Guest Suite Makeover

Our new house has a great mother-in-law suite located downstairs off of the main living areas.  It is a full bed and bath closet combo. We refer to it as our guest suite, mainly because both of our mothers aren't even close to having to live there, although we will welcome either of them with open arms if that day comes.

From the state of this room, it can be deduced that the previous owners hadn't entered in a very long time.  I don't think they had any use for it, so it needed a lot of TLC.  As I mentioned here, we had lots of guests in the month of November which turned out to be the motivation we needed to get this room ready! On the downside, we made some hasty decisions about carpet and paint color, but all in all it worked out.

Before you read on I have to warn you: As always I was too impatient to start and didn't get very good before pics.  I don't have very good pics of the progress either, especially in the early stages.  There isn't a ceiling light in this room (weird), so the only light is daylight or a floor lamp, which was unplugged for some of our work.  And since we worked mostly at night, pictures didn't really turn out that well.  Oh, and I take my pictures on my iPhone, so that is another excuse.

BEFORE.

Here is a before pic of the room from Zillow (they used it as a game room).  The carpet was green and had quite the "crunch" to it.  It was very reminiscent of the mid-90s carpet in the country club where I grew up.  As always, Zillow does the room more justice than it deserved...  

We started with the carpet.  In a perfect world (er, my perfect world), we would have laid wood floors. We ultimately decided to wait a few years until we do the flooring in the rest of the house so that we can match.

Here is a pic right after we had carpet laid (again, only a floor lamp for a light).  Already a huge improvement...

The walls/trim were pretty dirty and yellowed.  Definitely needed some freshening up...

This gap in the closet was the worst of it, but as you can see, there were lots of gaps between the molding and walls that needed to be addressed.  I did A LOT of caulking !!!

For paint, we chose to use warmer colors in taupe/brown tones to add a touch of masculinity and warmth to the room.  Here is the room after the walls were finished and one coat of trim had been done.  I'm always amazed at what a fresh coat of paint can do to a room!!!

AFTER. 

We used the rug and bedding from our old bedroom in our first house and a couch that we are storing for a friend.  For now they work great and we are very pleased with how everything turned out in here.  The room is definitely very comfortable, which was our goal.

Here I found the perfect place for a little doggie portrait I found at a garage sale...

 


Love these vintage end tables I found at Salvation Army long before we moved.  They had been living in our garage for over half a year.  Very happy to have given them a home...

My favorite part of the room? The gorgeous bay windows that overlook our back yard...

BEFORE. 

The bathroom also needed considerable caulking and painting, as well as new hardware to update the look {pic via Zillow}.  Again, this pic does the bathroom way more justice than it deserved...

 

AFTER. 

We chose a dark brown in here to contrast the bedroom and the white tile.  LOVE how it turned out.




Here is my favorite part of the entire process: the hardware.  Taylor thought I was brilliant for coming up with this, but I had to admit to him that it isn't my original idea:(  I took all of our existing, tarnished brass hardware and gave it few coats of Krylon's Brushed Metallic spray paint in the Oil-Rubbed Bronze color.  So instead of buying all new hardware,  I spent $3.60 (Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon) to update the entire lot.


BEFORE.

In progress. As you can see I went crazy and painted everything that we possibly could- the mirror, towel rack, all knobs and handles, the doorknobs and even the light fixture!

 AFTER.

I really dig the Krylon oil- rubbed bronze against the Valspar "Safari Beige" we used in here...

As always, a room is never really finished;)  We are thrilled with the progress we have made in the guest suite- especially that we feel comfortable with guests staying here now.  I do have many more ideas in store for this little section of our house, though!  I'm currently sifting through ideas for a headboard and new bedding, as well as determining what I would like to put on the walls.  

One thing I will definitely be hanging in here?  This landscaping blue-print of the house from 1994 I found in the closet!!!

Alright! Now who wants to come stay the weekend with us? Seriously, we love it!