salt lake city project: guest room | baby girl nursery

In mid-December, I took a trip to Salt Lake City to install a room for some good friends, Adam & Rena. Rena and I worked closely together on the plan for a few months leading up to the trip, and I was so pumped to put it all together!  

The room needed to be multi-functional, as both a guest room and a temporary nursery for their baby girl due later this month! They'll be moving this summer, so they'll use the room just until the baby is a few month's old. It needed to house some practical things for baby like changing table and storage, and also be a comfy guest room for visiting family over the holidays and coming months. (Their plan is to use a bassinet which they can move from their bedroom to this one as needed - we didn't have this yet which is why you won't see it in the photos :))

The moment I landed, I was very eager to get going on the room, after spending countless hours thinking about and planning it. Unfortunately, altitude sickness hit me on the morning of my second day and rendered me pretty much useless the entire day. Big bummer, and I had to seriously make up for lost time! The next couple of days were frantic, but so much fun, as the three of us pulled it all together.

The mountains surrounding the city are just stunning. Not a bad view to enjoy while running around getting supplies! And I was excited to see snow...this was before our Christmas trip to Michigan, and before this I don't think I'd seen snow in 8 or 9 years!

After losing a day, we definitely had zero time for sight-seeing. On the way to Ikea on my last day there, my friend pulled over for a second so I could jump out and snap this photo of the big temple. (I posted it on instagram, and one friend asked me if I was in Narnia :) Kind of has that look, huh?!)

Sometimes a fun, funky mix helps me get my decorator on ;)

After a successful shopping run, I was ready to dive into this pile of goodies!

We found the headboard on Craigslist and they purchased before my visit. Such a great piece!

It was a team effort getting everything primed and painted with our limited schedule, but we made it happen :) Above are bed and mirror, primed.

And then the painted bed...I love the color and am so glad I went with this! We had gone back and forth and considered white along with a brighter color, but this really grounds the room and I'm thrilled with the result...

a little stencil action!

I'm telling you, it was a true team effort and the last few hours were a little intense, but we pulled it off!  Get ready for the slew of photos...I'm pretty in love with this room and every angle just makes me happy :)  (also, we finished about 30 minutes before needing to leave for the airport, so weren't able to take our time on the photo shoot. please excuse the casual-ness of them!) 

Overall, this was a budget project with lots of bargain elements which I'll try to break down for you.

It's a rental, so there were a few challenges we had to maneuver. First off, we couldn't paint the walls. It reads light yellow in most of these photos, but it's actually a yellowy-beige...not very inspiring! Our plan of attack was to bring in lots of cooler colors to distract the eye.

Do you love the otomi stencil art above the bed? Packs a great punch for a budget piece of artwork! The costs were just a simple piece of white fabric + paint + spray adhesive + ikea frame (+ painting supplies depending what you have on hand). We split the cost of the stencil itself as I'll definitely be using it again (in our home, soon!). 

I am in love with that chair. And was beyond thrilled to find it in a local thrift store! We were torn about what to do about a chair and had spent lots of time considering our options...my friends were contemplating a new glider as an investment piece, but weren't thrilled about spending the several hundred dollars now. We searched craigslist for weeks but weren't excited about anything. I was optimistic about finding something during my thrift store hunt, but we were obviously cutting it close at that point! So you can imagine my excitement when I spotted this beauty. In pretty great shape and around $35!

The dresser is one they had already; we just switched out the hardware. This will also be the changing table, and is right next to the closet for easy access to her clothes :)  Bookcase was also an existing piece of furniture that we spruced up with a new paint color. The floral fabric on the lumbar was actually a curtain I found at a thrift store, which we used to cover an inexpensive Target body pillow. (Total cost less than $30.) Throw pillows are from HomeGoods; the black & white throw you likely recognize as Ikea as it's been quite popular as of late (with good reason - classic design and good quality!). Sconces are also Ikea.

The mirror was an earlier thrifted purchase by my friend, and we made it work by painting the same color as the bookcase on the opposite side of the bed. I like how it turned out - it's nice and classic and it's always nice to have a mirror in a guest room.

We added a simple ribbon trim to all the curtain, including the closet. (a really pretty blue velvet on the windows and a fun pink medallion on the closet - I'm bummed you can't see the details here!) They had the white Ikea curtains from their last apartment so we decided to use what we had, while adding a little definition and personalization.

The windows have some heavy-duty wooden blinds installed into their frames which were really nice quality, but just not very pretty. We couldn't remove or damage them, so we decided to add bamboo blinds (hung on the window frames so they're in front of the existing blinds) for some extra texture and warmth. 

Overdyed rug is from Rugs USA. We purchased it the weekend after Thanksgiving on a major sale (75% off!!) which was pretty incredible. It's not often you can get a nice, 8x10 rug for less than $250! At full price, this would have blown most of our budget. It really set the tone for the room - adds so much warmth, beauty and the great color helps to balance out those lovely walls ;)

me frantically snapping a few last shots before grabbing my bags to catch my flight home!

Bookcase styling items are a mix of thrifted, Ikea, HomeGoods, dollar store and Kohl's.

My beautiful friend Rena with her baby bump enjoying their new space :)

I adore these bookends...picked them up many months ago at Goodwill, knowing they'd be perfect for a project one day! They're crazy heavy and will last forever (probably already have :)). Warms my heart to think of my friends enjoying them along with their growing family.

Wow...what a fun project! I am grateful, grateful to Adam & Rena for inviting me into this process with them, and for being so awesome to work with. They were just amazing and flowed with the chaos as I took over their home and lives for a few days, and just before the holidays! Seriously guys - your patience is not lost on me.... THANK YOU!!!