The Guest Room Shift

Sometimes, when you don't feel like repainting or don't have the budget for new furniture, the best way to give a room a refreshing makeover is to simply do a little rearranging.

We've never really used our guest room for anything other than a place to throw all the junk we don't know where to put elsewhere in the house (unless, of course, guests come over. In which case all that random junk gets thrown into a closet somewhere). It's a little small, and the way we had the furniture arranged was not really conducive to the space we had.

I've always wanted to use the room as a makeshift office space, as well. A place for me to blog or write or craft. A place that isn't the dining table. This, trust me, is something that neat-and-tidy Eric wanted badly, too. So in order to make the guest room more user-friendly, so to speak, we decided to shift everything around just a bit.

And, oh, what a change it made!

Here's what you saw when standing in the doorway of the guest room before:

And here's what you see now:

Open, airy, bright. The room feels so much bigger! And the bed isn't right smack there, cutting off the flow of the room as soon as you walk in.

Where the rug is, below, was pretty much the only open space we had in the guest room before:

And now, there's so much more walkable space.

Best of all? We didn't have to move the makeshift headboard on the left wall, nor the floating shelf on the back wall. They both look great with the bed and the desk under them, respectfully.

Now, the room isn't perfect, for certain. I'm totally over the bed linens (I'm thinking a stark-white comforter with a jazzy throw or quilt over top), and I just purchased a new desk that I am putting off attempting to assemble, so those should dress things up quite nicely. Oh yeah, and I'm definitely getting rid of that rickety red chair.... I'm also dying to construct a headboard for the bed. Even though I like the shelf and mini bunting overhead, I think that space calls for something else.

But I really love the green "map" trunk underneath the window, which looks through to the backyard. The natural sunlight streams through the window and really highlights the trunk.

And, of course, it makes for a perfect viewing perch for a certain little dude.

Mr. Pancakes is super happy with "his" new room. He's been napping on the bed pretty much continually since Saturday. 

Although he'd really appreciate it if I knocked first before coming in...

Eric and I are super happy with the new arrangement; the room just makes more sense, and I'm sure we'll use it more than we did before. In fact, I'm blogging away from within the guest room right now! I love that it's a little more secluded than the dining area, and it's so nice to look to my right and see our pretty, snow-filled backyard.

Change, sometimes, can be a spectacular thing.