I've shared my living room, dining room, bedroom, and bathroom tour on the blog, and today, I'm very excited to share my spare room makeover. I am always struggling to know what to call this room because it's a combination of an open closet, office, and TV room. So, spare room it is!
I'll provide a little backstory about this room and some rather shocking 'before' photos. Does that sound too dramatic? Shocking? But really, it's hard to believe how different this room looked when I bought my house.
For starters, the wall that the TV is hanging on didn't use to be there. Traditional Craftsman bungalows have long, narrow living rooms. So, when I'm sitting on my floral sofa, I'm technically sitting in what used to be ... my living room.
It took me about a year to find the motivation to figure out what the heck to do with this room; a room that always had the door shut so I didn't have to look at the disaster zone of boxes and whatever else I would toss in here.
As I said, this room is awkwardly shaped because it was originally part of the living room. In the 1960s, someone decided to make the primary bedroom larger by REMOVING a wall and putting up another wall. It gets worse.
When they did this, they left the floors as-is. 'Removes a wall and leaves the floors as-is once.' It seems like a strange thing to do if you ask me.
This resulted in a big room that didn't look like it belonged in a house from the 1920s—with the tiniest original closet EVER. This is where my open closet idea comes in.
Friends have asked why I chose the smaller room for my bedroom. The truth is that this space was my original bedroom when I moved in, and it felt bad and wrong. It didn't feel cozy at all.
A few weeks later, I moved my big ole' king-sized bed into the smaller room, and it instantly felt right.
To sum it all up, this spare room went from my least favorite room in the house to my favorite space to hang out and relax. I eat dinner and binge-watch shows like Succession (I'm a late bloomer) here most nights.
This has also become Norman's room. He loves napping on the sofa and viciously barking at anyone who walks outside while I'm at work.
I really lucked out when I decorated this room. All of the furniture is second-hand except for the antique reproduction writing desk. I used the vintage floral sofa as my color palette and went from there; everything seemed to fall into place perfectly. It's kind of crazy how it happened.
I knew I wanted to avoid using white furniture and make this room look slightly different from the rest of the house.
By the grace of God, I found the antique coffee table, side table, and pedestal table at auction and paid under $30 for everything. Most of the knickknacks on the shelf below the TV were in a box (another auction find!), and they somehow matched the color scheme of the room.
The blue glass violin vase and bright yellow plaster basket were my great-grandma's. You know, the same great-grandma who lived on the SAME street as I do now when I was five years old. 🔮
Hi, Norman.
I genuinely believe that every house needs an old-school phone in it. I always see them at flea markets and finally bought one for myself. This room needed one.
I didn't have a spot to put this ice cream cone cookie jar on the shelf with the rest of my collection, but it ended up looking just right on top of an old TV tray in this room.
Here's another view from the sofa. I was fortunate to have this room's original floors refinished and repaired. Looking in front of the yellow rug, you can see how they repaired the section of the missing floor.
I like how it separates the room, especially since I decided to make the other half an open closet.
Other links: velvet flower pillow / orange shag rug
My grandparents had this amazing orange fish painting by Lee Rose in their home in the 1970s and 1980s, and like everything they owned, I loved it when I was a kid and love it even more now.
My framed Ozark Mountain Daredevils poster is one of my most prized possessions. It's an original tour poster from the 1970s and deserved to be unsealed and hung on the wall, in my opinion.
Here's a view of my 'open closet' on the other side of the room, which includes a desk I never use and an office chair I found on the side of the road, LOL. I donated so much clothing before (and after) I moved into this house that I unintentionally developed a capsule wardrobe.
Links: velvet curtains / curtain rods / gold clothing rack / crystal door knobs
My closet is really tiny, so having a sturdy clothing rack with a shelf on the bottom has been 100% ideal. I switch out the rack with short-sleeved and long-sleeved tops every season.
Believe it or not, this is my entire fall/winter wardrobe, minus dresses (which I rarely wear anymore).
Having a smaller wardrobe feels so carefree and easy to me. After I bought my house, I realized that collecting and reselling home decor was more important to me than buying clothes.
Painting the walls and the doors white made such a huge difference in this room. The blueish-gray color was pretty drab.
I broke my 'don't use any white furniture rule' for the other half of this room. The white wicker dresser and floor mirror were both FB Marketplace finds. I still don't know how I managed to fit that big mirror in my Camry,
My dad read The Berenstain Bears books to me when I was a kid, and I'm so glad I still have the originals.
The jewelry box was my mom's (it's so cute!), and the printer drawer was my great aunt's. It's one of three printer drawers hanging up in my house, and it's as special as the others.
Related post: Collections: Vintage Printers Drawers
I have a growing collection of matchbooks and other things (like this clipboard) from old businesses in my hometown of Springfield, Missouri.
Random pro tip: If you're not sure what to do with a cute card, hang it on the wall!
Save the best for last, they say. I had to share another prized possession— the chunky turtleneck sweater from Gap's 2000 holiday collection.
Teenage me would have never imagined this would be such a big deal 24 years later, but here we are.
I found this gem at Goodwill one night while I sifted through a rack of sweaters. It was only $6, and I plan on wearing it until I'm 90 years old (maybe).
xoxo, Jacki