Before and After: The Secret Ingredient to This “Dingy” Bedroom’s Lively Redo? Paint, of Course

Here’s a cool tip for ensuring a guest bedroom is in ship-shape for visitors: Before they arrive, spend a night in the room yourself! Are the pillows comfy? Could the bed use an extra throw for chilly nights? Would a set of luxe drapes elevate the room or give it a little more privacy? Could the room benefit from a candle or a lamp for some visual warmth?

When Kait Kash (@prettypennystyling) was revamping her 1990s guest bedroom, she wanted it to feel less stuffy. “While I am all for darker colors, and colors in general, I didn’t want our guests to feel like this room wasn’t clean and bright when they stayed over,” she says. “Before, the room could be clean, and it would still have a dull feel to it. Something about the shade of green had a very yellow tone to it, making the room feel dingy and dull.”

Kait ultimately remedied this with a $150 room-brightening redo (excluding the bed, which she already had), with much of the heavy lifting done by a fresh paint job. “Even though painting isn’t a huge renovation, we knew that it would make a world of a difference, and being first-time homebuyers, it was fun to even pick our first paint color for this room,” she says. Kait and her husband picked a classic white (Benjamin Moore’s Chantilly Lace) for the room.

“Now when it’s tidy, it truly has an aesthetic of being clean just by painting the walls,” she says. But just because they picked white for the walls doesn’t mean the couple ditched color altogether.

“I gave a nod to the past owners and incorporated that color in multiple different accents like the velvet curtains, thrifted round Victorian art, and a green quilt at the end of the bed,” Kait explains. “The sheets also have that same green with the pink florals! … I found a Dayton, Ohio, art sketch that I hung over the trundle bed, and it’s like it was made for this room with the overall color being that dusty pink! The lamp was found at another thrift store, and I was giddy that it all matched.”

Best yet, the lamp, pillow, and artwork above the bed cost less than $40 altogether. “I’m always so proud of the things I find thrifting,” Kait says. “What I love about the ‘after’ is definitely how the pinks and greens go so beautifully together. By painting the walls, these colors look far more rich and vibrant against a white backdrop! It’s just — BAM — fresh and bright.”

The other thing that really helped to brighten the room, Kait adds, was replacing the carpet with a light-colored, budget-friendly option, which was installed by a pro. Other than that, Kait’s husband did much of the work himself. “He put together the bed, painted, and hung the curtain rod,” Kait says. “One thing that was easier and much cheaper than I expected was just simply spray painting the curtain rod, which was once black. You can’t even tell!”

Kait’s best DIY advice is great for beginners and seasoned DIYers alike: “Start with paint,” she says. “It can truly only improve from there!”

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