Our New and Improved Guest Bedroom

You may remember a million years ago (read: back in April) when I posted about plans to give our guest bedroom a little facelift.  I intended for it to be a quick and fairly inexpensive endeavor.  And while we managed to keep the costs down, it was not a quick process at all.  What can I say?  I excel at procrastination! Anyway, it's finally done and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

We didn't do everything we intended, but we freshened it up a bit so I'm happy.  I didn't take the best "before" photos, but I think this still gives you an idea of what it looked like...

Notice the gross-beige yellow walls!  When we bought our house four years ago (as of September 2nd...yay, happy house anniversary to us!) nearly all the walls were this color.  I loathe this color.  Repainting the guest bedroom marked the end of the beige-yellow color in our house, yay!  Also, let's talk about that hideous bedspread/bed-in-a-bag for one second.  I bought that thing when I was in high school through a catalog.  I loved it at the time, but over the years it has just become more and more hideous to me!  But it's gone now, so I'm happy.

As you can tell, the guest room used to be a place for our spare crap and Antoine's poster collection...where occasionally a guest would stay, amongst the junk.  The door was always shut, so the cat wouldn't chew on said junk (Gui likes to chew on cardboard and wires laying around on the ground).  Because the door was always closed, the room sort of felt disconnected from the rest of the house and was regarded as an afterthought.  Part of my motivation for giving it a facelift was to open it up and have it become a true part of our house, instead of a storage room.  And, happily, it has...

The "after" shot.  A little brighter and hopefully a little more welcoming.

The walls got a fresh coat or two of paint (silver peony from Sherwin-Williams).  The bookshelf didn't change one bit.  I had originally hoped to relocate it to another wall in the room, but in the end it ended up looking best where it had been all along.  The rug, which originally I wasn't sure about, is really growing on me...and it's actually a really nice rug for $20, you can't beat that!  I'm in love with this little record stand (above right) I got from Urban Outfitters!  I wasn't originally going to get one right away, but it went on sale and there was free shipping so I jumped on it.  As you can tell from the "before" photos (top right and bottom left) my record player was originally just chilling out on the floor.

The desk was one of the bigger updates in the bedroom, but I've got a whole separate post about that coming up...so stay tuned.  The chair is another inexpensive find from Ikea.  Above the desk I hung a couple of my magnolia photos in a pair of Ribba frames.  I also matted, framed and hung two of Antoine's Rob Jones posters, one Raconteurs (seen here) and one White Stripes (which you can see in the first photo).  Antoine has a pretty great Rob Jones collection and it always satisfying for both of us when we can display more of them, since we love them so much!  Now we have Rob Jones items in our living room, dining room, upstairs hallway and guest bedroom.  If only we had more wall space!

Some details.  

The curtains: we ended up finding these at Home Goods/TJ Maxx for like $10 a pair.  Originally I didn't want to go with sheers, but in the end I like the amount of light they let in and the pattern still offers some privacy when they are pulled shut.  

The cranes:  they weren't part of my original plan, the idea just popped into my head at the last moment.  Several years ago I decided it would be fun to fold a thousand cranes out of any/all scrap paper I could find, so I did.  And for years they sat in boxes in closet (minus a couple at work and some hanging from friends and families rear-view mirrors).  That corner of the room was looking a bit empty so I found this handy tutorial (super glue...genius!) and made a little make-shift mobile near the window.

The print:  you might remember this print from my Crafty Supermarket post from April.  I adored it when I spotted it in Kelly's Etsy store, Burrowing Home, but once I got to Crafty and saw it in person I just had to have it!  I matted it myself and put it in this frame, also from Ikea (surprise, surprise!) and on sale.

A couple other touches...I re-purposed a standing mirror we had (more on that later), swapped out our old brown lampshade for a fresh white one, traded the hideous Indian-inspired bedspread for a pale green down comforter we already had and bought a basic white bedskirt from Target, purchased a couple of throw pillows for the bed (here and here), and crocheted an afghan for the bed (but again, more on that later).

There's still a couple more finishing touches (i.e. something for over the bed, it feels a bit bare, and polyurethane the top of the desk), but overall it feels pretty finished.  And that's a great feeling, I gotta say!

Weekend in Instagram

This should really be "Saturday in Instagram" because I posted a little too much on Saturday.  But it was such a great day I couldn't help myself!  It started with breakfast by Antoine. 

 His breakfasts are always the best!

Cheese proceeded to watch his dad like a hawk, in case he decided to share any of this breakfast with him!  But note the basset hound laziness, even with the smell of frying bacon in the air he doesn't leave the comfort of his bed!

Then we went on a family walk down our favorite street in Pleasant Ridge, which also happens to have a basset hound that lives there...

 I think Cheesy has a new girlfriend.  She was a little nervous and skittish at first, but she quickly warmed up to him!

A little video of our walk down Grand Vista!

After our walk we got ready and ran all around town getting groceries and whatnot (yes, shopping with us usually involves a trip to at least two, if not three, grocery stores).  Then we went to Bellevue Park while we waited for our Indian carryout from Deep India.  Once we had out takeout in hand we headed over to Alms Park to eat and take pictures.  And then we rounded out the evening with a stroll around Ault Park's gardens, followed by a trip to Yagoot for some frozen yogurt!

 Sunday was a great combination of cooking, baking and Cheese snuggling.  It obviously started off with snuggling...

"Mom! Quit being weird!"

 

I spent most of the day baking a carrot cake for my coworker's birthday, making creamy potato leek soup and trying to clean up the mess I made from doing the aforementioned.  Sunday was an all around exhausting yet satisfying and fulfilling day!  I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I spend the day cooking and baking...well, unless I mess something up, which thankfully I didn't!  Oh, and I did some major picture taking and photo editing this weekend, so brace yourself for a bombardment of posts.  You have been warned!

So, how was your weekend?!

Dog Park Fun

Though we did barely anything over our long labor day weekend except run errands, watch movies and relax, we did notice that Cheese was getting a little cooped up!  So, we decided to take him to the dog park despite the stifling heat and humidity.  I'm always amazed by Cheese when we go to the dog park, for several reasons...1.) he is just so friendly to every dog and person, he always makes his rounds getting pets from anyone who will give them, 2.) he always zeroes in on the kids and puts on his best behavior, no jumping or crowding, he's polite and gentle, 3.) that a basset hound, who can be so very lazy most of the time, has the energy to run and play nonstop (it's very rare for him to ever lay down or take a break at the dog park, even if we are there for an hour and it feels like it's a 100 degrees outside).

Before we took him in the main dog park area to play with the other dogs, we went to one of the secondary areas to play fetch with his ball for a bit.  We knew he'd be too distracted in the main fenced area with all the other dogs, and he's been so into his ball/fetch lately.  Here's some shots I took while he and Antoine played fetch...

On the left: cute and playful Cheese / on the right: creepy, saggy Cheese

"I got it!"

I guess it's just all too exciting and taxing to manage to keep his tongue in his mouth!

After fetch Cheese played in the main area of the dog park for quite a while, getting all the pets from all the people and making friends with all the kids!  You know it's hot outside when all the humans AND all the dogs are under the shade of the trees.  And despite the heat, Cheese was his usual self and played nonstop.  When we decided it was time to leave, I snapped a couple more photos of the surrounding park on our way out...

Happy Friday everyone!  I promise that next week I'll have guest bedroom goodness to share with you.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Weekend in Instagram

Yet another weekend in Instagram post...I know, I know.  I need to get off my ass and do some actual blogging.  I promise I'll have a real post with real photos later this week!  And then either this week or next I'll start on my guest bedroom posts, I promise!  In the meantime, Instagram photos (mainly of Cheese) for your enjoyment...

 I started Saturday morning off right with some cold brewed iced coffee.  And I swear I'm not so pretentious that I normally drink my coffee out of a Ball jar, I just didn't have enough for a full glass of coffee.  Not that I think all people who drink their coffee out of Ball jars are pretentious...but some are.

 Saturday was a lazy day.  Well, to be honest, the whole weekend was pretty lazy!  We stayed in our pajamas most of the weekend.  Saturday we watched Mud and Now You See Me.  Mud was actually really good!  Easily Matthew McConaughey's best performance to date...and that's saying a lot because I'm not generally one of his biggest fans.  Usually I find him to be kind of creepy, but not so much in this film.  Now You Can See Me was good, kind of hokie at times, but good.  I also watched Side Effects on Friday and thought it was decent, if kind of flawed.  But luckily, Channing Tatum isn't in it too long, so that was good (I can only handle his douchiness for so long, then I'm done).

 

Sunday was yet another lazy day...I snuggled on the couch with this guy most of the day and watch How I Met Your Mother reruns.  It was kind of awesome.

Poor guy!  It's so "ruff" being the Cheese-man.

Sunday night I had to feed my sis and brother-in-laws cats and I spotted this gigantic cluster of mushrooms in their backyard.  Crazy!

This is Cheese on Monday.  It was obvious that Labor Day was just too much for him and he needed to get out of the house for a while to let off some steam, so we took him to the dog park.  You know it's hot out at the dog park when all the humans AND all the dogs are staying under the shade of the trees!  Cheese managed to last an hour and so did we!  He had a great time and drank about a million gallons of water!

While Cheese was getting a bath I couldn't resist snapping a photo of this guy rolling around on the guest bed, which Guillermo now thinks is his bed!

Antoine and I rounded off our Labor Day by running some errands and then feasting on some silver queen corn on the cob for dinner (tasty!).  It was a nice, relaxing weekend...which frankly, in this heat, was pretty much all we could bear.  I really hope it starts to cool off soon!  I'm so ready for cool, Fall weather...it's my favorite!

How about you?  How was your long weekend?  Did you do anything fun?  Or did you avoid the heat at all costs like we did?!