Guest room makeover

You might remember that a few months ago I wrote about our plans for transforming our guest rooms. It’s taken a while as a boiler replacement and water leaks disrupted our schedule, but I’m finally ready to share the results of the first makeover.

This is the smaller of our two spare bedrooms – it’s little more than a box, really – and it’s also home to the boiler cupboard. That means there’s little room for furniture, but we were still determined to turn it into a welcoming, stylish space where visitors can unwind. As with the rest of our house, we looked to Scandinavian design for inspiration and set about creating a calm yet cosy scheme.

We started by painting the walls in the same soft, silvery grey that we’ve used in several other areas of the house. It’s perfect for small spaces as it reflects the light and makes them appear bigger; what’s more, we can get away with cool undertones in this room as it faces south and catches the sun for most of the day.

We chose a divan bed with storage drawers where we can hide away clutter, though we’ve left one drawer free so that guests can stow away their luggage. The bedside table is an old school science-lab stool that we picked up at a flea market – we love its worn surface, which helps add a bit of warmth and texture to the room. The only other piece of furniture is the J110 chair from HAY, which fits perfectly in the corner and provides an ideal spot for reading and relaxing.

We kept the lighting fairly simple, with a sleek Scandinavian-style light by the bed (we chose a wall-mounted one to avoid a lamp base taking up valuable space on the bedside table), and an origami-style paper shade from Out There Interiors in the centre of the room.

We also added a few little extras to make things as homely and inviting as possible: a glass carafe from IKEA’s VIKTIGT collection, a few magazines to browse, and a hot-water bottle, eye mask, mohair blanket and calming scented candle from Soak & Sleep’s wonderful accessories range. The finishing touches were the intricate ‘Above’ print from Belgian designer and blogger Coco Lapine Design (whose stunning home I featured recently), and a cat print which I picked up at a market while living in Paris many moons ago.

Here’s the full list of where we sourced the various items:

• Paint – ‘Harp Strings’ by Valspar
• HAY J110 chair – Future & Found
• Bedside wall light – John Lewis
• Paper lampshade – Out There Interiors
• Reversible mohair-blend throw – Soak & Sleep
• ‘Pagoda Garden’ scented candle – Soak & Sleep
• Cable-knit hot-water bottle – Soak & Sleep
• Silk eye mask – Soak & Sleep
• Carafe and glass – IKEA
• ‘Above’ print – Coco Lapine Design
• Bedside table and cat print – flea markets

The finished scheme certainly has the cat’s seal of approval, but I’d love to know what you think….

Soak & Sleep and Out There Interiors kindly provided free items for the purpose of this post, but all words and opinions are my own. 

Photography by Abi Dare