When we moved into our cozy home (read: I can vacuum the entirety from one solitary outlet), I took over the guest room for my home office. With its backyard door access, I guess technically it was designed as the master, but the wife and I preferred the smaller bedroom with the unique curved wall for our own.

The home seller must have gotten a good deal on blue paint and a sprayer because he went to town on the walls and ceiling of the bedrooms and bath.

As this was just my get it dunner office, my plan was to focus on the house proper, eventually move my office to the workshop garage, and in the meantime, just grin and bear my cornflower cube.

Time went by, the office got built out back, the room stayed unpainted in case a foster kid wanted to help decide colors. While figuring out in licensing class that we would unfortunately suck at fostering, we were also learning how many adults needed a safe transitional place from time to time. Soon after, I found a free brass bed on FB marketplace that only had a broken bracket to fix and I spent a couple days brillo and steel wooling off all the shiny lacquer so the brass could age naturally. Noel and I decided it was too fancy for just us, so the spoils went to the visitors and thus began the guestroom’s purposeful transforming.

Let’s just look at some photos now with fewer TMI wordily blurbs.

A picture of my shiny naked brass compared to the old lackluster lacquer:

In the process of figuring layout, I decided to undertake stealing one of the shared-wall guest closets (2 doored and 2 uppers) for our room, and then somewhere along the brain sketching I ADD’decided to make a secret staircase in the wall instead. But that’s another ongoing project, so for the sake of this post, let’s say all I did was confusingly covertly change too-much-closet into an inconspicuous in-wall cubby.

Doors akimbo vs suspicious triangle collective:

Bed view:

Wait a tick, what's that liney thing against the wall? Yes I admit I splurged on a silly no reason something. Look, I always wanted one, it was a crazy good price and beautiful to boot. Also, it's so unbelievably heavy, I can chain the wall to it, so no one will be able to steal my house.

"Older chests reveal themselves like a crack in a wall, Starting small, and grow in time." -Damien Rice

I'm glad this "only $20" art project is over.. I replaced the 1930 top's damaged center with a $5 offerup dining table. The final finish messed up a lot, but somehow the veneer was able to take 3 complete total sand-downs. In the process, I learned what products I do and don't like and the chest learned some new loud words of encouragement. I painted the sides with ceiling paint plus a dash of living room yellow.

I went with some attic fabric for the top's nethers:

Other notes:

Concrete bender board on top of smoothed plaster for faux board and batten.

Free baseboard cut down for top and bottom trim.

Wallpaper: Boråstapeter In Bloom - Peony

Foam Crown molding: Orac Decor CB525 (PLUS. I really f'd up. I don't know how I got the measurement on where to start the top of the wallpaper, you know, to save a couple inches on each strip, but after papering the whole room, I found that my crown molding was not going to cover the ceiling to wallpaper gap. In a rare fit of calm troubleshooting, I decided to add a strip of wood into the design to hide my mistake, never to ever, tell anyone.... um... well.. I'm just joking. This didn't happen. I am expert man.

*I'm still working on tuning in the ceiling lights. I found a tiffany fluted shade ceiling fan but the glass was all amber which really made the room orange. I've been able to cancel most of the color cast out with aqua sea glass spray paint.

Brick wall + lights. Added a box to existing wall outlet conduit. Then grooved the back of the "chair rail" trim to hide the wire run. The paster wall was also grooved then covered for the last 3" down to the round lamp box. Lights: Rosslyn Swing Arm Dimmable Wall Lamps, flipped, then thumb screws added for found stained glass shades.

Love me some decorative vents as my last step cake icing. Ebay find paired with some old wood to frame fill. The crust stays!

After everything was said and done, all I managed to steal from the original wall was the ironing board, creating a new cutout for it in our room. Besides who needs extra closet space anyway?