The sincerest form of flattery

Interior design/home decorating was never an interest of mine until we moved to our house - suddenly I was all over the internet, looking at design blogs, brainstorming what would work in our house and stopping at nearly every thrift store and garage sale I saw.  I've gone from being insanely intimidated to shrugging my shoulders and plunging right in - sometimes with great results, and sometimes with decent results and much cursing.


Hands down, the website I turn to again and again is Young House Love.  John and Sherry (see how I talk like I know them?  It's an act.  I would probably dissolve into a pile of rainbows and glitter if I ever met them) have an older house somewhat similar to ours.  Because of them, I've learned how to paint furniture, I've made a gift-wrapping station, I got boxes for our desk, I frosted our windows and I'm about to tackle the clog in our bathroom.  My name is Desiree, and I am a Young House-aholic.


The latest in my Young House adulation is the dresser in our guest bedroom.  The first time I cleaned it out was in preparation for Drew's parents to visit.  Prior to that, it was a catch-all room for all junk and leftover boxes that I hadn't gotten around to unpacking and sorting.  Whenever we had guests, that door stayed closed.  


Having his parents over was a great motivation to straighten and finally decorate it, because once I cleaned it out the only thing in the room was a bed and my office cabinet.  It looked so bare and sad, so I jumped on craigslist to find a dresser.  Imagine my giddiness when I found a dresser identical to the one John and Sherry redid for their nursery!  I contacted the guy and rushed out to buy it because thanks to them, I already knew the dimensions and knew it would fit perfectly in our guest bedroom.

I paid more for mine than they did - even on craigslist,

things are more expensive in the big city.

I wanted to stain the dresser to match our

 cherry-colored platform bed .

I'd never worked with stain before, but I had no fear because they do such detailed tutorials that it's really hard to mess up.  Drew and I hauled it out to the garage and I got to work.

Sanded to within an inch of its life.  

By hand - I want an electric sander next time.

Staining the drawers - it's a pretty good match!

I used Cabot stain - Minwax's cherry wasn't the right color.

I also decided to paint the top of the dresser white, like they did.  When Drew is in town he works from home, using the white desk in the sitting room.  However, he really needed to be able to shut the door when he was on calls so we moved it to the guest bedroom.  With the white desk and the cherry bed, I figured a cherry dresser with a white top would tie the two together nicely.  I was right!  Check it out!

I love the three stripes on the side.  

They didn't show up until I stained it and it was such a cool bonus!

The plant was a housewarming gift from Kristina and I haven't killed it!  Yea me!

Detail

Standing in the doorway.  

Maya came in and hopped on the bed

but she was too much of a diva to look at the camera.

I would love to hide the cords and have a home for our printer 

like they do, but I'm too OCD to sit off to one side of the desk.

I'm also going to recover the seat of the chair since the black

and white fabric doesn't go with the warm tones of the wood.

This corner needs something.

Now that the dresser is the only thing on this wall, you can really tell that it needs accesorizing.  I'd like to find a chair to put in that corner - maybe a floor lamp as well?  My new favorite blog, Better After did a post on chairs today that has me itching to hit the thrift stores!  I want something like this.

Image source

I love the lines of this chair - I would paint it white

and do a neutral fabric with some blue in it. 

I feel like the picture above the dresser needs to be a little lower. 

What do y'all think?

I'm so happy that the guest bedroom is finished, and by finished I mean we can actually show this room as part of our house tour when we have company.  I still have to get a small accent table for the side of the bed and I'm now on the hunt for a chair!  

Most importantly, Maya has another throne to claim.

She likes every bed but the one we bought especially for her.

Go figure.

PS - Check out how I finished the room!