West Guest Bedroom for under $250?

Our kids are now all grown up and most live away, so when they do come home, they stay over. Some of them are married and some not, also, our grandchildren live close and like to have sleepovers at “grandma’s” and my parents will come and stay for a few days too, so versatility in the guest sleeping areas is necessary.

We have two spare bedrooms that I decided to set up one with a queen bed and the other bedroom with two twin beds, but more on that in a different posting. This is about the West Guest Room which has the queen bed.

Like I said the kids moved out, but what was left in this room was multiple layers of paint on the walls, the last being a bright sea-foam. The carpet was what we put in 15 years ago, but being in a lower-level bedroom, has really held up well and is a neutral light tan. Which is good, because there’s just not the budget to include carpet. In fact, I set up the budget to do this room on less than $250!

So the first thing to figure out is the layout of the room. With the entrance door and closet on the South wall and the window directly across the room on the North wall, the only real place for the bed is on the West wall.

Considering the practical layout how does that work with the first Focal Point? I feel in a room there are a few focal points, first focal point is where you want your first look to go upon entering the room, and the second focal point is what you’re looking at once in the room, actually using the space.

The first focal point in this room, as in most bedrooms, is the bed. I had a bedframe with mattress, but that was it. I need inspiration! Off to TJMaxx…

ah… found this beautiful quilt on clearance less than $50, and this soft blue-ish/green color dust ruffle on clearance too for less than $15. (Totally necessary to cover up the platform and metal bedframe.) There’s my inspiration and colorscheme for the room.

But before I can mount anything on the wall, I need a plan for the walls and ceiling. This ceiling is one of the few in the house that’s pretty smooth so a coat of white ceiling paint will freshen it up. And being a designer that has sold a LOT of paint to clients, I also have a lot of extra gallons of paint in my storage paint room that need to be used. Fortunately I have a gallon of soft-white. Perfect.

Now for the design. I think that a five foot height of a warm tan color from the quilt on the bottom of the wall will be good, then I can use this pretty stencil I picked up at Menards when I was getting some other materials. (See post: “Stencils not just for Early Americans” for details on how to do this room’s wall treatment.)

Now what can I do for a headboard? After checking through all the great storage areas I have, I didn’t find anything so off I go again. My friend was having an occasional sale, let’s see what I find. Here it is!

Perfect size for a queen bed too. It’s a piece of pressed tin from an old ceiling with a wood frame around it, I just added a coat of bronze spray paint to it.

The pillows on the bed are from various sources. The center green one is a scrap of fabric leftover from the window treatments in this room. The small brown ones are from misc scraps I had never used. And the center one with the three birds is a homemade needlepoint I purchased years ago at an estate sale for less than $1 and looks great with this room.

The swing arm lamps work well in the bedroom so that the bedside tables can be more versatile and no need to give up valuable space on them for a lamp. I got this pair from Menards or Home Depot for under $50.

So far total cost for this room is around $150. Not much of a budget left to do the rest of the room with… can I do it? I have the fabric for the window treatments, just need to sew them. But I will need some sort of dresser…cheap! I think I saw one at my friend’s occasional sale, back I go…