decorating | Hicks House

As someone whose parents and siblings like over two hours away I was really looking forward to having a designated guest room in our house. The distance isn’t so far that visiting is difficult, however a 4-5 hour round trip isn’t really something anyone wants to do in a day. I constantly felt guilty when my parents would come up to visit and either day-tripped it due to our lack of space or sucked it up and slept on the blow up mattress on our condo’s living room floor. (not fun)

Luckily we had the spare mattress and metal frame in storage in our condo garage leftover from when we replaced our own mattress. We decided not to throw it away so when we finally bought a house we wouldn’t have to buy a new guest mattress – I know we’re planners.

What we didn’t have was linens for the guest room (not any I liked anyway).

The Centsational Girl had posted about her daughters navy and coral bedroom last year and I absolutely fell IN LOVE with the bed spread

The coral is a little too girly for us since this is a cohabiting household after all… But the bedding I had to have. So this is where we stand:

Ready for guests!

There is a master plan for the room. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to use yellow or light blue as an accent color so I think we are going to do both which will give us the ability to switch it up. Maybe yellow for fall and winter to brighten up the room and light blue for spring and summer? I’ve bought all the accent fabric to make throw pillows to add to the bed – hopefully coming soon.

The accent colors will also be mirrored in the curtains. We have some short white linen linen like curtains and had the idea to sew a piece of velcro on the bottom so that we can add swappable colored panels to make them full length. This is a really cool project I’m excited about getting to at some point.

For extra furnishings I plan to refinish an old mid-century modern dresser that was left behind in our condo attic. A couple coats of white spray paint and it should look more in line with the overall feel of the room. Nightstands are also needed. Someday I’d also like to try to tackle those awesome upholstered headboards I see online and obviously some wall color – something neutral but more fun than the drab off white thats there now.

So that’s it – nothing to brag about yet, but a step up from an air mattress on the floor. What do you think?

One of my favorite things about this house is that I finally have a place to do my crafts. As the owner and designer of Dani Designs, having my headquarters on the dining room table of our old condo left much to be desired. All my fabrics and accessories were upstairs, sewing machine downstairs so doing a project required lots of stair climbing. A bit of a workout however not the most productive use of time. Having to constantly pack up and put away my sewing machine also didn’t bolster my creative spirit.

So with a designated Dani Designs Headquarters in the third bedroom, the creative wheels start spinning on just how to decorate such a space. Much time was spent on Pinterest and Houzz looking at endless inspiration photos, then much more time spent looking for things that you didn’t need to be a millionaire to afford.

This is the original room I saw on Houzz that had me swooning:

Traditional Home Office by Mckinney Interior Designers & Decorators JDS DESIGNS

Isn’t it dreamy? Everything about this room is so welcoming and makes me want to create things here. However it doesn’t really meet my needs as this is more of a home office than a sewing room, plus it looks oober expensive. So this is the mood board I came up with for the room that is more practical while retaining the color scheme of the inspiration room:

craft room mood board

I think I’m going to keep the pale blue and white color scheme, I just like the feel of it. Hopefully I’ll eventually get a glamorous chandelier as well.

So far the tables have been purchased by way of a massive Joann sale. (They were specifically chosen due to the sale price – table aesthetics came second to super cheap)

They came in boxes like this…

Which looks like a whole lot of Ikea-eque building. But you get what you pay for I guess, I’ll have to draw your eye to the beautiful curtains I am going to attempt to make. In all of my sewing this is a task I have not yet tackle. I’m a little intimidated but I think the end result will be worth it.