I'm a Welcoming Kinda Gal! (Guest Bedroom Make Over PROJECT 1)

by Charlee Hunter

7 Materials

Hey there everyone! This is the first project of many that I am doing for my guest bedroom make over! So far we have (ok I have....because my husband hates to paint and I hate him painting! lol) literally painted the entire house. I wanted a cohesive backdrop through out the house. I chose a beautiful dove med grey and a much lighter version grey. Since my taste and color combos tend to change from year to year (according to my husband, week to week...but who's counting?) I wanted a neutral back drop so I didn't have to paint every time I changed my mind.

The only room so far untouched was our guest bedroom. The color it is now was inspired by a pillow I found and fell in love with. The pillow happen to have Owls on it of varying colors (side note,, do you ever notice that when you have a themed room, suddenly everyone and their brother gives you 'that' for occasions? I never knew there were so many 'owl themed' items on the market!! LOL I was overrun by owls! Unfortunately they were all so CUTE, so YES I kept them! hahahaha ).

This room also happened to be my office at the time. We have since moved my office to the basement for more privacy and the room became 'just a guest room' (it is also usually our 'catch all' room, so whatever does not go somewhere else, goes in this room... most times I have no idea where the 'guest' , should we have one, would actually sleep!).

So the 'tannish' color and burnt orange (yes orange , on one wall... what was I thinking?? ) has to go, but , that is for later. For now here is the first little project that I completed for this room. It will be hung up above the dresser I just re painted (project is up next) and will be the first thing that our guest will see upon entering the room. : )

This project started out as Old, old, old framed "art" (I hesitate to call it that, as it was cardboard with a picture on it. But hey, everyone's 'art' is different). This is one of the pieces that we somehow brought home when my husband's father passed some years ago. I took it mainly because of the frame...and no one else wanted it : ) Now some 8 years later it finally has a purpose. My new chalk board for the guest bedroom.

i m a welcoming kinda gal guest bedroom make over project 1

Ok, so , I guess if you are into old westerns (and I am totally not saying that's a bad thing..) this may appeal to you.........but , not my style. I would rather hang pictures of the pretty boys that resides in my back field...

Like this one : ) Yes, this is one of my horses , meet Gabriel. My Mane Man. *sigh*.. Ok stop daydreaming already and back to the project!

First thing I did was add a coat of chalkboard paint. Easy enough. Then I added a few embellishments for interest using Wood Icing (gosh I love this stuff!!). Doing the corners was a bit of a pain in the ... well you get the drift... but since I did not care if it was perfect.. I left the 'character'.

Here you can see the dots I did on the side area.

This is the Wood Icing and in the back ground you can see the chalkboard paint I use. Which , by the by, is the first ever 'chalk' style paint I ever purchased. This paint has lasted me a LOOONNNNGGGG time (it is Valspar Chalkboard paint).

I then painted the frame with Annie Sloan paint in the color Paris Grey. I was going to distress it , so did not worry about full coverage. I only painted one coat.

For some reason I missed taking a picture after I did the two dark waxes..huh. Well , so what I did was take both black wax and dark wax (for those of you that do not know the difference, 'dark' wax has a very brown base and 'black' wax is black and has a grey base). The black wax (Annie Sloan) was used in the corners and part way up and across. The dark wax (American Paint Company) was used in the middle sections of the frame. Where the two met, I blended them together. I then wiped the frame down with a dry cloth. Then I took white wax (Annie Sloan) and mixed it with white chalk paint (Art Minds simply white). I wanted an even denser white tone than just the white wax. I slathered that on top of the dark waxes. I was going for an 'old wood' feel. After I let is set for a few seconds, I wiped that back as well. Let the whole thing dry and buffed with a clean cloth. I ran chalk around the board to 'season' it and then wiped clean. Using a stencil and chalk markers I wrote the word 'welcome'.