Welcome to our downstairs guest room. Since it's below grade, I'm working extra hard to make it not feel too much like a basement. I'm aiming for wamth and spunk, not cold and sterile.
This started with sewing very basic curtains out of some gauzy Turkish towels we bought on our trip to Istanbul. They let in the light but cover up the not-so-lovely ground-level view. The lamps, wedding gifts, were made by Nate's grandmother out of wallpaper printing rolls. The mirror, also a wedding gift, was made by my friend Sarah's mom out of Duxbury oyster shells.
The first big project was the DIY nautical chart wall. I have a stack of old charts that my uncle Frank gave my dad years ago, and I went through to find charts of emotionally significant harbors and coastlines. I did some Pinterest research and in the end followed this awesome tutorial from the SoPo Cottage blog for how to adhere the charts to the wall. The hardest part was deciding how to lay out the charts, and I was very happy to have a bag full of thumb tacks to arrange and rearrange the charts before making any permanent decisions. Then all I had to do was paint the backs of the charts with wallpaper paste (found at Walmart), fold them in half for a few minutes for even paste distribution, and then carefully place them on the wall.
The statement chart wall definitely helped. Added some funk. But the light in the room isn't great and between the blue Turkish towel curtains and the white matelasse quilts that I had been so excited to find at Marshall's this summer, the room didn't feel cozy or warm. Maybe I make different decisions in the heat of summer and the cold of winter? That would make sense.
I consulted my friend Lisa about the "missing something" feeling I was getting and she thought a bright color might help. "Since it's just a guest room, why not do something bold and fun?" she asked. "I always love a good throw or pillow." YES. Now we're talking.
Color, color, color. What to do? Then I stumbled across these amazing quilts at Anthropologie. If only I could afford this sort of thing... Here's the inspiration:
Since two twin quilts at roughly $200 each are not in the budget, once again it's time to get crafty! I love the warm, vibrant reddish-orange color, and I particularly love it with that dark teal. Oh wait, I have a can of paint in that dark teal... Could I swing orange bedding and paint the dresser with the leftover paint from the sliding doors?
I visited the Garnet Hill outlet in Franconia, NH and came home with four flat sheets: two in an orange ikat print and two in a darker red-orange solid flannel. Here's what I came up with:
...
They didn't have four flats in any of the same sizes, which in the end was a blessing because the king ikat sheet left me enough extra fabric for pillow cases and shams! For the shams I used a combination of the ikat and solid fabrics with the little bit of leftover I had from the Turkish towel curtains.
