guest room revamp!

when we first bought our home, we knew we needed to really update the add-on space, specifically the guest room. before we did any work, we had the nasty, old blue carpet and ugly peach paint.


we also had to remove the shelves and huge desk left by the previous owners and do lots of caulking!


we had the carpet ripped out and replaced with a neutral new, clean carpet. we also painted the walls; however, we left the old ceiling tiles and light fixture and we weren't exactly sure how to update the ceiling. we also just used some old bamboo blinds in the interim that were too big for the windows.


for a closer look at the horrible school cafeteria ceiling tiles.


oddly enough, the rest of the add-on space has the normal sheet rock ceilings so i'm not sure why they left the guest room with these horrible tiles.


for labor day weekend project # 3 (see project #1 and #2), we found some awesome and affordable drop ceiling tiles from ceilume. they are wonderful, because not only do they send you 3 free samples with free shipping to test, their order process is very easy. we immediately fell in love with the "medallion" tile in white (we liked the off-white, sand color, but it looked dirty next to the white trim) that is below.


the best part about ceilume is that their tiles are very easy to install. they just pop in underneath the current tiles!


the only struggle we had was that we have some "border" tiles that are smaller in size so we had to purchase special border tiles from ceilume. we decided to go with the most basic design, the "stratford" to go with our "medallion" tiles. the border tiles are specifically designed to be able to be cut [with household scissors no less] to fit smaller tiles.


here's me cutting the border tiles. the ceilume site actually had tutorial videos so they made it very easy. please forgive how i look here. it was super late, i was exhausted [you can tell by my hair] and i did not know that j had snapped my picture.


once we had all of the tiles up, we removed the old light fixture and cut the hole for the electrical input in the tile. it was super easy and we couldn't wait to find a better fixture!


here's a better picture of the main tiles with the border tiles lining the walls:


almost done!


we ended up going to ikea and we had to be careful in our selection since the ceiling isn't too tall in the guest room. we would have liked possibly a chandelier, but we worried it would hang down too low. we decided on the ottava fixture below because we thought it would give the room a nice rustic feel and not be too feminine. we love the feel it gives the room.


here's a view of the opposite side of the room [for now]. we definitely want to spruce up the shelving and need to add more character and knick knacks. interestingly enough, although the "medallion" tiles actually have a 3D effect and come down off the ceiling, the ceiling actually feels much higher than the previous tiles.


lastly, we finally replaced the blinds to actually fit the window sills so you could see the white trims. the blinds also go with the bed better so it was a nice finish to the room!


in the end we ended up spending around $150.00 on the tiles, $30 on the light fixture, and $50 on the bamboo blinds, but the new feel and look of the room is priceless. now it's no longer the shameful guest room for our loved ones. hopefully it will just encourage more friends to come stay [wink wink].

happy monday! xo