Hello, and welcome to Tumbleweed Tidings! Today, just to start the new year off right, I’m going to share my second room update that I like to call a “Spacelift.” The first spacelift I shared with you was in our dining room, showing how by making a few nips and tucks, you can change the overall feel and appearance of a room. If you missed that post, you can see it here https://tumbleweedtidings.com/2018/10/14/the-dining-room-spacelift/,  

This time, I am going into one of our guest rooms that we refer to as the grandma suite. This is the only guest room that actually has a bathroom with it, and a pocket door that closes the bedroom, hall and bath off from the rest of the house. My mother, “grandma” to six grandchildren and six great grandchildren, sleeps in there when she comes to visit, so I guess that’s how it started. This room is kind of in it’s own little world, surrounded on three sides by the outdoors and patio, and people usually say they sleep like a dream in there. Here is what the room looked like before:

But, I digress…There really wasn’t anything wrong with the décor in this room, but a couple of things that needed a little “nip/tuck.” First, the bedside lamps, while absolutely adorable and had come from my store in Hawaii, didn’t give off any light. This was not only impractical for bedside reading, but made this north facing room even darker.

My solution to the lamp problem was to purchase two new clearance lamps at Lowe’s with grayish shades. The lamps are ceramic in an off white and they immediately brightened up the whole room with LED lovliness. Low cost, high impact. Oh, and in case you’re curious, the pictures are my mother, my husband Jim as a child, and my mother, grandmother and two of my aunts as small girls. My mother is the lower left little cutie.

The second issue in the room was the toile duvet and shams. I love toile, but I have had this set for about 11 years, and frankly am a little tired of it. The problem was that the drapes and bedskirt matched the duvet, and they are amazing quality; thick, beautiful decorator fabric, a far cry from the things I see on the market today. To get rid of them would seem wasteful.

As I was mulling this around in my head for a few weeks, one day I had an “aha moment.” (Do you ever mull decorating dilemnas over and over in your mind for weeks? Oh, good.) Why not just flip the duvet over to the checked side? Problem solved. The reverse of the toile was the check that matched everything else, which I thought might look weird, but doesn’t. It actually reads as a solid because the check is so small. Let’s not even go into why it took me so long to figure this solution out…

I added a couple of new pillows, moved a family rocking chair from another room, added a cream throw at the end of the bed, and a cute new hi sign to the wall. The original lamps were moved to another table in the room and small credenza in the hall outside the room, so they are still here. Spacelift complete! For the cost of two new lamps, a small sign, and a couple of inexpensive pillows, the room has an entirely different feel and look. We just love it, especially because it was done so, dare-I-say, cheaply. And by just flipping the duvet, if we decided we want the toile back at some point in time, this will not be a difficult thing to change:)

Often, it doesn’t take much money or time to freshen up a room in your house. It might just take some new lamps, a piece of art, moving furniture from another room, new pillows, or thinking outside the box and flipping your duvet cover. Another great way to freshen up a room for no money is to declutter it. By the act of editing the contents of a room, you can make it feel larger, lighter and simplified. No cost, big impact. So, the next time you are faced with a stale room that could use a little make-over, take a chance with very little money and some good old fashioned ingenuity. You can do it. I have faith in you.

Good tidings,

Diane