I have the unusual (for me) situation of having a spare room in the house. All the time we've lived here, we've hardly had a spare INCH, now I have a whole ROOM.

Since my daughter got married and moved out, this bedroom has collected a lot of odds and ends from elsewhere in the house. I'd like to give it a more pulled-together look. We plan to use it for a guest room, but it won't get used all THAT often, since all our kids live nearby now, so I also plan to use it for scrapbooking. Plus I use the closet space for storage.

Anyone else working on a spare room?

DeJavu,
When my daughter got married and moved out we turned her bedroom into a setting room with a Lazyboy sofa bed and 21 inch TV and and lamp table that we can put our books on that we are reading and did not put a phone in the setting room and the room can be used for company also. We repainted the room in cream color and purchased new curtains and left the blinds , but would to get new wood blinds they are so much easier to clean .

We have a very large family room about 25x25 ft , so this setting room is just a very calm peaceful place to read or be all to myself now. I love it.

So, this is what I did with my spare room

Reneee

dejavu, I am sitting in my spare room right now on my computer! It used to be my daughter's room. It now has a beautiful high-riser bed with a pretty deep burgundy comforter and pillows, a desk, my computer table and an end table with a pole lamp. All the wood is dark cherry. I have a theme of Patriotic America in here. My daughter calls it the "Roosevelt Room"! There are placques and pictures of flags, hearts and stars and anything I picked up in arts n' crafts stores along the way. It really is lovely and I spend lots of time in here. Rarely, but sometimes, one of my girls will sleep over and use this room. It still has a comfortable feel.

Dejavu, when we moved into this house, one of the attractions were the two spare bedrooms. We wanted to be able to have lots of space for houseguests; we especially wanted to be able to enjoy having hubby's daughter, my brother and 2 nieces stay here at the same time (like at Christmas).

So right away we furnished them as bedrooms. But as the years have gone by and one of the spare rooms only gets used 2-3 times a year, I'm really sorry we didn't furnish it as a sitting room or sewing room or even an exercise room - something more useful. If/when we ever redo it, I would like to take the bed out and put in either a sofa bed or just leave enough space for a fold-out cot. That way we can use the room for other things all year round.

That would be my suggestion - that you decide on the room's primary function for the other 95% of the year that nobody's sleeping in it and redo it according to how you plan to get the most use out of it.

That's a great idea Eagle Heart!
I had a fun time redecorating the boys bedrooms to our rooms. I changed one of the rooms into my "beach" room. Looks like a sunny beach cottage, with white and turquoise colors. That's where my standup piano is and shelves full of my favorite books. We also have a pull-out couch for overnight guests. I love that room, because we can see the sunsets from there. Oh and now I know where to put my shell collection and all those darling little wooden sailboats and fishing boat models we've been collecting over the years. It's my own little American room, where I get that Cape-Cod feeling.

My mom had a spare room (eventually she had TWO spare rooms) and even though we all lived nearby, it got a lot of use when grandkids visited. I don't have any grandkids yet but I would love to some day keep a crib in there. Which means that the queen-sized bed in there right now (no headboard, just a mattress & box spring on a frame) really should go and make way for a daybed or foldout sofa.

My scrapbooking stuff fits in there very well (a small armoire, a table, and a rolling drawer thing) but I'd eventually like to replace them with nicer furniture - the table is just one of those plastic folding tables and the chair is a non-matching folding chair.

I have two nice pieces of furniture in there - an antique desk and a rocking chair - so I'd gradually like to make the rest of the room look more attractive. I love the idea of the 'themed' rooms.

dejavu
Whatever you decide to do with that room, do it quick! I had a spare room for a year and never got around to redecorating. Needless to say, it isn't a spare room anymore. My son moved back home! LOL

I have a spare room and it gets used every other weekend by my GS. It's the last room I need to redo. I plan to decorate it in an adult version of a cowboy theme, but not hokey. I want my GS to enjoy it, but also be an interesting room for other guests.

I turned my spare room into my office. I had the other spare room ready to be decorated when THE SON moved back home. It happens, right TVC? Anyhoo...I would LOVE to have a room where I could paint a mural on the wall. Hey, I would love to know HOW to do that, too. What would it be? Why...that's easy. An English garden!

JJ

And how JJ! Right when you least expect it to, there he is! Laundry in one hand, girlfriend in the other!

At this point, my computer is in the dining room. Not terribly attractive, but oh so convenient. Close to the coffeepot, within hearing distance from the laundry room (so I can switch loads from washer to dryer) and with a nice view from the window.

Today I was cleaning in there again and found a whole bunch of stuff under the bed that belongs to my daughter. It was in one of those plastic rolling under-bed storage boxes and we'd both completely forgotten about it. I called to tell her and she said, Good, I'm having a yard sale and most of that stuff can go.

It's amazing how this stuff was SO IMPORTANT and HAD TO BE KEPT when she lived in my house, and how UNIMPORTANT and NEEDS TO BE DISPOSED OF now that she has a crowded little apartment!

JJ they sell stencil type thingy at most paint stores, not sure of the name here, but you can put it on a wall and paint your mural perfectly, kind of like a big stencil. I had done one in my home of a Roman Garden. It took awhile but was so relaxing, such fun, and beautiful when finished. I was told the people who bought our home kept the mural.

My spare room is my everything room. It's small, but it has a art desk, a keyboard, a futon and an office space (al in an 11 x 11 room). It's my home, away from home, in my home and no one is allowed to enter without permission. I LOVE it.
Ann

I hear you Ann ! My spare room is my recluse too. Love to just go in there and take a deep breath.

Chatty, In which room did you paint the mural? Sounds lovely; a Roman Garden. Do you have naked male statues in it too? That MUST have been fun to do.

Yeah, Dejavu, It never ceases to amaze me how our kids become so "practical." We must have done something right.

In my home you walked into the formal livingroom and it was on the wall on the big empty wall as you walked in. It was more like Tuscany with vines, flowers, broken stone walkways and clouds in a blue sky. NO naked men, no people at all, lots of butterflys and birds. I had white carpets in that room and powder blue velvet furniture so it complimented that room nicely....

Chatty, sounds beautiful. It must have broken your heart not to be able to take the mural with you.

daisy, what is a GS?

This is an interesting topic since all three of ours are out of the house and in college. We have three bedrooms still packed with their junk. They have to remain bedrooms for a few more years, but I wonder what we'll do with them when the time arrives. I like some of your ideas. Keep 'em coming.

JJ and TVC, I guess from the sounds of it, we should always have one decorated as a bedroom. I keep reading about boomerang kids.

All this talk about redoing spare rooms has given me itchy hands - everytime I walk by our smallest spare room, I think of all the things we could be doing with it. Right now it's a catchall space - summer clothes that I won't be wearing anymore, fall clothes that aren't needed quite yet, suitcases that are already starting to be packed with stuff for our trip to Cuba next February...it's a mess. Of course, if we did do anything with it, where else would we keep this mess?!!

Dotsie - GS is probably Grandson.

Well, we had our yard sale today. My two eldest daughters (both married) and me and my husband. Didn't really have that much to sell, but got rid of some junk and made $85.

The best part was the weather. Absolutely beautiful. Ernesto's remnants had come through here with some wind and rain, not enough to do damage, but enough to scour the sky clean. Gorgeous blue skies and moderate temperatures, which given that I live in NC, haven't seen moderate temperatures since mid-June.

I keep my off-season clothes in a storage room in the basement. It means carrying things up and downstairs twice a year, but worthwhile for more closet space upstairs. I don't know what we'd do without our basement.

LOL. We have a basement, but it's full to overflowing too. We have a sofa bed down here, along with the computer and three bookcases full of books (many of them Boomer books!) Then we also have the laundry room, freezer, extra fridge (we have lots of houseguests coming through here), and hubby's workshop.

I also have all the stuff from my old aunt's apartment, my parents' house and my Mom's apartment - dishes, furniture, knick-knacks - stored down here, waiting for my three nieces to grow up and get places of their own. I guess I'm the legacy-keeper.

Plus we have a large section for the stuff we buy for Cuba. We keep the clothes and large items in the basement, and the smaller, more fragile stuff upstairs in the spare room in the suitcase.

PLUS, hubby needs a full pantry at all times. He grew up poor and hungry, so the full pantry (and it overflows into other parts of the basement) is his "sacred cow". If we ever get quarantined in here for any reason, we'll be eating well for 3 months, if not more!

Wow, I can't believe we have all that in this tiny basement...and all the winter coats and boots too!!! Looking around, it doesn't look TOO crowded...

PS And I forgot to mention the 30+ boxes of my book sitting down here too?!

Hannelore I was sad to have to sell my home, mural and all. It was a very special place to me. Rolling hills that drifted right down into a crystal clear lake. Ho Humm!!!
Here in this place, I have a den full of books and a fish tank and sleeper sofa. My spare room has one full wall of shelving filled with food, can and boxed goods etc. The big freezer and some storage, plus extra pots, pans and dishes. I use the closet in there for winter things and the vacuum. My master berdroom is huge filled with my bedroom furniture and my desk is in there right now. I have been slowly getting rid of junk and so the place isn't too crowded or messy any more.

I cleaned out my desk in the spare room yesterday. It's an antique desk that was handed down to me from my great-grandmother. Not very large, with a drop-front and a couple of drawers. Still, it was crammed full of things.

It's amazing how something you deem really important to keep at one point in your life becomes pretty meaningless at another point. I found dozens of magazine articles I'd torn out - almost all ended up being thrown away.

I also came across several old journals. Those, I'll keep, but not in the desk (especially since we'll be using this room for guests - I wouldn't want them reading all my old diaries!!!).

Oh my gosh. I can just see your guest staying up all night, reading your journals, then coming down to breakfast on the morning with a funny look on her face. Good move!

Somehow, the spare room got cluttered up again during the holidays. (I swear, I don't know HOW that happens!) That will be my project room these next few months. Clean out, fix up.

The spare room used to belong to DD#2 who got married over a year ago. Today I decided to clean off the bedroom door. She used to tape a lot of posters to the backside of the door and had some glow-in-the-dark stars on the front (her Galileo period). Well, let me tell you, that tape stays on good! I spent about half an hour cleaning that door with a plastic scraper and a baking-soda-and-water solution. But it's clean now. Onward! Upward! Oh shoot, the ceiling lamp needs cleaning too!

I've got a guestroom that's beginning to look more and more like a closet everyday. What is it about the holidays? I'm with you Dejavu, time to clean it up!

I use my guest room as my Santa HQ! Remainder of year the door remains closed from the pets! So, if ever my way, have the room! Must like cats, dogs & horses! Need a new matelase coverlet, have ya'll seen any good sales on them?

I used our ping-pong table as the Santa headquarters. It wsa the first year my back didn't hurt from wrappig on the floor.

When my oldest son moved out his room became my office. Then grandkids came along and I had to have a space for their toys and stuff. If they or visitors spent the night it was in my office on the futon. When my youngest son moved out his room became the kids room. My office became all mine. The kids room has the futon, a tv, kid size table and chairs and a box full of toys. We have a large family so there are always kids around. That room is exactly what we needed.

Hey, the spare room is finally repainted, a rich teal blue with white trim. I'm really pleased with how the color came out.

I learned a couple of tricks this time around -
1. There's a sort of plastic collar with a spout that you can buy to put on your paint can. No more drippy cans. The collar is cheap and reusable.
2. There are rectangular paint pads that come with a handle, excellent for the corners where two walls meet and for along the ceiling. The pads are replaceable. These are also good for small spaces like inside of closets.
3. Blue painter's tape works really well if you're painting your trim a different color from the wall, or if you have wood trim that you don't want paint to get on.

I'm so proud of my work - I keep dragging people in to see it!

New carpet should come next week.

Way cool! Sounds pretty and thanks for the tips!

glad you got it done, dejavu! It sounds really nice.

I don't know what a teal blue is, but I bet it looks lovely with white trim. That's such a good feeling of accomplishment after renovating a room. What color carpet have you chosen?

The carpet will be a soft gold/beige. I'm going for a teal/gold/brown palette with that little touch of crisp white. Today I'll be phoning the carpet store to check on a delivery date.

It sounds lovely, dejavu. Show us some pics when you're finished.

chick

Bought the new bed yesterday; it will be delivered tomorrow. Also went to Linens 'n Things and bought all the bedding. The one thing I don't have yet is a headboard - everything we've looked at is too tall. In order to fit under the painting I'm putting above the bed, the headboard can only be about 30" tall, which means it really will only clear the mattress by a few inches, just enough to keep the pillows in place. I may have to make something myself.

Will post pix when the room is complete.

Bed arrived, all made up, looks great. I also bought a brown suede-like draped valance for the window. So now I'm waiting on the desk, chair and filing cabinet for my scrapbooking stuff. They will take 2-3 weeks. The room is really coming together.

The room sounds absolutely lovely. I painted my bedroom teal blue once and had white trim. It was in another house I owned and I loved that bedroom. It was soothing. Wish I still had it.

The headboard. Are you still planning on making one? Could you find ladder-back chairs that are damaged and cut the bottoms off, nail the ladder-back together (like three or four of them) and paint them? Then just tack them to the wall for a headboard. Just a suggestion. They would be short and "removable" if you decided on something else.

Some people use pieces of fences for headboards. Like picked fences, even the iron. Like an old gate. And lastly, old manels that adorned some fireplace would make a great headboard and probably have a shelf. You could cut it off to adjust the height.

Fireplace screen? Somebody stop me!

Actually, I did consider a section from a room divider screen, placed cross-wise (but it was too long). And I tried a footboard from a wrought iron bed, but it was too tall. So now I'm looking for something Jussst Riiiight.

Actually, the painting really serves visually for the headboard. The bottom edge only clears the pillows by a few inches. I just want something at the head of the bed so the pillows will stay in place. My husband is going to cut some thick plywood in a very slight curved shape and I'm going to cover it with foam padding and staple brown fake suede over it to match the valance.

But I like your ideas for a headboard. There are so many different things that can be done.

I have some photos now of this room makeover, but I don't know if it's okay to post photos here. Is it?

I hope it is because I'd love to see it. The room sounds lovely!

I'd like to get some old windows and paint an outdoor scene behind them. Some day...
Dejavue, I think it's ok to post pics here.

chick

JJ what cute ideas. You're a regular interior decorator. I like the picket fence idea.

Dejavu, I'd love to see your pictures. The room sounds beautiful.

Laurel

Well, I'll give it a try and if it's NOT okay, then I'll take them down. The room is not quite finished - I'll take a pic of the final corner when the work table and chair arrive and I finish hanging pictures, but here's what's done so far.

I think it's beautiful. Love that blue. That Antique Desk, where ever did you find it?

chick

The antique desk belonged to my great-grandmother and was handed down to me when I was fourteen. It's lovely. A bit too shaky to really use as a work surface, but I write in my journal there (and keep locked since it's in a guest room!).

The photo on the right on the shelf above it is my grandparents' wedding photo, including Grandma in a flapper's cloche.

This is a lovely room. So soothing. Absolutely! I love it. You did a great job. I love the window treatment. And its perfectly okay to post pictures in here. I can see your guest being very cosy in this room and feeling right at home. The family pictures are a nice touch as well and give it the "love lived here" look. Very nice, indeed.