the door for the knob, possibly a smaller one with a salvaged door, we put that side on the bottom of the headboard so that it would be hidden behind the bed. We opted not to fill it since it will be concealed by the mattress.

The other side of the door has the mortises for the hinges. Since the top of the headboard will have the shelf and crown, we didn't need to fill those either since they'll be covered.

We used two pieces of scrap wood we had in the basement. They were leftover pieces of 4/4 wood that I ripped to size on the table saw. If you don't heave easy access to a table saw, you can use 1 x 2s attached to either side of the door. 

These pieces acted as the base for the "legs" of the headboard that we would eventually wrap other wood around. I affixed them with a hefty amount of wood glue and a bunch of pneumatic nails. I used our compressor and nailer on this, but you could just as easily use a hammer and nails, or even screws at this point. If you do use screws, make sure you still a pilot hole or your 1 x 2s may split. 

Note: It was at this point that we realized the headboard was going to be too tall. We pushed the bed up to the headboard and could see that the hole would be visible and it would feel too tall in the room. Remember, small house, low ceiling, always making adjustments. But this was a good time to realize it. We were able to easily cut the base of the support pieces off. No harm done.

8. Assemble the "Posts"

Since we are faking the side posts that wrap around the supports, we will need to assemble them and attach them at this point. To do this I would use two pieces of 1 x 3 cut to length for each side.

I went down to the basement and put on my table saw's dado blade (blade used to cut channels in the wood) in a 3/4" configuration and set up the sacrificial fence (I've learned so much from watching Norm on New Yankee Workshop). This would allow me to cut a 3/4" wide dado at the edge of the face board that the side board would fit into. From the photo below you can see the board on the left that I made a test cut on, and the actual boards on the right together in a test fit.

Notice the blue clamps on the fence. Those things are awesome. I picked them up from Rockler and they make applying a sacrificial fence o-so-easy. After cutting the dados, the face board should easily accept the side pieces. 

What I did may be a bit overkill, but it gives a solid and secure joint. If you don't have a dado blade, that's ok. You can just rip the side piece to be shorter and face nail the front to the side. This will make sure the seam of the joint stays on the side and not the front of the headboard.

In our case, before nailing the pieces together I knew that I wanted to cut the sides to fit around our baseboards. Since space is at a premium, we wanted the headboard to fit flush on the wall. To do this I scribed the leg to match the profile of the baseboard and shoe molding using a simple compass by setting the width of the compass to that of the largest gap between the wood and the wall. I then traced the profile of the baseboard with the compass set to the proper width. 

Then I cut away the material that needed to be removed with my jigsaw. You can see from the photo above that the two pieces are not nailed together yet, but the joint will be barely noticeable once nailed, sanded, and painted.

To assemble the side pieces I simply glued up the dado, clamped the two boards, and shot some 1 1/4" brad nails into it, roughly one every 8" to 10", and then let it set up for a couple of hours.

9. Attach the Support Posts

Once the post's glue has set up, you can attach the posts to the headboard. Again, I glued and nailed the boxes I created to the edges of the headboard's supports I installed in an earlier step. For this, I used 2 1/2" finish nails shot in from the side. I then used some additional 1 1/4" brad nails to nail the face of the posts to the door. 

10. Attach the Shelf and Crown

With the sides assembled, you can place the boards on the top of the door. The plans we drew up allowed us to place the 1 x 4 pine directly on with no need to rip it. As I mentioned, we used slightly larger pieces for the tops of the two posts. We were able to just cut these on the miter saw. Again, I glued and then nailed the top with 1 1/4" brad nails.

The crown was nice and easy. Unlike the rest of the house, all of the angles on these project were 45 degrees, so I just set the miter saw to 45 degrees and cut each piece. I didn't even bother using the compound angles, since this crown was so small I just had to prop it up against the normal miter fence and cut. For most of the pieces, I used a small 3/4" brad nail to affix the crown, and for the really tiny pieces I just used wood glue and put a small piece of painters tape on it until the glue dried. If I had tried to nail the small pieces they would have broken for sure. 

11. Test Fit

Assembly of the headboard was pretty easy, but before moving on, make sure it fits the way you want it to. This is the last step where you will be able to make any necessary adjustments before you will make your paint job suffer for any mistakes.  

Drum roll please. Test fit is perfect! So we move on to the next step.

12. Wood Filler and Paint Prep

You probably have a lot of different surfaces here, and a lot of nail holes, so don't skimp on the paint prep. This is easily the place where most otherwise great projects suffer from impatience.

First, fill all of your nail holes with a good quality non-shrinking and paint-able wood filler. You can use a two part epoxy if you want, but for this I just used one of the "premium" Elmer's fillers that I used throughout the house on molding. It stands easily but doesn't typically shrink much.

Make sure you fill all of the holes and have someone check over your work too. I don't know how many times I think I've filled everything, only to find one or two I've missed during the paint stage of a project.

Once all of the holes are filled and the filler has dried, it is sanding time. I like to use my orbital sander on all of the large flat pieces, starting with a 120 Grit, then moving to either 180 or 220, and some '0' steel wool on the crazy angles, followed by '00'. Then I typically use on the of the soft 220 grit sanding sponges to go over everything one last time. 

13. Paint

We were just doing our normal white trim color on this project, so paint was pretty straight forward. We took the door to a fairly dust free portion of our house, applied a coat of primer, and two coats of paint. All in all, it was looking good. 

14. Place and Secure

If everything has gone smoothly you should be able to place the headboard in your room about 24 hours after applying your second coat of paint. 

In our situation, the headboard is actually held against the wall by the bed. We plan on affixing some adhesive velcro to the back of the headboard and to the wall to hold it a bit more securely down the line.

If your headboard needs to be put in place so it absolutely can't move, you can either drill through the base of the headboard behind the bed and secure it to studs in the wall, or even place a cleat on the wall that the headboard can rest on and be attached to. There are quite a few viable options.

Note from Wendy: I just want to point out that Alex went a bit overboard on this project (which is typical), and that this level of complication probably isn't suitable to the beginner DIY enthusiast. Alternate option: consider eliminating the construction of the posts altogether (steps 7-9) so that the headboard is comprised of the door and crown detail alone. Affix the door to the wall as he mentioned above, either by screws or cleat.

15. Enjoy and Accessorize

No project is complete without enjoying the fruits of your labor. And, as my better half has has taught me, no project is complete without the proper accessories.

As it turned out, moving and tripping over this door for several years turned out to be worth the hassle. (Even if we did feel like hoarders on occasion for keeping an old door "just in case we think of something to use it for.") We're quite happy with the final look, the final cost (around $50), and how it fits in the room. I'd say we're also just as happy that we didn't end up sending a door to the landfill whose only flaw was that it didn't look right in our home. 

Do you have the same need to save and reuse as much as possible? Perhaps a cool re-purpose project of your own? If you do, please share. 

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We excitedly offered up our guest room and got that overjoyed feeling when she accepted. But quickly this feeling was replaced with a feeling of dread. Why? Because our guest room was an absolute atrocity. Here's what it looked like just six weeks ago. 

Since moving in, our guest room has been our home office, Mel's litter box area, a dumping ground for house supplies and extra stuff, a work staging area for painting and staining, and even our master bedroom for nearly a year while we worked on the master. While we were sleeping in there, we lovingly referred to it as "The Crappy B&B." 

Throughout our eight years in the house, somehow we turned a blind eye to the hideous baby pink cracked walls, crackled ceiling, various stains, smudges, holes, and other imperfections, all with the plan that we would eventually get around to working on this room once we finished some of the higher priority projects elsewhere in the house.

Well, this idea of "eventually" went out the window when Kelly told us that she could join us in May. Wendy had been itching for a reason to do a quick and inexpensive overhaul on the guest room, and Kelly's impending arrival was just the catalyst to get us moving. The following video gives you a feel for the shape the room was in just a few weeks ago.

As you can see, Wendy and I needed to hit the ground running with this brief refresh project, and that's exactly what we did.

Our project kicked off with a ton of prep work. Missing sections of wall and huge cracks needed to be patched. Missing sections of plaster around outlets needed to be filled, and the whole room needed to be cleaned and scraped to get rid of all of the bumpy plaster "junk" (yes, that's a technical term) on the walls.

After lots of patching, sanding, and cleaning, we cleared out the room and started painting.

To save some hard earned cash, Wendy picked up a gallon of Benjamin Moore "oops" paint for 50% off from our local Ace Hardware to use on the walls. The color is called Manchester Tan, which felt nice and warm in the room. We used our standard antique white (Glidden's America's Finest, color matched with Benjamin Moore paint) on the baseboards. And given the light tan base of the walls as well as the fact that we had some light blue ceiling paint left over from our master bedroom project, Wendy opted to have us paint the ceiling of the guest room blue as well. The combination is quite serene.

A few months back, in anticipation of an excuse to do some sprucing up of this room, Wendy ordered bamboo blinds for the back bay window, and some long hanging panels to give the room some soft texture. Once the room was painted, we hung them on new curtain rods from Target. I believe Lulu approves.

Wondering what Lulu's been up to lately? Just a little misbehaving while Wendy and I are out of the house.

The majority of the shell of the room was complete so we turned our attention to the furniture that would fill room as well as some accessories. As I mentioned, beyond wanting this project to be a quick one, we wanted it to be a project that would come in at a very low cost, so we used as many free/donated/reused options as we could.

The bed, an inflatable Queen Essential EZ Bed was a 2009 Christmas gift from Wendy's parents. We plan to keep it up as a bed full time, and hope it will stay inflated on a long-term basis. The dresser was also given to us by Wendy's parents, who purchased it in 1974 for $50.

The headboard is a homemade creation from our old master bathroom door plus a bit of new lumber. (Here are the step-by-step details on how you can make one too.)

For accessories we turned to one of Wendy's favorite places, Home Goods. We can usually find something that is interesting, somewhat unique, and a pretty decent deal when we shop there. This past weekend, a new Home Goods in Alexandria had its grand opening, so we decided to stop by. It was a little bit crazy there (madhouse really), we've never seen so many people at a Home Goods. Even though it was a bit insane, we're glad we went.

We found three really cool hexagon mirrors to hang above the headboard. Each mirrored piece of glass surrounds an image of a crown (a la Will and Kate?) printed on antique looking paper. 

Wendy also chose a couple of nice aqua pillow shams for the bed. We hung the mirrors in a row above the bed, placed the shams, and the room started to come together.

And finally, we added a few small items around the room on some plates we purchased in San Francisco's Chinatown last month. Just some small touches to try to make the guest room feel a little less like a crappy B&B.

While not 100% complete, the room is in good shape for Kelly to arrive this weekend. We'll still be making some changes/additions over time, but we think it's a pretty nice transformation for a couple of weekends of work

The end result? Overall we're thrilled with both the semi-finished project and its budget! And we hope that Kelly (and future guests) feel welcome in the newly refreshed space.

So, how did the budget shake out? Here's a recap:

• Wall paint, purchased as "oops" paint for 50% off - $22.50
• Ceiling and trim paint, left over from previous projects - "free"
• Area rug, given to us second hand by a friend - free
• Dresser, given to us by Wendy's Parents - free
• Bed, 2009 Christmas gift from Wendy's Parents - free
• Duvet cover and pillow cases, mistake shipment with an online order - free
• End table storage cubes, snagged from a neighbor's trash because they were moving - free
• Lamp, already owned - "free"
• Curtains and custom blinds, picked up on sale from JCPenney - around $175.00
• Curtain rods from Target - $49.98
• Headboard - Built using an old door and some pine from a big box store - $40.00
• Home Goods mirrors - $50.97
• Home Goods pillow shams - $25.98
• Accent pillows, already owned - "free"
• Wicker chair, already owned - "free"
• Decorative trays - $17.98
• Toiletries for guests, courtesy of our last hotel stay - free

Total cost = $382.41

Making your guests feel like they aren't staying in a Crappy B&B...Priceless!

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