The guest room used to look like this:

We bought this house in 1994 and renovated it before moving into the house in 1996. The wallpaper, carpet, and colors were chosen then. So it was overdue for a makeover.

We painted in blues and white, with some cream and yellow accents.

To the right of the bed is a lowboy dresser that used to be in the scrapbook room. Several pieces of furniture played musical chairs during the past few months.

On the top of the little dresser is an Advent box and a rosemary tree. The Advent box came from Target in 2008. They had several styles and colors. This one seemed just right for the guest room.

To the right is the bookcase that came from DH’s family.

On top the bookcase are lighted buildings that are replicas of the county courthouse and the historic jail house in my home town. The jail is now a county museum. The book “Tale of Three Trees” stands in front of three fir trees in silver flower pots.

And in front of the bookcase is the Christmas tree. The tree is placed there so it can be seen down the hall as you look into the addition from the music room (formerly the office, before the desk wandered off to the library…now the “music room” because the piano lives there).

Turning to the right and facing the north wall, we see the north window, a small table, a vintage chair and a corner cabinet I found on Craig’s List.

I still need to put the doors back on the bottom section, but the cabinet fits perfectly in this corner. The cabinet was stained. I sanded and painted it for the guest room. The white glass lightning rod balls on the bottom shelf are from my husband’s family farm and the blue one is from the house my paternal grandparents lived in.

My friend Laurie made the drapes. Aren’t they beautiful? It was her idea to hang them over the door, as well, which preserves the look of the lovely beveled glass but also provides privacy for the guest room when the drapes are pulled over the door.

To the right of the door is another vintage chair, painted blue. and then the armoire, which you can see in the first picture of this post used to be stained, but is now painted white with a blue interior.

The dried hydrangeas on top the armoire are from our garden.

Next is the comfy chair and the aluminum Christmas tree. The tree sparkles and shimmers in the sunlight coming through the south window.

On the other side of the window is a nightstand that had been in the attic. Works well here.

That brings us back to the bed. DH made the head board from a door his parents had acquired from their church years ago.

The guest room is so peaceful that sometimes I go in there for quiet time. Especially in the mornings when the sun is shining through the window. ~~Rhonda

The Christmas tree in the guest room has a silver and blue theme, with a lean toward a vintage feel. The tree has white LED lights that have a bluish cast. The tree rotates. So much prettier in person, but you get the idea. By the way, this is the tree I spray painted last year. Worked great!!

You can see more Christmas decorating ideas at The Inspired Room. Scroll down that page for links to other sites where homes are being readied for the holidays.

~~Rhonda ::busy decorating the living room tree today::

Last year, it looked like this…that’s a full size mattress.

We want to have a queen size bed in the guest room, though, so, for now, the queen mattress is sitting on a simple metal frame.

I do have a plan to have a bed made for the guest room. We had two large pine trees taken down last year and the wood was milled and saved. I want to use that and two old doors to make the new bed. But for now, we decided to hang an old door on the wall as a headboard.

The door came from the church my in-laws attended for years. This is what it looked like in our basement…not a promising start.

But DH cleaned it up, sanded it, and painted it.

Using the instructions on Martha’s site, DH modified the plans a bit and secured the door to the wall. Instead of a 2×4, he used a 2×6. The picture shows it after it has been cut on a 45 degree angle to make a cleat to hang the door on the wall. One piece is secured to the wall studs and the other piece is secured to the door.

The top cleat was made a bit shorter than the door to make it easy to adjust the headboard to the right or left without having the cleat show. He also added a small cleat to the bottom of the door to make it a bit more secure.

After hanging the headboard, DH put my angel pictures back up, centered over the headboard. The pictures are blown up copies of vintage Christmas postcards. By the way, the white spots on the pictures are reflections from the sun shining off the aluminum Christmas tree in the window.

The headboard makes the whole room look more finished. I love it!

~~Rhonda

Laurie saw this idea in a decorating magazine. So cute! And it leaves the beveled glass door panes free of covering, which I like a lot. Here, they are pulled to the left.

They can stand at both sides of the door.

Or be pulled shut when privacy is wanted. I have the panels for the window on the left wall in this picture. Laurie is working on the ones for the opposite larger window. For the holidays, we repurposed sheer panels that came from the master bedroom, which got new panels this year. These look perfect in this room and I plan to leave them up, under the drapes.

I *love* them. Exactly what I had in mind. BTW, I also love, love, love the darker blue ceiling! This room has 8′ ceilings and I was worried the dark color would not work. But it looks great and gets a lot of compliments when visitors see the room.

~~Rhonda

While the guest room was empty, I took a few pictures so you can see how the remodel has turned out. I’ve ordered a four poster white queen size bed. For the time being, this full size iron bed works well.

The carpenter is making new doors for the armoire. The upper ones will fold back inside the cabinet.

This is the tree I spray painted.

A place to sit, chat, snack.

There are still a few things to do in the room. Laurie is making drapes and a bed skirt. There will be a set of drapes over the door, as well as on both windows. We’ll bring the little fridge and a small microwave into the corner behind the door for guests to use. I need to buy a large area rug. Odds and ends. But I’m very happy with the way it has turned out.

I’ll post again tomorrow with some snapshots from the house tour.

~~Rhonda

I used shiny silver spray paint and a fine glitter in “antique silver” color.

I experimented on a small piece of garland, trying three different colors. Once I moved on to the tree, I started at the top.

I worked in sections. As I sprayed a small section, I sprinkled it with glitter before it dried.

I love the way it turned out. The green has been muted and the shiny silver lightens the entire tree.

I used white LED lights on the tree. The color is very white and looks better with the blue/white room than the incandescent lights that glow with a yellow cast.

Genny and I tried some silver icicle stands on the tree and I think it will be the perfect finishing touch. Now I need a tree skirt…

2011 update…here’s the tree this year. Still looks great!

~~Rhonda

The large floral will be used for curtains.

My DEAR friend Laurie came over Sunday evening and volunteered to make the curtains for me. I almost cried. :’-) Happy tears. {{{{{{{{Laurie}}}}}}}} She is coming by today to help figure yardage and I’ll order the fabric online to take advantage of a big savings. I’ll also be able to get it more quickly than I can from the fabric store, as the online store has it in stock and can ship it immediately.

~~Rhonda

The room used to look like this. The bed is now in DD#1′s room. The bookcase will be painted white if it comes back into the room.

Then we stripped the wallpaper… (The dresser is looking for a new home, elsewhere in the house. It is not going back into the guest room.)

…and took up the carpet and scraped the cottage cheese off the ceilings.

The ceiling is a dark blue. I first chose the darker blue on the left for the walls, but didn’t think there was enough contrast, so DH put a lighter blue up. I like it better. So the walls will be the lighter blue, the woodwork will be glossy white, and the ceiling will be the dark blue.

I painted three vintage chairs the same blue as above on the left…the darker wall color. Two will go in the guest room and one will go back into the bathroom. I need to find another one for the laundry room. After the paint cures for four or five days, I’ll sand it to distress the finish a bit.

Two blue chairs will go in the spot these chairs occupied, and we’ll buy two comfy chairs (that recline but don’t look like recliners) to sit between the bed and the armoire.

Speaking of the bed, this is the one I ordered for the guest room.

I thought blue on the walls in all four rooms would be too much, so am putting yellow in the hall. This is a tiny test spot. I’ll have a better picture soon. The woodwork will be a glossy white.

In the laundry room, the wall below the chair rail will be the darker blue wall color and the yellow color from the hall will be above the chair rail. I think. May change my mind! This cupboard will come back into the laundry room.

I have some old magazine ads from the 1918s that I plan to use above the counter in the laundry room.

I chose the lighter tile on the upper left for the bathroom floor. The same tile will go in the two upstairs bathrooms. It’s a nice neutral color that will work with anything.

The bathroom will have the darker blue wall color above the bead board wainscot. There’s a huge window in this room, so light is not an issue. All four rooms will have the same dark blue ceiling as the guest room. The white and blue glass tiles will go on the wall around the medicine cabinet. The counters will be Caesarstone ‘Pacific Reflections.’ The same countertop material will go in the laundry room.

I am eager to see it finished! Waiting is the hard part!

~~Rhonda

Now the interior matches the ceiling. (Someday we’ll finish stripping the woodwork!)

After painting the closet, we moved to the guest room. The wallpaper is going to be history. I want to remodel the guest room and get rid of the wallpaper, the carpet and the cottage cheese ceiling. Of course, that means the entire addition has to be redone. But we’ve made a start.

The room was decorated 12 years ago. It’s time for a makeover. I want to paint the walls, the woodwork and the ceiling, put in hardwood floors, and use different furniture (though I love this chair).

Pulling off the top layer of the wallpaper was easy. And fun!

DD worked her way around the room, pulling wallpaper off everywhere she could. BTW, the four poster bed is on its way back upstairs to DD#1′s room, where it will look better with the 12′ ceiling. I’m planning to get something different for this room, something in a better scale. The guest room is in an addition to the house that was added in the early 1960s. It has 8′ ceilings.

We got quite a bit done. This picture was taken after DH and DD went to a fish fry. I stayed home and worked on the far wall.

While I stripped wallpaper, Buttercup checked out the paint chips. I am not sure just which direction I’ll go, but I like the lighter sea foam colors. Looks like Buttercup likes a darker one.

~~Rhonda (tired but happy with our progress)

One storage box is an ornament box, which holds most of the tree’s ornaments. The plain glass balls are stored separately in a plastic sack. I don’t bother wrapping each one of those. Balls with decoration or glitter go into the ornament box, without wrapping. Fragile ornaments are wrapped with tissue paper and placed around them to keep them from shifting.

Unbreakable ornaments are not wrapped in tissue paper before being placed in the ornament box for storage. Small ornaments are tucked into leftover spaces.

The other boxes hold the plastic bag of plain balls, a bag of silk flowers for the tree, tulle for under the tree, the three trees for the top of the bookcase, etc.

We have a lot of wreaths in the house during the holidays. This one decorates the door to the guest room. It will be covered with a white garbage bag and hung in the attic until next Christmas.

There are three trees left on the first floor. Tomorrow, I will start taking down the big one in the living room. ~~Rhonda