From Catch-All to Cozy: Our Third Bedroom Becomes a Family Suite

Once our youngest daughter Emma left for college, her bedroom became a place where things came to hide (or die)—the perfect candidate for a guest room makeover. It became a place to put my crafting overflow, extra home decor, a desk that we no longer used, and so much more…stuff!

I kept the door closed most of the time and cleaned it up when Emma came home, but she required just a pathway to get to the bed. 🙂 Once our daughter Annie, her husband Tommy, and their son (our grandson) Harrison decided they were moving back home from Dallas, I knew we needed to make a more family-friendly room for them. Harrison loves sleepovers at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, and Mom and Dad are here often on the weekends.

Of course a consideration was that it had to to be pretty enough to fit with our home and be a place for other guests to feel at home.

This post includes a gifted product from tokblind.com

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The Vision

Before I touched a single thing, I used ChatGPT to help me picture what this room could become. I gave it some pictures of the current space and also gave it instructions for what I was picturing.

The rendering that AI gave me isn’t the actual floor plan, as the proportions were off, but it was the perfect Grandma Coastal combined with CottageCore look that I imagined.

This Is Where We Started

I have photos and video of just how bad this room got after years of “I’ll deal with it later”. There were things piled into the built-in shelves, the dresser, and the desk. So many things that I honestly no longer needed. Before any decorating could happen, this room needed a serious purge.

What We Did to the Space

There were a lot of moving pieces that went into completing this room, including making the closet into an entertaining linen closet. In the process of creating my hosting closet on the main floor, I created a space in this bedroom’s closet for all of my tablecloths, throw pillow covers, pillow inserts, and a space to tuck my sewing center.

What Came Next

• Purging all the clutter: sold the desk on Facebook Marketplace, moved what I still used to storage, donated a lot, and threw out even more.
• Rearranged the room so the full-size bed fit into the alcove. This opened up the room to fit the dresser, a rocker I found on Facebook Marketplace, and the toddler bed with ample room to move around. There is also plenty of space for little man to play on the rug.
• Bought additional drapery panels of the existing curtains and sewed a valance for both windows and a curtain to cover up the desk opening in the built-in cabinets (allowing for a bit of storage behind the curtain).
• Partnered with tokblind.com, who provided two blackout remote-control shades for two windows. I have code below for FREE fabric samples.
• Handy installed the blinds.
• Bought a new duvet cover and sheets for the full-size bed.
• Added wall-mounted lamps on both sides of the full-size bed
• Bought a small round wicker table to tuck into the alcove to be another end table for the bigger bed.

The Blackout Shades

tokblind.com reached out to me, and honestly, the timing couldn’t have been better. I was just starting to think through this makeover, and here were blackout shades landing in my inbox right when I needed them most.

Blackout was non-negotiable in this room. Annie is a TV news producer, and she works a 5 am – 2 pm schedule, and Tommy works in the restaurant industry, so his hours are nights and weekends. This means that it’s Annie who has to get Harrison down on her schedule, which in the summer means bedtime while it’s still broad daylight outside. We try to keep him on that same schedule as much as we can when he’s here. Therefore, a room that could actually get dark at 7pm even in June was necessary.

The shades themselves were easy from start to finish. The measuring instructions were simple and easy to follow. They arrived quickly, and Handy had them installed without any fuss. The remote mechanism recharges through a USB port, and we’ve had the shades up for nearly a month now without needing to recharge them once. If you want to get FREE fabric samples, click HERE and use code: FS100.

The Toddler Bed

It all started with the toddler bed. As soon as we found out the kids were moving back to the area, we knew our grandson would spend much more time at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. I did not want him sleeping in the pack ‘n play anymore.

Lesson Learned

We did not do our homework and bought the bed we have on a whim. It wasn’t nearly the finish we thought or the quality we thought. It came from overseas and took forever. The size would not fit a standard crib or twin mattress, so we had to come up with creative solutions!

I wish we had taken our time, done some research, and bought something better. The bed wasn’t cheap, so we felt like we had to own our mistake and work with it.

Custom Mattress and Bedding

The bed came with something they had called a mattress. It was only 1/4″ thick and a worse situation than the Pack ‘n Play. Our solution was to get a 4″ thick piece of memory foam and cut it to size for the bed.

I purchased a twin-sized set of sheets and made a sheet that fit the foam out of the twin fitted sheet.

Making the Sheets

Making the custom sheet was relatively simple. These measurements are for my oddly sized mattress. You’ll need to measure your own and follow the directions.

Cutting the fabric

• Cut the elastic off the fitted sheet so it lies flat.
• Measure the foam. Mine is 22″ x 50″
• Added 16″ to measured size. My measurements after adding 16″ are 38″ x 66″
• Cut an 8″ x 8″ square out of each corner

sewing the corners

• With the fabric inside out, sew a 1/4″ seam at each corner to form new corners for the mattress.
• Ran a zigzag seam along the edge to finish off the seam and prevent fraying

Creating the casing for elastic

• Fold the raw outer edge of the sheet under by 1/4″, then fold it again by 1″ to create a hem casing for your elastic. Press with an iron.
• Stitch the edge down all the way around the sheet, leaving a 2″ opening to thread the elastic through the pocket.
• Cut piece of elastic about the 10″ longer than you mattress length. In my case I cut my elastic 60″.
• Attach a large safety pin to one end of the elastic and work it through the pocket.
• Adjust the elastic so the sheet is gathered like a fitted sheet should be. Overlap the two ends by an inch, trim the elastic if necessary, and sew them together securely with a zigzag stitch.
• Stitch the 2″ opening closed

Painting the Bed

The bed was raw wood, so I knew we needed to paint it or seal it. Once again I still had left over paint from my front door and hosting closet projects. It was just enough to paint this bed. Here are the steps I took to paint the bed.

• Lightly sanded the whole bed
• Took off the little stairs and taped up the gold screws
• Painted the whole bed with two coats of Zinsser B-I-N Shellac-Base Primer
• Two coats of the paint from the other two projects

Still to Come

I used the top sheet from the twin sheet set to cover the new-to-us rocker. I’m on the hunt to find the right fabric to make a slipcover for it. I’ve never made my own before, but I think that it’s something I’d like to tackle.

The Process & Reveal

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Final Thoughts

For many years we were long-distance grandparents, and having the kids near us is a blessing that we don’t take for granted. When the stars aligned and a job opportunity came up for Annie in Chicago, we couldn’t have been more thrilled. It happened fast, and we almost overnight had to go into “things are going to change” mode.

This guest room makeover took plenty of moving pieces, but Annie, Tommy, and Harrison have already spent many weekends in this room, and it fully feels like their space as much as ours. I’m also excited that we can feel proud of this room when we have other guests visit our home for overnight stays.

Peace and Love,