Heavens to Betsy : The grass is always greener...

In guest room 2. MLW and I moved some furniture in, my mom made an Ikea delivery, I stained/painted some things. You know, the usual. {warning: semi-long post}

So first we loaded everything in the room. I decided not to share you the step by step of my Ikea Rast hack, but I'll give you the basics as we go.

How the room has been looking for a few weeks now. Windows without curtains just look sad.

But, then they look all fresh and good once the panels go up. The panels were part of my Mom's Ikea delivery, and the brass curtain rods from Target. I'm kinda insanely in love with these rods from West Elm, but alas a little too pricey for this project.

So back to the rastseesssss. I knew I wanted a long nightstand in this here due to the size of the room. And I just liked the idea of a skinner, longer and maybe taller nightstand. Seemed very chic to me. After much searching, I could not find anything that made my heart a flutter. Then one day I was going back through my pins on Pinterest and came across and IKEA rast hack. Eureka! I had the idea to put 2 together to achieve my desired length and it was on! If you follow me on Instagram {you should} you would have seen my in progress shot from last week. A new friend from over at 428 Main sent me a photo of her complete rast and I knew I was headed for design gold!

I had some leftover stain from a small project a few years ago and put that to use. Could they match the closet doors any more perfectly? Nope, and it wasn't even planned that way.

And then I painted the doors white. Emily Henderson {my design hero} wrote about her dislike of doing this, and it might be the one and only time I ignored her advice. Because I love them!!! I'm hunting for the perfect hardware to add. {think brass}

And here is the freshly painted book shelf. I also had the paint for the white drawer fronts and bookshelf laying around from another project, so all in all both of these updates were very inexpensive. I've had the bookshelf since I was a wee tot. I gave it a makeover with a green backsplash sometime in high school, so it was probably time for another coat of paint.

Another progress shot. Things are coming together. My favorite way to put a room together, is to throw everything in there and then to edit pieces as I go.

Another half hour of editing later, and this is what we ended up with.

Oh yeah! I am definitely lacking a couple lampshades, and I haven't even begun to think art placement, but its a vast improvement from what we had been living with for the past 5 months.

I'm also still missing my small gold side table for the right side of the bed. But, I have found it and just need to order it.

I've even started to style the nightstand, although its frames are missing pictures, and the lamp is missing its hat.

And the view of the bed. I'm still thinking the headboard is a little heavy for what I'm going for, but I'm trying to get everything else in there first.

The infamous duck chairs. If you have ever lived with me, you have lived with a duck chair. I keep stealing one or two from my Mom. Then she will make me give them back, then I steal one again. But this time, they are here to stay! Hopefully the seats will be recovered in the palm fabric fairly soon.

I waited around for my next day off, to try and work in some daylight photos for ya'll as well. Natural light is the best. I even found a brand new sheet set in my linen closet so I don't have to worry about purchasing new bedding. #Win

And the semi-styled bookshelf. I need to work on the very top, but I'm okay with the contents of the shelfs. MLW and I are both huge bookworms and both have fairly large collections. Its nice to be able to display our favorites.