Queen of the Testosterone Castle : From Blah to....Less Blah

It's summer, so there's not a ton happening on the home improvement front. Luckily, I have a few projects that are in a semi-finished state, so I can share them during the long, hot days ahead. This one was completed about a month ago, but I saved it for the dreariest day imaginable to try to take crappy cell-phone pictures in a room that already doesn't get a ton of light. I'm so smart and good at this!!

Our guest room has been the most transitional room thus far. We had planned on it being an office. It already had a massive desk in there left by the previous owners, so I originally styled it as an office and packed the closet with my obscene amount of craft supplies. And then we never used it. The only time I ever set foot in there was to fetch something from my craft closet.

Then a few months ago, I experienced a lengthy bout of insomnia. When that happens, I have two options- lay in bed, angry and awake, listening to my husband snoring while plotting his gruesome murder or go share the couch with the dog. Neither one of those was particularly appealing, and we had that whole room, just wasting away... A quick trip to Sam's for a twin mattress and box spring turned our unused office into a guest room/sanctuary from snoring.

It still lacked style, and paint. So once I had finished painting every other room in the house, it was time to tackle this one. But choosing a color was tough. I had originally thought a light periwinkle might be nice, but I was wrong. It was more of a lilac nightmare. A leftover can of light blue from the twins' room was a bit too nursery-like. I finally decided to use the same blue that I have in the kitchen and living room (SW Interesting Aqua). It's a grown-up blue that's not too dark, and since the guest room is filled with cast-offs from the living room (curtains, rug, lamps), I knew they would work together.

A couple of coats of paint later, we had a fun, eclectic room that has a lot of personality. It might be filled with cast-offs and art that doesn't work anywhere else, but it's all stuff that I love and couldn't bear to part with. I have a place to store my collection of dollhouses (I'm a miniatures junkie- more on that later), and we finally have a place to display the concert flyers we've started collecting over the past couple of years.

(Sidenote- We are total concert junkies. I thought that made us kind of cool and fun, but then I started looking around at the audience at our last few shows. You know who goes to concerts? Middle-aged people trying to reclaim their misspent youth. We're not cool- we're a cliche'! But that's okay because we're cliches that have seen some kickass bands.)

As promised, here are those poorly-lit cell phone pictures. It may not be the showplace of our home, but I like it. And at least I have a refuge from snoring that might just save my husband's life!