The second bedroom of our house is only 8 feet wide and 13 feet long. In spite of its size, we still needed it to function as an office/craft room and a guest room that would sleep 2 people. The major projects here were pulling up the carpet and painting the walls light gray and the ceiling blue. Then we found the perfect sofa bed for small spaces and built a wall shelf behind it since there wasn't room for end tables.
The whole transformation cost about $800. The only significant expenses were the new sofa, wall shelves and paint, as we took the rest of the furniture from other parts of the house.
For more photos of the space, visit Little Victorian.
Thanks, Christina!
Have your own Before & After project you'd like to share with the editors? Submit it here.
(Images: Christina Orleans)
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Very serene - I'd sleep there! The blue ceiling and white wood floors are such a nice touch and make the room appear larger than it is.
Only thing that puzzled me (and I'm sure you have it figured out) is that it appears as if you'd have to move the table to pull the bed out. Of course, that may just be the angle of the photo.
Believe it or not, we're in the process of doing the very same thing! Only our room is 9.5 x 10 ft.
Shopping for a sleeper sofa as well. . . anyone know the source of this one?
Hi, gorgeous new office/guest room! Well done, Christina.
I wonder if you won't mildly regret the white palette in the future (I had a white tile floor once... I lost days of my life trying to keep it clean), but I do love how light everything is.
I did a WOW when I saw the after. The only suggestion is to maybe get some soft window drapping. Those matchstick blinds do not provide privacy when the lights are on. You can see into the room and may not be a place you want to change your clothes. (for your guest)
I really like the shelf behind the sofa. Very nice.
What about the carpet, if I'm not wrong you replaced that too with a wooden floor? Does it not cost money?
This is a lovely room! You did a wonderful job with it and it's so useable now! Good work! :)
I love this! Fantastic. What a difference this makes. Great work.
wow thank you for the inspiration!
I assumed that the wood floor was under the carpet since the house is of an age for that to be reasonable.
wow- u took DECADES off of that room's life! great job on creating a cheerful, fresh & inviting new space... :)
curious about the desk.....
Love it! We have a tiny spare bedroom that has a guest bed and a desk and it could use the same makeover. I'm curious about one thing, how does the bed fold out with the desk there?
I like it, but did you paint all the floors in your house white? Any reason? Do you not like wooden floors or were they too damaged to refinish?
So many pretty and clever details! Love the pale blue ceiling and gorgeous floor! The shelf behind the sofa is genius! Also curious about how the sofa folds out - do you move the desk or just move that crate next to it? (Some fold-outs take surprisingly less space than you'd think...) The floating wall shelves are perfect here because they have no footprint on the floor. I love to see these smart, inexpensive Before/Afters!
Beautiful job on this room! I hope we can see more of your Victorian, since I have major Victorian-envy! ;)
I'm also curious about the sofa. Can you share the brand or store where you found it? Looking for something like it for an office / guest room in my house.
I've wanted that Ikea sofa bed for our office/guest room too. When folded out, you sleep width-wise on it (head at one armrest, feet at the other), so it doesn't require the same floor space for deployment.
Thank you so much everyone! The sofa bed does have a very small footprint, it actually pulls lengthwise. See more about it here: http://www.littlevictorian.com/2012/06/choosing-perfect-sofa-bed-for-such.html
As for the floors, we pulled up the carpet and they were already painted white, and we love them!
Ah, got it, Christina. I'm glad I checked back to see your reply - thanks for informing. I didn't even know that there were sleeper beds that slept lengthwise like that! In my place, I have the standard pull out.
That is the IKEA Karlstad sofa bed for all those who asked.
Those are sweet little piggies on the shelf! Nice room, too!
Those are sweet little piggies on the shelf! Nice room, too!
Those are sweet little piggies on the shelf! Nice room, too!
… and for delg23, the desk is Ikea, too. The legs are Vika Artur.
Ah, a breath of fresh air!
Love this room, and love her blog!
She has a dolls house too :)
in the first pic, the windows look tantalizing, and then... POW! the colors in the room take such of advantage of the light and airiness of the room. BEAUTIFUL.
Wait, the IKEA sofa is 800$ by itself.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S69840660/#/S69840660
How did the whole room come together for 800, then?
It is a great transformation, BTW.
What a great transformation!
RocketScientist, good point! We purchased it when they had the big sofa sale last year, I forgot all about that. And thank you for the compliments.
Love those white floors. One day I too will have pretty painted floors - not that I mind the natural wood look, either.
By my standards, though, that room isn't exactly tiny. But the light colouring really does open it up, I love it. I hope you saved the original bedframe somewhere though. Or sold it? Always better than the landfill. It looks like a pretty nice bed.
You did a great job redecorating this room!
Thanks for sharing it.
really nice. It looked like a home for unwed mothers in the before.
Is there enough room to open the sofa bed??
toastercat,
If you to to Christina's page, she has a link to a drawing that shows the layout of the room and how the sofa bed opens lengthwise to fit in the allotted space. It is fabulous!
I, however, am curious about the same matter as RocketScientist. The couch itself is over $800. I haven't had any luck finding them for sale on Craigslist. I know Christina got 15% the couch, but that only leaves a very tiny (less than $80) budget for everything else. Did she buy a display or a damaged model? I'd love to know how she got this great transformation for the price!
Love the change! I completely agree with Lyonstill, I get inexplicably mad when the guest room or hotel room has blinds and ALL the light comes in the room, blinds do not keep light out. I always wonder if the owner/host has ever actually slept in the room (and how? with all that light pouring in). But, I am odd, I know.
Again i find it funny that a room that is 8.5ft by 13ft is classed as tiny!! Obviously our houses here in the UK ARE TINY!! My son's bedroom which is 9ft square is TINY!! we can't even fit both of our boys beds in the same room. So having an office room like this would be pure luxury however not one to poo poo someones else's hard work. It does look fabulous!! So well done to Christina. :D
Love monochromatic style!
Sorry, I should have broken down the budget in the post.
Sofa (on sale): $680
2 gallons of paint: $60
3 IKEA Lack wall shelves: $35
Total: $775
So, with sales tax, it was just over $800.
About the window blinds, I suppose I will have to ask our next house guests! The two trees outside each window provide privacy. And the husband and I actually have slept in the room to test everything out, but the sunlight never crossed our minds since we don't sleep past sunrise. Blinds are all we use in our bedroom. So thanks for bringing that up!
So, when can I visit? I have my overnight bag already packed! Call me! I would LOVE to be awoken at the break of dawn in a guest room this serene!
Quick question- how do you deal with radiator/heating units that run along the floor like that? I get frustrated when I can't push a table or desk all the way flush with the wall, but it looks like your white table does that just fine- is it just because the surface of the table extends past the leg? Do you have that in other parts of your house? Thanks!
Great Job! We are in the process of doing the same redecoration of our spare bedroom/office, but we are a little tighter on space - the room is only 9 ft. x 7 ft. It's hard to tell from the photo, but are the walls and the crown molding the same color? What color and type of paint did you use?
very fresh looking! I love how it doesn't look cluttered but you seem to have everything u need in there. Great remodel!
Erin, we do have the baseboard radiators throughout the house. The top of the desk is bigger than the legs, so that piece of furniture was easy. But it is really tricky in other rooms. Wall mounted shelves are great for rooms like that.
R. Sroda, that is really tiny! We actually don't have any crown moulding in that room. The window moulding is Behr's untinted white in semi-gloss finish. The walls are painted with Martha Stewart's "Cumulus cloud" and the ceiling is Martha's "Enamelware" both in satin finish.