Our Fabulous New Guest Room

A month, or so, ago I decided to turn Benjamin's old nursery into a fabulous guest room.   What prompted the decision, you may ask?  Well, my sister and her husband came to visit, my parents came a couple weeks after that, Jeff's mom is coming in September, and I am really trying to figure out a way to convince my fantastic Aunt Chris who lives in Atlanta to come up and visit. 

Plus, Benjamin has been on the bottom bunk in Jarom's room since Christmas, so it was just wasted real estate, something I really can't stand.

Unfortunately, we didn't exactly have a fabulous budget to go with the fabulous guest room, so I have spent many a day shopping at Ross, low budget furniture stores, and various thrift stores to get our guest room into "fabulous shape." 

Oh, and as I tell you my saga, I am including prices so that you can either marvel at my shopping prowess, or smack your forehead as you think to yourself, "I could have done so much better!."  I am all about the entertainment value here, people.

First, I found a knotty pine sleigh-bed headboard and footboard ($125) at a secondhand furniture store that needed some cleaning up, but turned out to be a very good piece of furniture--solid wood and all that. 

HOWEVER (and I didn't understand how big that "however" was going to be), it didn't come with the side rails.  This wouldn't be such a problem, you would think (I thought!), but I found out after buying universal metal side rails ($59), that the metal dowels that held the side rails into the footboard and headboard were too far in for the rails to slide over them, and lock into place. 

So we returned the first set of rails, went to several other furniture stores, and bought some wooden rails ($99), which didn't even match, because they were all that was available.  

I call this the color of desperation, because I was so desperate to find something that worked, that I didn't even care about how they looked.  But I also knew that a bed skirt can hide a multitude of sins.  :o)

Luckily, there is this guy in our ward who is a genius with wood, and, by witchcraft of some kind, he was able to fix the rails so they could work, the night before my sister and her husband arrived.  David Fisher, you rock!

Oh, and also, the luxury pillow-top mattress set that we got at BJ's for a steal ($399 after a $100-off coupon!) were really, really high, so they had a sort of princess-and-the-pea kind of feeling, which also made it impossible to use a conventional Queen-size comforter, as I found out later.  But I ended up getting a king size Laura Ashley quilt that worked great.  (And, yes, those are hospital corners, thank you very much.)

The week before my mom came I was a Ross shopping demon, trying to pull together a coordinated look with all the disparate pieces that reside at a Ross store, which I think of as kind of a Goodwill where everything is (relatively) new. 

It took about 3 trips, and a couple of failed tries (because of the size of the mattresses), but after a bed-skirt from Target ($17.99) plus curtains ($10.99 each), a curtain rod ($7.99), quilt ($44.99), and throw pillow ($9.99),  it finally all came together like this:

You like?

I still need to get a lamp for the table, and a couple of other little things, but I'm calling it good for now.  And, just so you know, we would love to have guests!  :o)