Kathleen Mapson Art

BLOG

PROJECT | BE OUR GUEST

The Inspiration for Project | Be Our Guest - ' The Green Mile'. I painted this piece back in 2008. It is my favorite piece of art. I have received many offers for it, but could never part with it because of how much I love it. I knew that this piece would be hung in the guest room. Shades of cream, red, pink, green, orange - the perfect color palette for this space. It added such a face lift to the room and makes me happy to see it finally hung. Let's take a look at the before...

art_orchid

Boy oh boy have we come a mighty long way and it has taking a while to get here. Oddly enough, I thought I blogged about the sad beginnings of this room, but it appears that I never mumbled a word. So, now I have to give you the scoop on it's evolution. Here is where we began.

guest_before_1

This room did it's duty as being a functional space, basically a place for our guests to sleep. But it definitely wasn't fresh feeling or had any style.

What we needed to do to up the anty:

  1. Clearly there was no design plan. Yikes and Sigh...as a designer, of course I know better. But sometimes projects fall on the back burner around here because I am doing other things.
  2. As you can see, we kinda needed everything but the kitchen sink - well everything except a bed. We were on a tight budget for this room. So everything had to be super cost efficient.
  3. Bed side tables were desperately needed. Fortunately I found side tables a few years back that I knew I would eventually use in this space. Details about how I overhauled those will be coming up in the next few posts.
  4. We needed storage. A dresser, a chest of drawers, something.
  5. Drapes were needed too. The harsh lines of the window trim kind of drives me crazy at times. And this is one of those times.
  6. A custom headboard to eat up some of the vertical space was also a must.

guest_before_2

The good news:

  1. The room was like a blank slate. The walls were a rich creamy, antique white. So any colors could work.
  2. We had my favorite art piece of all times as the launching pad for the color scheme. And I knew exactly where I wanted to use it in this space.
  3. The layout of the room was super easy to work with it.
  4. The room offers an amazing amount of natural light so I knew exactly what color drapes I wanted to use and where to purchase them.
  5. I also already had the drapery hardware from at least a year prior. I think I found it on sale at HomeGoods for like $10 or $15. Score!!

 

After all was said and done - The Results!

There is nothing more that I love than a calm, neutral backdrop to bold punches of color. And that is exactly what we did here. Keeping the wall neutral allowed for warm grays to be used on the headboard, console, and side tables, and bold mustard and shades of orange to be used in the bedding. See how well the art plays with all the other colors in the room? I just love it!

room_shot2

guest_before_after_2

guest_before_after_1

guest_back_bed_pillow

guest_console_table_tb

I have to admit, right now it's one of my favorite rooms in the house. It combines my husband's style (which is clean lined and minimal) with mine (clean lined with a mix of old and new).

There are quite a few KMC Creatives projects in here. I will be sharing them with you over the next few weeks. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out!

Making Home, Home!

Kathleen