BEDROOM MAKEOVERS… STEP THREE TO CREATING A GUEST ROOM RETREAT!

by Arizona Custom Home Builder on November 18, 2009

5 Easy Steps for Transforming a Spare Bedroom into a Guest Room Retreat

Bedroom makeovers if not handled in steps or phases can intimidate almost anyone, especially when transitioning a spare bedroom into an opulent guest retreat. When working on a bedroom makeover, it may be a bit easier if using a 5-step strategy. The five steps include:

Bed selection
Color selections
Fabric selections
Guest room accessories
Making your guests feel welcome

Once the beds have been selected for the room and the wall placement decided, and the color choices made, its time to move on to step three; fabric selections.

The selection of fabrics, colors, patterns, and textures can easily and quickly set the tone for the room. If stuck for ideas, try to avoid the ‘go shopping and look’ mentality. Many home stores and department stores offer the same things anyway. Each comforter will come with matching sheets, matching pillow shams, and a matching bed skirt. Unless you want your guest bedroom to look like a weekly ad for 20% off at a national chain of home stores or worse, an old motel room, skip the mixy-match sets all together.

If stuck for ideas, begin your search with home magazines and look at how the professionals are creating bedroom makeovers. It doesn’t mean you can’t shop at the local home stores, it just means you’re not likely to go pick up a geometric patterned comforter with matching pillow shams. By perusing magazines, you’ll see professional designers use subtle patterned fabric in the same color, or if using bold colors as accents, you’ll see different colors of the same fabric type. You might see a luxurious solid comforter that looks like the room of a posh resort and spa. Pillow shams of the same color, yet of different texture, perhaps a patterned velour. You may see one or two large pillows accented in another color. It’s unlikely you’ll see designers use a matching bed skirt; they are just dust busters anyway.

If you have the touchy-feely personality and scouring magazines doesn’t help you get ideas, try visiting a fabric store that specializes in home fabrics. Here you’ll see raw silk in ten different colors and better understand how staying with the same fabric, but mixing colors works well. You’ll see how fabrics of the same shade, tone or hue work well together, despite different weights and textures of the materials. A heavy damask or brocade in terra cotta works well with a raw silk or linen in the same shade of terra cotta.

Once you get ideas, then head to the department store with a goal in mind. Select a comforter with matching sheets perhaps, but then skip the matching pillow shams and find pillows in the home interior department, or have a few accents pillows made for you by the a local home interior fabric store in a complementary fabric. Put together your own fabrics, comforters, pillows, and accent pieces for a truly custom bedroom look.

With all of this information it may sound like there are rules to follow, but, no, there are no true rules. If there were, why would you want to follow them anyway? Bedroom makeovers for guest rooms, allow for a homeowner to add their own unique flair and style to the room as long as the end result is the same, that our house guests feel welcome and comfortable in their surroundings.

Once the beds are selected, the colors for the room chosen, and the fabrics selected, it is time for step four, selecting accessories. Bedroom makeovers are needed every once in a while to spruce things up and if you’re happy with your guest room overall, skip steps one through three and just re-arrange accessories.