Be Our Guest

Along with the nursery, the other room that I wanted to perfect to my liking was our guest room. With babies come guests, right? "Before" it was the haven of the cats mostly, but now I think it's a room that can please us all.The wall color is green which is meant to be calming (for sleepy guests) but I picked a juicy color that trended toward yellow to keep me engaged when I'm using the space as my workroom (Benjamin Moore's Sweet Pear...which I nearly always mistype as "Sweat Pear" which sounds a lot less appealing.)

The carpeting is FLOR Faux Bois tiles, which were a bit of an adventure to put down with Jason. We surrendered and hired a handyman for hanging the curtain rod, after discovering cinder block walls just an inch beyond the plaster.

Remember how I wanted a gallery wall? Voila! Including my dad's high school class photo unearthed while cleaning out the closets.How do you like the custom pillow cases for big fluffy "European" pillows?

My workspace is the IKEA expedit desk with shelving. There's also a stylish white vinyl chair that I was surprised to find at OfficeMax, of all places. When baby smears his jelly sticky fingers all over it, I'll remind myself how little I paid for something that looks far more pricey.The sewing machine tucks away very nicely, as do those burp clothes and fabrics for future projects.Our first "test guest" will be Juliet this weekend! Followed by Jason's friend the following week. I've borrowed a thoughtful touch from Joe & Ellyn's Connecticut guest room set-up by investing in a folding luggage rack. At first I thought this was kind of overkill when Ellyn presented it to me as part of my welcome tour...but then I used it and found myself rethinking. (I do use them in every hotel I go to, so why not at home?)

We'll be doing a focus group later to get our first guests' opinions on the usability of the room. And then we will throw out their comments and decide that we like the room well enough anyway. (Just kidding...sort of.)