Cheap and Easy Guest Bedroom Art and Vinyl-Stenciled Bookcases

I spent most of my President's Day vacation on Monday working on the guest bedroom, arranging furniture, hanging curtains, and working on some of the decorative elements.

We're going for sort of a subtle beach cottage feel for the room, which will be expressed mainly through the accessories. I'm liking the idea of setting the mood with just the decorations, since the dark grey walls and warm teal blue headboard, paired with fluffy white bedding could work with a variety of accessories if we ever feel like changing things up in the future.

So, to set the beach cottage mood, that meant doing something with shells. They are cheap, they are pretty, and I actually already had a bunch on hand. So I set out to make some shadow boxes, based off two pieces of inspiration.

This photo I snapped on my phone in Bed, Bath and Beyond about 6 months ago, of a framed starfish and sand dollar. I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but these were marked at $24.99 each.

And this photo that I'd pinned a while ago, a similar idea, with bright blue matting.

Source

So with those ideas in mind, I ordered four of these shadow boxes from Target for only $9.99 each. When I was painting the headboard, I also painted the back panels of the shadow box frames the same teal (Surf Blue by Benjamin Moore).

Guest Bedroom Furniture Updates

So. This happened.

And then this.

Wait, didn't I already make a board and batten headboard months ago?

Yes, yes I did. But it ended up needing to be redone.

A Rookie (Painting) Mistake

I mentioned last week that I was doing a bit of furniture painting. Specifically, painting three bookshelves and an apothecary side table for the guest room.

I haven't done much furniture painting in the past, other than the headboard I made and spray painting some outdoor chairs. But I figured it couldn't be that hard, I'd just start with a coat of primer to make sure I get a good base for my paint.

See any problems?

Spray Paint Patio Furniture Makeover

This past weekend I was inspired to do something about our ugly patio chairs. If you remember from this post, I've been dying for new patio furniture for, well, a decade. Ever since my husband found these chairs under his apartment building in college. I still can't believe he's convinced me to haul these ugly things around with us for so long.

But no more! I gave them a little makeover:

As a refresher, this is what the chairs looked like before I started. Chipped paint galore, and aging criss-crossed rubber that always pinched my legs when I was wearing shorts.