Before and After: A Dingy, Run-Down Bedroom Is Unrecognizable After a Luxe Redo

The thing about a guest room is that you have to actually want your guests to stay there. That was the dilemma facing Carla Isolano of House of Beau 13 when she decided to completely redo one of the bedrooms in her home.

“We wanted a decadent welcoming guest room and were embarrassed to have guests to stay in its current state,” Carla says. That current state: covered in thick, peeling wallpaper, with floorboards that were falling apart and beautiful wooden beam across the ceiling coated in years’ worth of white paint.

Carla started the bedroom renovation by stripping the walls, but discovered along the way that there were some large holes under the windows that she had to fill. After plenty of prep work, she papered the walls.

“It was the first time we had ever wallpapered and it was a steep learning curve,” Carla says. “Papering wonky walls is not easy!”

Then, Carla refinished the floors and stripped the wooden beams of paint, which helped add a warm feel to the room. She finished by decorating the space with a new bed, lights, curtains, and some upscale-looking artwork.

Carla tackled the project on the evenings and weekends, with a young family in tow. It took her a few months to finally complete, but she finally has the guest room she has always wanted. 

“I love how dark and decadent the room feels now,” Carla says. “It’s exactly the cozy welcoming vibe I was hoping for and I’m now proud to have guests to stay! If I could do one thing differently I would have had the room freshly re-plastered, because although we prepped and lined the walls, they are still uneven in parts. Which you could say adds to the character of the room!”

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