Are we ever excited to share this room with you! We’ve been working for months on this and it’s finally done! This is the fastest we’ve renovated one room, and does it ever. feel. great. I thought I would not only talk about this room in particular but also how wonderful it feels to have a deadline to finish a project, and be 100% done with one room in the house. When we partnered with Pottery Barn on this project, we personally set a deadline.

Our house is a bunch of unfinished projects. This summer we’ve vowed to go back and finish a bunch of small items that have been hanging around for too long. It’s hard living in a house that isn’t finished and doesn’t reflect our lifestyle or design aesthetic. For example, our bedroom, is painted and I purchased the bed I love, but all the other furniture is not right, plus there are no drapes up. Not to mention this HUGE plastic tarp up because we have to replaster the walls in part of the room. We live in a renovation zone!

When company comes over there is normally a big scramble to tidy up and to reduce the offensive plastic dividing two rooms, or drop clothes that are out so much, one might confuse them for a new trend in floor coverings. In honor of half finished project, no matter how big or how small, I put together a list of what we did to completely finish the room.

The Young Duchess Room

We wanted this guest bedroom to be a bit over the top. It is a guest bedroom after all. Most of the time it’s used for a few days at a time. Why not design something a little over the top that you might not have at home? You stay for a few days and have an experience to remember. That’s the point of view we took.

Furniture

We partnered with Pottery Barn for a lot of the furniture, bed linens and some accessories. I had some existing furniture that had to stay in the room, and other items that we repurposed. The only thing that wasn’t savable was the light fixture. Someone painted the metal and it was half peeling off, I’ll put it for free on Craigslist.

Sometimes I walk around our house looking for pieces I can use to pull a room together. The existing items I wanted to keep in the room were the large armoire, which I’ve had since college. The scale felt the best in the room, plus I removed the dresser so the armoire is the only piece of furniture with concealed storage. The closet in the room is the house hold linen closet, so there is very little space in there for anything additional. I had this vintage gold couch from Brimfield and that was my inspiration for Pottery Barn furniture. I used a lot of pieces that were gold toned. With the wallpaper and vintage rug being so busy, I wanted to keep the color palette simple, sticking to gold and white and black for the rest of the room. The bed is a rock star! I love it, it looks so good against the wall paper.

When our friends visit, there is often a bit of work they need to do or check in on. We put a desk in the room for lap tops or tablets. I thought this was a more practical use of the space rather than a dresser, since we have all the storage we need in the armoire. I love, love, love the desk lamp (from Pottery Barn) and the textured lamp shade. I love the combo of the clear glass and brass.

Window Treatments

I have a hard time buying drapes for this house, so I make them. We have rads right under most of the windows, and the drapes shouldn’t touch them, especially synthetic fabric. I made the two windows on one wall match using white linen, and the window on the wall by the chair a different style since we could go to the floor. I also used that drape to cover a design sin. When the closet was added to this room the ceiling molding was removed (on that one wall only), and really awkward spacing between the edge of the window and wall. This curtain covers those strange spaces, making the window feel bigger than it actually is.

Accessories

I scoured our house to find books and vases that visitors would enjoy. I made a little stack of magazines in the armoire that might make for good bedtime reading. Found my little horse statue and rock crystal thingies! My goal was to put enough in the room to personalize it, but not so much that it became cluttered. I also had to buy lamps for the bedside tables. I found vintage floral lamps, in a matching pair, for the bargain price of $30. I also love natural elements like this beetle from Pottery Barn. I only put a few pieces of art in the room, selecting from the overflowing, still wrapped box of art that lives in the corner of an unfinished room. Was I ever happy to pull a few pieces out of that box. We worked with Golden Pony Workshop to create a wall hanging that was made from horse hair. I love this modern take on Stony Ford’s history. We even had a horse hair key chain made up that has the room name tag.

Plants

Nothing makes a space feel more alive than plants. They provides a sense of being lived in. I used four big plants and one small plant. These helped add some height to the room and helped me fill some odd negative spaces. If you are having your home photographed, plants can help to add a sense of humanity to the images.

If you’d like links to the products and some additional design notes, visit the Pottery Barn blog, and I gave my tips and tricks for DIY wallpaper hanging. Also check out Instagram for some of the process at #PBandStonyFord.

Design*Sponge featured the room as a Before and After, which we are thrilled about!

This post is in collaboration with Pottery Barn. Thanks for supporting the partners that keep House of Brinson going!