Be My Guest! Be my Guest!

After living in my home for 4 years I finally got around to really decorating the guest room. It had looked like this. But now it looks like this—with just some cream-colored paint, fabric, and a few accesories. I did it all in one day, which drives my friend Liz nuts, (“Did you just whip that up?”)but that’s how I operate. I hate lingering projects so I painted all morning, hit the stores for accesories after lunch, and sewed up the pillows that afternoon/evening.

I am most proud of the awesome orange dust ruffle. I bought a whole bolt of this Amy Butler August Fields fabric on clearance. Love it! I learned the best trick from a designer I used to work with. Instead of making ‘the deck’ for the dust ruffle (which never stays in place) just make the skirt portion and pin in place with twist pins (used to keep slip covers in place, found in home decor notions section at Joanns) or use a staple gun to hold in place. I opted for the staple gun this time. Most box springs are wood and easy to staple into. (Easy to remove as well.) And nobody will ever know!


I like to make my skirt as long as the three sides of the bed, plus 12” for each corner pleat. If you want pleats at the half-way points, make sure you add in extra fabric there as well. I like to add pleats at the half points only if I need to hide my seams where I had to piece the fabric together. This is a busy fabric, you can hardly see my seams, so I opted for just corner pleats. I serge the tops, hem the bottoms, and staple away! Total time for this project? Maybe 1 hour and just 2 1/2 yards of fabric.
I wanted to spruce up the pillows so I used some more of my bed skirt fabric for a pillow and also made a green pillow with my coral design in the center and dupioni silk.

I finished off the room with these greens lamps ($17 each) from Target and green mod frames from Alice Lane. How cute do my cheap-o $7 tables from Ikea look now?

Errrr….ignore the blank frames on the wall. I had those frames stacked in a closet, and thought they would look great, even though I haven’t printed any photos for the end ones yet. :) The chair in the corner was an old freebie spruced up with a white skirt. I made it years ago and still love it. The dresser sure needs a coat of green paint. That’ll be a summer job. So come stay with me dear friends! I make great pancakes for breakfast too.