teal and tangerine: an afternoon-worthy guest room and office combo

When the bug came along, our office and guest rooms became one, married together in 90 square feet, never to be separated again.

That is not a lot of space for a desk and a dresser and a queen bed and some side tables and lamps and a lot of crap that would get thrown in that room when I had to clean the quickly.

And I didn’t have much to spend on the room. $30 over two months, maybe?

It looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

Whoa. I know.

I love it. I spend Bug’s afternoon naps in here, working away at the desk. The colors and bright and cool and clean, and the room is finally organized in the way that the furniture fits best to accomodate both guests and a workspace. The mirror above the dresser even lets the dresser become a vanity when guests are using the room.

There’s even a little desk for Bug when she gets bigger.

The whole thing was inspired by the dress, framed in the glass window above the bed. I wore that dress to our engagement party in 2006 and a friend slit the seams and framed it for me.

There wasn’t much magic or money here, just a lot of sweat. I:

• Painted the walls by combining paint from cans in the garage – an old yellow and a sky blue that had to have each been at least 10 years old.
• Painted the side tables with the same teal paint I mixed for the walls.
• Painted the dresser and desk white.
• Spray painted the lamp yellow and the frames in krylon tangerine spray paint.
• Covered the clipboards and the antique desk top (which before was a dark green leather) in orange and polkadot scrapbook paper, which is adhered with a mixture of 2 parts elmer’s glue, one part water.
• Removed the closet door and IKEA WILMA curtains on black rods nice and high, to give a feeling of a higher ceiling.

The furniture and paint were things we already had, I spent about $6 on spray paint, $4 on scrapbook paper and $20 on curtains. That’s a $30 re-do.

Here are the details: