I hinted in this post that I was working a wee bit on a much neglected room of late.  That room being our guest bedroom/office.  As Sarah from Modern Country Style is giving us a linky party to attend with Inspiration as it’s theme, I thought I’d share my inspiration for this room with you and then let you see how I’m getting on with attaining the look I’m after.

But first, I must share my outfit for the party.  Considering my post title, I figured red hair, red lippy and a white dress were just the ticket.  Fitting, no?

Now that I’m dressed and looking pretty damn gorgeous if I do say so myself (oh that I was this young, this thin and this stunning but a girl can dream, can’t she?) here’s where the inspiration started…

Viv from Ish and Chi decorated this lovely room for her son.

Now this may seem a bit strange because, well, this is a nursery.

I know, I know, I’m weird.

But look how bright and fresh and clean it looks!

Granted it’s a departure from my normal grey/black/white/olive/mustard/red palette but did you notice?  It still actually fits in with my scheme.  Red and White baby.  Oh yeah.

Part of the reason this room is such a departure is because when we moved into this place, I promised W that I would incorporate his favourite colour in the house colour palette.  And part of the reason I made that promise was because before I moved in, I made him obliterate every scrap of the brightest glossiest blue paint that was on every bit of trimwork in that boy’s house.  Seriously, the door frames, the chair rail, the rug, the curtains, the sofas – all bright royal blue.   By the time I moved in, he’d repainted almost the entire downstairs, donated the sofas, hung new white curtains and stuck the rug in the loft.  Have I mentioned how much I love that man?

And now you’re wondering how that ties in with a quite obvious red and white colour scheme aren’t you?  Mmhmm, I know, I often tease him that he SAYS his favourite colour is red but I know the truth – it most certainly must be blue because it covered his old place from top to bottom.  But no.  He assures me it’s red.  I have to take his word for it.  Therefore, the colour I promised I would incorporate into the house colour palette is most certainly red.

And so the red and white colour scheme for the guestbed/office was born.

Here are some other images I saved for inspiration.

Mad beautiful chandelier in an all white room.  We’ll come back to that one.

The stripes look grown up and make an incredible statement.

Unfortunately,  my reality looked more like this shortly after our move in date.

Not very inspiring eh?  There were stickers and decals on every wall as well as on the closet doors and one wall was painted a very bright berry pink whilst the others were white and pale blue.  When we’d viewed it, it was a little girl’s room, bright and colourful with bunting and a multi-coloured chandelier.  Once it was stripped of the furniture and accessories, we were left with a bit of a project to breathe some new life into.

The first thing we did was paint it white.  The whole room top to bottom got the treatment.

And then I brought in this little baby for Β£50 from eBay.

Uhhh yeah, in case you couldn’t tell, those are actually little flocked hearts hanging all over the chandelier.

The room just felt like it needed an injection of madness.  It was so staid, so white.  It needed a punch of colour, a bit of fun.   Enter mad beautiful chandelier.

I also changed out the knobs on the closet door (Β£2.75 each).

And I purchased two prints from Etsy and framed them using some old picture frames  I found in the cellar that I spray painted white.

We also hung some Ikea shelving that I’d had in my last place, threw some older bedding on the bed and moved on to the zillion and one projects we had going on and sort of forgot about this room.

Well, we’ve had guests over.  Actually in the last 9 months, we’ve had quite a few visitors.  And I’ve always been a bit embarrassed about what we were calling our guest bedroom.  It was just a bit cold and uninviting despite the changes we’d made.

So this past weekend I decided that I would spend a bit of time and get it looking a little prettier. 

Can I just interject, just in case there is any misunderstanding, that this is NOT a ‘big reveal’ post.  There is still so very much to do in this room but I just wanted to share with you some of the incredibly cheap and easy little tweaks I’ve made.  So we’re clear right?  This is NOT a reveal.  Don’t get your hopes up.  Right then.  Ehem. 

I bought this rather sad chair from a chap off eBay for Β£4 and picked it up on Sunday.

I covered the cushion with a fat quarter of cotton fabric I also purchased from eBay for Β£1.75.

Sanded, primed and painted it white with supplies I already had.

Not too bad for Β£5.75, eh?

The pine headboard had to go.  But with no money to replace it, I decided it’d get the white treatment as well.

Add a stripey double duvet set from Sainsbury’s that was on clearance for Β£7 and I ended up with this…

But it still didn’t say THIS IS A GUEST BED ROOM so I decided to add something that did.  It involved another go at one of these trays…  This time I decided to stop at white.

First coat of primer…

And within the tray I placed a little basket (Β£1.50) filled with some of those pretty little toiletries you get (free) when you stay at a hotel, a few inexpensive toothbrushes (88p each) in case a guest forgets theirs and a couple of face towels in bright red (79p each).

So now the room looks a little bit more inviting.

As I said, it’s by no means done.  That red and white striped walls from my inspiration picture is making me think about getting jiggy with the painters tape and a can of bright red paint (horizontal stripes? vertical? chevron?).  Alternatively, I’ve also been keeping my eye out for an equally fabulous wallpaper as what Viv included in her fabulously inspiring nursery.  I’ve found, however, it’s been really difficult to find a wallpaper with a true white background.  Every time I get a sample, they seem to be more cream or off white and I want this room to be every bit as bright as my  inspiration pictures.  And so I keep looking.

But for less than Β£100 for everything, it’s definitely a start.  I’ll share the other side of the room which includes the desk, the shelving and the framed prints when I get around to tweaking it… So definitely more to come here.

Make sure you pop on by to Sarah’s fabulous blog, Modern Country Style and see what other bloggers have posted as their inspirations!  And let’s hope they don’t all waffle quite as much as I do ;)

And if you want to follow the progress of this room and the rest of the house, make sure you click ‘Follow’ and you too can be one of the beautiful people!

Image credits: 1. this is glamorous; 2-5 Ich & Chi; 6. Unknown; 7. Elle Decor; All remaining images my own.


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