How to Gather Inspiration for a Perfectly Serene Guestroom
Hi there, it’s Tyna checking-in today and I’d like to welcome you to our Guest Room!
So admittedly, it’s not much of a looker yet but this is one of the rooms we’re super excited to start working on. Because it’s located in a high-traffic area of our house — directly next to the kitchen and living room on the main floor — Dave and I decided this should be the first bedroom we work on. Each of us also has family and friends who aren’t local and we’d like to have a comfortable space for them to stay in when they visit.
If you’ve ever seen or been in a recording studio, you know they tend to have an intense, moody vibe. Since the previous owners were using this room as a recording area, the decor lives up to the stereotype featuring deep, mossy green walls, minimal light sources and blackout curtains. The only source of light in the room is a small ceiling lamp hanging in the corner. Now don’t get me wrong, I'm definitely here for a moody vibe but for the purpose we plan to use it for this room is too dark, dated, and cramped.
Our Guest Room Inspiration Board
Our goal is to create a more inviting, serene space where guests instantly feel so comfortable and so relaxed, they never want to leave (even though they must lol). We’re shooting for a bright space peppered with hints of warm neutral tones, that we’ll add by including a few natural and organic elements. Today, we’ll be highlighting how we plan to achieve just that!
Get the Look
Note: You’ll need Photoshop to use these mood board templates. You can download a free trial here!
Walls
A white wall base is one of my favorite (and one of the easiest) ways to brighten up an entire room! White walls add depth making a room appear larger in size. White is versatile, timeless and serves as a blank canvas allowing you to get creative with your decor choices. You should always examine the undertones because not all white paint is suitable for every design — choosing the right white paint makes all the difference.
Adding a feature wall can also add personality to any room. You can make a huge statement by simply playing around with colors, patterns and textures. For example, using a beautiful peel-and-stick wallpaper with a bold, geometric pattern or incorporating everyone's farmhouse favorite — a Shiplap Wall — would completely turn any room around.
With our guest room, we want the wall to be subtle, yet noticeable in order to attract attention but never distract from its most important purpose, SLEEP.
Lighting
Ok — confession time: I am absolutely obsessed with lighting! I can literally spend hours at a time going down the rabbit hole that is Pinterest, indulging in beautiful lighting of all styles.
Do you have an entire Pinterest Board featuring nothing but light fixtures or is that just me?
<a href="https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/sinnerlig-pendant-lamp-bamboo-70315030/" target="_blank">SINNERLIG Pendant Lamp</a>
A minimal fixture with clean lines would be perfect since we don’t want it to clash with the patterned, feature wall but definitely need to add more light to the room. So we’ve decided on a Rattan pendant light to add the warm neutral hues we’re gunning for.
Closets
While planning the closets, we listed shelving as a priority, along with storage space. The closet on the left has older shelving that seems as though it was placed there as somewhat of an afterthought or temporary fixes that were never replaced. We plan to completely remove the original shelving and start from scratch on a brand new design.
Furniture
We’ve looked at so many different styles and types of headboards while on the hunt for the perfect one and ultimately we’ve decided to build our own. It doesn’t seem too difficult and would save us hundreds of dollars that we can put elsewhere in our renovation plans.
The room will definitely have somewhat of a Scandinavian vibe with a lot of whites and neutral colors. Maybe a bench or two at the foot of the bed. We’ll include some modern farmhouse elements and tie them all in to make sure the room looks cohesive.
We want our guests to wake up in the morning, pull their face from under the plush white linen Duvet while the sun rays places soft warm kisses onto your cheeks, and realize that great night of sleep was all due to a bed we built from scratch.
By building our own Tufted Headboard and DIYing our herringbone accent wall this will be a fairly inexpensive room to design and should cost roughly $1,000. Hopefully we can knock this one out for you fairly quickly. Stay tuned!