Timeless Farmhouse Guest Room, Makeover

After months of planning and sitting on the ideas forming in my mind, I was finally able to bring my vision for our guest bedroom to life.

While this room was cool to start, it didn't reflect my style at all.  It was dark and felt closed in.  I love bright, airy spaces, with a lot of white, and some wood to warm it up.  And the dark gold wallpaper, while kind of neat and cozy, just wasn't for me.

This room had so much potential from the start.  My favorite features are the original plantation shutter window coverings and the matching shutter door for the adorable little closet under the staircase.  I also love the higher ceilings, tall farmhouse baseboards, and the upper wall molding.  All of these features are full of character, and sparked my vision into gear.

Check out the before of this room.. hmmm.. 

My goal was to create a space that my guest's could feel comfortable in.  A place where they could retreat and relax after a long day of fun and adventure together.  A space of simplicity.  Uncluttered, yet perfectly placed details that invite and draw your eyes to the timeless pieces from the past.  I don't know about you, but I feel a peace that is indescribable when I'm surrounded by beautiful treasures that have hundreds of stories they could tell.  Our cute little farmhouse is 110 years, and I can only imagine what these walls would tell us if they could talk!  

When I was ready to start the renovation of this room, I made a list of all that I desired it to entail.  I have added this list of the key elements I used to create my timeless farmhouse guest room below. 

1. Shiplap walls

2. White painted walls

3. Antique wood dresser or trunk for side table

4. Vintage brass bed (and I happened to come across this gorgeous cream and brass bed!  Yay!)

5. Simple neutral bedding

6. Vintage lighting

7. Vintage gold mirrors and frames

8. Sliding barn door

9. Two rustic beams
10. Antique wall sconce
11. New antique looking desk for hubby
12. Original artwork in beautiful gold frames
13. Velvet and floral pillows to add some additional color to the bed.

You may be noticing that some of these elements are not yet in this room.  Well that is the fun part!  I will be able to share along the way as I add the next key element to my design.  Some of these pieces are already in my possession, and some I still need to create.

Before my first guests arrived, I went out and freshly cut some of my gorgeous hydrangeas to set on their bedside table.  It's all in the details right? :)

Isn't this gray washed velvet bedding luxurious!?  Its simple yet cozy, and the color is so soft and muted.

We are just waiting on our sliding barn door hardware to show up on the front porch, and then we can hang this beauty.  I will soon be sharing with you all on how we built this rustic barn door.

We still have several things to do to finish this room up.  In addition to being our guest bedroom, my husbands office will be in here as well.  I will be building him a custom desk to fit in with this space.  I will incorporate some antique turned legs as well as discretely house a two drawer metal filing cabinet.  I have already sketched out my design for this and cannot wait to build it! 

What would your dream guest room look like?  Are you into the light, airy look as well, or are you into the darker, moody look?

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to read today.. I hope to see you back here soon to check out our future farmhouse updates, custom furniture and restoration projects!  

Take care and God bless.

xo Jen

Farmhouse Toddler Room Design

Hello there!  I am so excited to share my design board for our two year old's farmhouse toddler room!  We've lived in our farmhouse for about ten months now, and I've had plenty of time to dream up some plans.  Here is a collection of what I have in mind.

I'm looking for that farmhouse feel with the farm animals, and rustic woods and chippy paint.  But then I'm bringing in that vintage elegant touch with the mint/sage and cream peony wallpaper, floral fabrics, the brass and crystal chandelier.. and of course shiplap!

I've had my eye on this picket fence bed for over a year now!  I can't wait to build it!  I haven't decided if I will stain the wood, or paint it cream.  But I love the design. You can find the plans on Jen Woodhouse's blog! 

Here are some before pictures of Scarlett's room.  I have now peeled off the red and white polkadot wallpaper, and red molding.  I'm hoping we can get an actual air conditioner in here this summer, and add some ducting to her room and our master bedroom.  Then we could get rid of the baseboard heaters!!

I have most of the planking done now, and just have some bottom pieces to finish up.  Then I can paint a few coats of my favorite creamy white paint.  It's called Vintage, by Valspar.  I get that at Lowes.

I'm also going to replace the baseboards with a tall molding to match the rest of our farmhouse.  Our house was built in 1910, but the master and this room were added on in the 70's.  I want this side of the house to feel like it was always here.  So I think adding those classic moldings and lighting will really tie it together.

The wallpaper I picked out is a Waverly design, called Forever Yours.

I've had this adorable vintage farm animal poster for months now.  It's actually a thick sheet of wrapping paper I picked up from a store called The Nest.  It was the inspiration behind her farmhouse room design.  Well that and the fact that we do live in a farmhouse! :) 

Well, that's it!  I will post updates when I have a few to show!  I'm up to my forehead in custom building and furniture restoration right now.  So, my fun little project will take a little longer.

I hope your day is blessed and you feel inspired to create and enjoy your home and family!

xo Jen

Live Edge Walnut Console Table

I'm jumping on here to say hello, and share a couple things I've been up to lately.  I recently purchased seven live edge slabs of wood.  I don't know about you, but I'm totally on the live edge furniture lover train!

So far, I've built a Console Table and a Coffee Table.  Both of them have matt black steel hair pin legs.  These legs give the tables a sleek modern look, and really allow the unique wood slab tops to shine.  

For the console table, I started by removing all of the lose bark with a chisel.  I do think that the live edge tables with bark are really cool, so I'm going to try and leave some on the table then next time I make one.  The only problem is that there is a lot of dirt and lose material, so it can be more tedious to clean it, than to just remove it.  

Once the bark was off, I used a low grit sanding paper, and sanded down all of the rough wood with my belt sander.  From there, I just started to increase my grits until I reached a 150 grit on my belt sander, and then I moved on with my palm sander.  I started with 150 grit, and moved through to 180 and finished with a 220 grit.  The walnut is already a nice hardwood, so 220 on this is just gorgeous!  

 This is what the slab looked like with just one coat of satin Polyurethane!  Already gorgeous!

I wiped on a total of three coats.  And I couldn't be happier with this beauty!  I purchased matte black hair pin legs to give the table that sleek midcentury modern look!

I did all of these same steps for the coffee table!  I love them both and seriously cannot wait to make the rest of my slabs into gorgeous furniture! 

Thanks for visiting here today!  I hope you enjoyed the photos and learning about the process!  I love live edge furniture!  Are you crazy about it as well?  Have you ever made anything out of it, or want to try it?  I would encourage you to!  No one else out there will have the same piece as you!  It will be a true one of a kind piece of furniture!

If you're not the woodworking type and would like to discuss having a custom built piece made, please email me at rustiquerestoration@gmail.com.

I hope you have an awesome day!  Thanks for stopping by!

xo Jen