I've been keeping a secret from y'all lol well not really... but yeah, I have.

While awaiting the kitchen renovation to resume, we found ourselves tackling other spaces throughout the house — some design projects, like installing window treatments, and some less attractive projects, like making HVAC upgrades.

On the heels of completing our living room, laundry room, and an upcoming reveal — the media room — we needed the space to do the bare minimum. Here's the beauty of owning — I can do what I want, when I want... so not every "project" would need to be a massive overhaul building up to grand reveal; instead some would be just a nice transformation from whence it came, with bitesized, manageable changes, that I could say, "oh hey guys, check out this room!"

This was definitely one of those projects...

P.S. we have since decide to simply designate this our bonus bedroom... because what's a "guest" bedroom if you ain't got no guests? Just a bedroom, lol. Aside from COVID keeping all potential guests at bay, we were just never the people hosting a ton of overnight guests anyway.

We explored a few different ways to use this spare bedroom. Even in a ‘rona world, we decided to still go ahead with setting up this as a guest room, but while also ensuring we found ways to prevent it from being a wasted space... hence the simple, but meaningful name designation.

It's a bonus room. And we've been treating it exactly as such. 

Considering how low of a priority this room was — design wise — we didn't want to invest a ton of time, money, or energy into updating it... but it did have to come some ways to be what we wanted it to be.

The previous homeowners used this space as a home office so there were considerations they made that were slightly inconvenient for us, like wiring the internet through the closet. Aesthetically, the room featured the home's original carpeting, as well as what I am assuming is the home's original wood trim work. All of it had to go and we had to introduce actual bedroom furniture into the space.

The first thing to change was the flooring — sayonara! — followed by removing the popcorn ceiling... yep, did that again. Next up was removing the existing closet system, painting the walls (they were already primed so yay), and updating the trim work. To keep things simple we painted the room the same color as the laundry room -- Sherwin Williams Reflection SW 7661 — since we had some paint leftover & there was no need to reinvent the wheel. We saved & repurposed the baseboards that were removed from the kitchen & used them in lieu of painting the thin wood trim. The slightly thicker white trim was clearly an upgrade that was done throughout the house, except for two bedrooms — this being one of them — and while we plan on removing it in the main areas of the house, having it in the bedrooms wouldn't keep us up at night. For some bold contrast, we painted the window Sherwin Willians Tricorn Black SW 6258.

Not having enough room in our main closet for all of our shoes/sneakers, we decided to make this closet our shoe closet...hence removing the existing shelving. How often would we EVER be having guests over to need to leave a designated closet empty? Not often enough, that's for sure. We haven't installed a new system in the closet, simply because all of our footwear is currently in stackable boxes.... so they're stacked... in the closet. Totally fine for now, although I do have future plans brewing in my head.

With all of the major lists out of the way, we shopped our existing inventory to furnish the room. 

Having upgraded to a king sized bed for the main bedroom, we could use our previous queen size mattress in here, especially since it's a really good mattress. The rug that was originally intended for our apartment living room refresh ended up being the perfect fit — aesthetically and size wise — for the bedroom. My folding acrylic console desk, that I originally planned on making our daughter's desk, would actually be a better fit for this room as a private place for work, recording, zooms, etc.

I knew this would be the perfect space to have a little fun. I partnered with The Inside to for the storage ottomans for the media room, and they were the perfect destination for something exciting in here. I went with a modern wingback headboard in their Sand Melio fabric, which is this funky, abstract, geometric pattern with a retro feeling color combination. It was a great way to complement the rug's light neutral tones without competing with the design; and to introduce new color stories without overwhelming the room. Being able to actually get a custom headboard for this space still seems low key surreal but OMG... so good!

Having a custom piece of upholstery in your home is truly something everyone should experience so use code ALBIE50 to #shoptheinSide & get $50 off your purchase of $199 or more. ⠀

Now back to the rest of the room...

In addition to the custom headboard, just like the rest of the house, I went ahead and added custom window treatments from Decorview — drapery paired with motorized roller shades... #peakadulting.

Everything else to round out the room would be wall decor and accents I've accumulated over the years -- literally shopping the garage like it's a HomeGoods outlet, lol.

Do I considered this to be a "finished" space? No. But it's also not unfinished.

It was great having this relatively low lift project in between larger, more tasking projects in the house. There are still some tweaks that I know will be made over the next few weeks…months…years? No matter what comes next, and whether it’ll just remain my bonus bedroom or a place for actual guests — lemme know what you would do! — it's def come a long freaking way & totally feels like it now belongs with the rest of the house.