Easy DIY Ideas: A Very Vintage Guestroom

Give a plain-Jane guestroom some vintage character with linens, accents, and repurposed furnishings—just in time for holiday visitors.

Our antique quilt has inspired us again (you may remember it from our story about mixing pattern); this time to make over a bland guestroom furnished with neutral, but nice, basics. Red is an energetic color, not always suited to the restful atmosphere of a bedroom, but with the generous addition of baby blue walls and accents, the red embellished bedding, striped rug, and frames give the guestroom cozy warmth.

 

Fill the space above the headboard with a do-it-yourself pegboard for a rotating gallery of framed photos and patterned papers. Pop in photos that will have meaning for your guests.

 

To make the pegboard, we painted a piece of reclaimed wood in the same white hue as the headboard. Then, we screwed a variety of vintage valve handles to the board in an even row. Ribbons through frame hangers are tied and looped onto the handles. It’s super easy to do. You should try it.

 

Geometric, floral, and stylized designs interplay on the unique mix of bedding. Who says you can’t mix several patterns together? No one.

 

Dainty white tone-on-tone embroidery covers the Euro shams while bolder red on white embroidery stands out on the pillowcases. Greek key designs border blue accent pillows that bring the wall color down to the bed.

 

The graphic punch of our 1880s quilt makes the bed a focal point in the guestroom.

 

At the foot the bed, the rustic bench echoes the rough wood of the vintage crate nightstand. The woven throw picks up the stripes in the rug. It’s all about repeating colors and patterns that pull everything together.

 

Old wood crates make a capacious nightstand. Use boxes of equal length and width for a uniform look but you can vary the depth on the top with two shallower crates for a step-back effect. For stability, use small wood screws to secure the crates to each other.

 

A colorful book jacket adds graphic interest to the nightstand top. The winged pig paperweight offers a whimsical touch. We seriously cannot get enough of little pigs—they’re so cute!

 

Vivid dahlias in a turquoise mason jar encapsulate the room’s color scheme nicely. And fresh flowers in a guestroom make visitors feel welcome. If you have your own cutting garden or would like to have one, you may find our potting bench tips useful to get started. You know, for next spring.

 

An old lampshade frame gets a textural cover with tied strips of cotton fabrics.

 

To make the shade, determine the length you need for fabric strips to reach from the top to the bottom of your lampshade frame plus enough extra to make a tie on each end. Cut a series strips (ours are 2 inches wide) from thin cotton quilting fabric in a variety of coordinating patterns.

 

Tie the tops of the fabric strips in place until you’ve circled the top frame. Use a touch of fabric glue to secure the fabric ends to the backs of the strips to keep them away from the light source.

 

Pull the strips tight and tie the bottoms to the bottom frame and secure the ends as above. Don’t use this shade on a lamp that uses a halogen bulb or any incandescent bulb over 60 watts. Just don’t chance it, bad things could happen. Honestly, you’re not trying to blind your guests, and a nice soft glow is ideal as a bedside light anyway.

 

Four cubbies in the nightstand give you the space to organize bedside supplies. Fabric covered boxes offer places to stash stuff you want handy but hidden. They bring pretty pattern to the rustic interiors, too.

 

In one box, keep a hobby handy in a basket. Knitting, embroidery, scrapbooking—anything your guests like to do while watching TV or relaxing in their temporary retreat.

 

Place a few books inside that you’d like to recommend to your visitors. Feel free to have fun with the titles. Book Spine Poems is pretty fun. If you don’t know what that is, Google it, and welcome to the world of intellectual memes.

 

Tuck in a journal and writing implements of a shelf in case your guest is a diarist or enjoys making notes and lists. Add a favorite photo here and there.

 

See, small touches with big impact. Just a few accents, injections of color, and some vintage character take our guestroom from snooze to sensational. Don’t you want to come over?

 

© Caruth Studio