Dramatic Guest Room Before & After! DIY lake house decor

First things first, the peonies in our garden are starting to bloom!  I wasn't sure what colour they would be when I could only see the buds, but turns out they are a soft blush pink and they look heavenly!  it is currently really dark and thundering out and I am low key worrying that they will be destroyed in a storm!  Hopefully they last a bit longer, so I can deliver some bouquets to my sister in law and nieces who live down the street.  It's been so lovely living so close to some of our family, and being able to do 'pop over's' for little visits and have the cousins over to play.  It is one of the main reasons we chose this house in particular!  Since moving in we have changed and renovated nearly 70% of the house so far.  With lots of hard work and elbow grease we have been able to bring this sweet lake house out of the 60's and into the present :)  I am looking forward to sharing lot's of 'before & afters' in the next months, and to start them off I decided the guest room would be a good one to share as it is one of the most dramatic.  I debated using the word dramatic, but once you see the pictures I think you'll agree!

BEFORE:

So above is the room we now call the 'guest room', BEFORE!  Just take a good look at the picture and soak all the details in.  Between the stuffed fox, palm tree mural accent wall, pink carpet, fake wood paneling and eclectic decor it was pretty 'special'.  But we basically looked past all that stuff and saw that it was a big room with lot's of space,  a decent sized closet, and a bright window.  We knew it had the bones to make an excellent guest room for our overnight guests!  

First thing we did was deal with the palm tree mural.  I have to be honest and say that it actually grew on us the first 1.5 months we lived there, we almost decided to not change it (Mia our daughter basically threw her little body in front of the wall and told us to NOT paint it!) She was very serious, so we thought of a solution and decided to do a rustic wood accent wall.  Before I explain any further let me share a picture of the room AFTER so that you can get a good feel for all the details and changes we made.  I found it a bit difficult to take pictures of the room, (thumbs up to real estate photogs!) so I hope the photos do the room justice, it really is so cute in person!

AFTER:

My husband Chris found the wood for the accent wall at Home Depot, it was pre stained and ready to go which was wonderful!  Also, we only needed to nail it on top of the mural, therefore not needing to paint over the mural, and it makes us happy knowing it's still kind of there :)  Then we painted the fake wood paneling a medium tone grey.  It covered the paneling great and it actually gave a neat effect having the lines on the wall, very cottage-y.  We also painted that beam going between the two big lights white to match the ceiling, as it was brown and we wanted it to 'disappear'.

Next I took a dresser that used to be in our oldest son's room, and painted it this lovely mint.  The colour is called 'clear aqua' and I think I could probably paint 10 more things in my house this colour, I love it so much.  We wanted to bring in a pop of colour and that truly did it!  My Mom gave us the mirror over the dresser that she had sitting in her basement not being used, and my sister gave us the art hanging over the bed as she had changed her decor and didn't need it any more.  We already had the king sized bed, and the headboard as well as the bedding and pillows from our previous house, so we just decided to use what we had instead of purchasing all new bedding, which can add up! (evenutally Chris wants to make a platform for the bed, so that we don't need to have a bedskirt around it, who invented bedskirts? They are pretty much the worst! Which is why we just decided not to have anything there for now)

I also already owned every bible verse print, frame, picture and candle you see in the room. I went 'shopping' in my boxes of decor and used what I already had :) I love going shopping within my own house. If you ever feel like switching up decor, always try doing that first before you go out and buy things new, maybe you can even re-paint something to give it new life!  You can see we also painted the closet door in the same mint as the dresser to bring in a little more colour.  I had seen the idea of painting colourful doors on Pinterest and knew this would be the perfect instance to do it.  We kept the big florescent light fixtures (for now) as they serve their purpose even though they aren't super pretty, and the room is so bright from the window they wont need to be used that often.

We already owned the bedside tables, and we left them with the wood showing instead of painting them just to keep some warm wood in the room. We have had those side tables since we were first married and though a bit dented they are still in pretty good condition!  We did purchase the lamps on top of the bedside tables for 16$, but painted the bases of them white to keep them bright.  We installed hooks so that guests could hang their sweaters, towels and jackets (upon my Mom's request, and a smart request it was!). And we brought in some succulent plants from the garden and planted them in a fun mug for a little nature on the window sill.  

The pink (and very stained) carpet would have to go, so we bit the bullet and had new carpet installed, and we are so glad we did.  Basements can be cold in the winter and it will be so nice to have a cozy carpet under foot down there to keep it warmer.  Chris put in the nice white baseboards that match all the other rooms in our house, and lastly we painted the window frame, door frame, closet frame and ceiling trim WHITE!  Since moving here I have never painted so many things white in my whole life, but I am always so glad I do it.  It REALLY brightens things up, but it typically takes 3 to 4 coats to truly cover all the dark wood that was in the house.  Like I said, lots of elbow grease ;)  We are so happy with how the guest room turned out, sometimes I just go sit on the edge of the bed and look at it.  My Mom said it feels like a little 'bed and breakfast', I love that,  and I am so happy to think of all the family and friends that will hopefully stay there and enjoy good rest and happy times at the lake!

What room before & after should I share next?  My bedroom?  The kids room? The living room? There is so much to share from our fixer upper house.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely day!

Love Always,

Shelley