Basement Guest Room Remodel

I've always wanted a dedicated guest room(I know, first world problems). A few years ago, our Volkswagon was recalled, due to the whole VW diesel scam. Then a few months later hail damage totaled the same car. Long story short, we got paid for that car twice, and decided to downgrade Matt's new ride to finish the basement have the basement finished by a contractor with the extra money. I'm sooo glad we did. I have calculated it out, and it would have take us approximately 789,209,801 Saturdays to do all the work that needed to be done. We still did the tiling and all the painting, and OH MY GOODNESS, it was a ton of work. It literally took me months to caulk, fill nail holes in trim, prime and paint about 1,000 square feet of new construction while still taking care of four kids and semi-keeping our house up. It was a lot more work than just repainting walls. I'd still do it again though, it saved us 2k to not hire out the painting. Plus, I bought all the paint when Home Depot was doing their twice yearly paint sale, so I got it for a song compared to what I normally would have spent(five gallon buckets of primer and paint ceiling were 10$ after rebates!) 

The new guest room is the only 'done' room down there, as far as decor, so that's all I'm posting today. Hopefully this will motivate me to finish up the rest of the space down there! 

This is what we started with, glamorous isn't it? The basement was our "catch all". Kids toys, food storage, stuff we ripped out of other rooms, camping and miscellaneous storage made this a very homey and relaxing guest suite. 

I tried keeping this bed made, but the kids were constantly getting into the above food storage and climbing into said bed to snack.

And here it is now! My in-laws were coming into town and I really wanted to finish it up and make a nice, relaxing place for them to stay while they were here. My brother is going to be staying with us next month for a few weeks, so now it's all ready for him too!

The bed is now where that shelf used to be, and the corner where the bed was previously became a big walk in closet so guests still have room to hang stuff and we can stack Rubbermaid totes on the other wall. 

My Williams grandparents both passed away this last year, and I was so grateful to have gotten a few things from their house to remember them by. I got the quilt on the bed from them, and I remember my grandma always folding it over the pillows at her house, so I decided to do the same here. Some of the baskets on the wall are also from their house. My grandma loved music and had lots of sheet music in her house, I found an old copy of her favorite children's hymn "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" and I framed it.

On design shows it seems like they are always trying to use meaningful pieces, or stuff from thrift or antique stores, and I always thought it was just to save money but I get it now! I love this space so much more because it means something. I think it's functional and I love how it looks, but there is also emotions attached to lots of stuff in here. The chair I reupholstered myself from a thrift store find, the bunch of letters in the tray on the nightstand are from my brothers and sisters while they served missions for our church, I made the chest of drawers and nightstand in high school shop class, the glass dome has little rocks that Natalie glued glass and weeds to and made 'art' with, the tray we got as a wedding present, and the blue book on the nightstand is vintage hymnbook from the ward my grandma grew up in. Don't get me wrong, I still have stuff from big box stores, but it's fun to have some things that are unique.

We've been in this house for three years now, and this is only the second room I'm calling 'done'(the first was the powder room). Someday I might try to do something about the super fabulous window well view, but for now I'm happy. While my saintly in-laws were here to help we tackled our last BIG project, so now hopefully a few more rooms will come together quickly as I finish up some odds and ends! 

PS: Want your own basket wall? My sister helped me curate mine from vintage baskets and she has some she already put together on her Etsy shop.