From hatred to love in one weekend: My spare room transformation

I know, I know, the title of this post sounds terribly melodramatic, but it’s a true reflection. I really HATED our spare room until the weekend. It upset me because it’s too small, too narrow, has built-ins I don’t really need but can’t remove (renting), a view of the house next-door and no redeeming features whatsoever. We have lived in our apartment almost a year and the spare room has been the bane of my life, particularly as I’m uber house proud, love socialising and having friends to stay. BUT… look what happened!

When Freedom offered me a $500 voucher to fix a problem in my home and blog about the experience, it was glaringly obvious that I had to give the spare room a go, especially as my dad is due to arrive from the UK in a fortnight. And look what I have managed to create. Can this really be that room that made me want to cry (I think it was hormones) because it was so ugly and useless?

I’ve blogged before about how much I hated the spare room. One of the reasons it’s taken this long is that I was trying to work out the best way to make it work as an office and a guest bedroom. When I finally accepted this just wasn’t possible (after countless discussions about trundle beds, sofabeds, day beds and more), things got a little easier. With multi-use rooms, I think you really need to weigh up your priorities. In my case, I’m from the UK so I often have friends and family visiting and it’s important to me to give them a nice guest room. My boyfriend and I both have laptops, which, more often than not, can be found on the dining room table or the lounge, so we don’t really need a home office. Of course it would be nice, but you can’t have it all…

Of course I didn’t do the entire room for $500. I already had the bed and the prints on the wall are from Keep Calm Gallery in the UK (they ship to Australia). They lived in the lounge room in a previous apartment but they didn’t ‘go’ anywhere here so I’m really happy to have found a new space for them!

Everything else though, came from Freedom. The bedsides are their off-white painted timber Nudle stools. They were 54.95 for the pair in the sale. Space is tight, as you can see, so I couldn’t have anything too wide or heavy looking. These fit perfectly. Massive bargain! The two Alli touch lamps, complete with taupe shades, were just $19.95 each (I had my heart set on these pale blue ones but they were far too big unfortunately). The vase (I cant find it on the website but it was $39.95) is the only thing I let the other half choose and I’m still not 100 percent on it, but I’m loving the faux hydrangeas ($22.95 each).

It’s really all about what’s on the bed though:

• The linen Mazarine comforter set (quilt and two pillow cases) which (how annoying?) has been reduced from $159 to $99 since I bought it on Sunday! I love linen and palest blue together.
• The white and beige striped quilt cover (queen size, with two pillow cases) was $79.95. It’s brand new and not on the Freedom website yet, but also comes in navy and white. I preferred the Mazarine white and linen striped quilt cover set but unfortunately it doesn’t come in queen size. Check it out though, it’s lovely.
• Two pale blue Lineum cushions ($39.95 each).
• A Fraiser stripe cushion ($29.95).
• The blue animal print cushion was a gift from Steph & Gaia. I’m so happy to have finally found a home for it. It would set you back $79.
• There are also two white Euro pillows in plain white covers at the back which I already owned. The two standard pillows (also already owned) are in the linen cases from the comforter set.
• The candles on the bedsides are from Palm Beach Collection and  Circa Home (both gifted).
• I bought the two map print cases on the floor from a Temple & Webster sale some months ago.

Here’s a close-up of the cushions. You can never have too many, right?

Finally, I wanted to add a bit of texture with Freedom’s Madras sisal rug ($99) which happened to be the perfect size!

I also changed the boring ugly silver knobs on the built-ins with glass ones from Zakkia ($7.90 each).

Here’s what it looked like on Saturday. All bed, no inspiration. It made me feel ILL.

So how much did it cost? Not including the things I already owned, it came in at $493.20. Not bad eh? I love this new, calm space. I usually pick much bolder colours but I wanted the guest bedroom to be more classic and serene. The only problem is I’m worried it looks better than my bedroom now!