My goal for this space was to have this room feel like a vacation even though it is just down the hall from my bedroom. The reason for people visiting me is usually to see me but also go to the beach for the day. I wanted this space to feel beachy, but also clean and simple without a lot of clutter.

I love the look of beachy decor and a space where sand is encouraged. It’s officially summer when there is sand in my bed 🙂

There’s a saying that when you have a beach house you also have a lot of “friends”. Just like every other summer, I have friends asking to hang out because that means they get a free beach day. I love that I always have people coming over on the weekends and I’m very lucky my parents are okay with this open door policy. The only thing worse than having a friend last minute invite themselves over is not having a place for them to stay. Luckily my house has 3 completed guest rooms. We have beds for everyone! My new favorite room is the guest room on my floor. It has gone through a lot of renovations over the years- but now it is perfect!

When my brother moved off the third floor when I was in high school (because apparently that’s normal to get the whole floor to yourself as a graduation present) it became a girlie room full of pink. As I’ve grown up, the room has also grown up in many ways.

When I graduated college and moved back home, I had a lot of stuff. Like four years worth of rooms worth of stuff. Everything went into my guest room and the room became a mess.It took months of purging and sorting to get to the bottom of it. Four years of my life worth of decorations, bedding, knick knacks and junk was in that room. This time last year I did some renovations and made it more organized for people to stay in. Finally, I started to put things on the wall and a picked a new theme color leaving the pink behind. But there was still something missing. I didn’t love it. Now that the house is on the market, we are cleaning up all of the rooms for them to be ready for people to see them. So after more purging and sorting, this room is perfect!

Purge

I cannot tell you how many bags I brought to Goodwill to donate, bags of trash and gallons of paint I went through! Every three months or so I do another purge and then another. I have 23 years worth of stuff in 3 rooms and 3 closets. It has to go! Check out my earlier post on how to simplify your life. 

Flowers

Every week I put fresh flowers in every room in our house. In the summer, we are spoiled by our hydrangea bushes that keeps overgrowing. We cut a dozen a week and they keep coming back! Having fresh flowers is an inexpensive but a nice personal touch to have for guests.

Furniture

Something I need to invest money in is furniture. But with the move happening in the near future and I’m still unsure where I will be living, now is not the time to buy furniture only to have to pay to have it moved later. So now I am using my furniture from the 1990s to make an adult room. There is some furniture I cannot wait to get rid of, but some of these pieces I will keep forever. With a few coats of paint and rearranging, I love how it turned out! I found the round table at the town rummage sale for $5 and painted it white to make it more modern. The blue trunk at the end of the bed has been a lifesaver. I had been eyeing a table like that at HomeGoods for months but didn’t want to spend so much on it. Lucky me!!

My closets have zero storage and are very tiny, making it difficult to store shoes. Now all of them fit in the blue trunk. It was given to me as a present and has been a big lifesaver. If the shoe doesn’t fit in the trunk, it’s time to throw out some shoes. I have become very committed to purging everything in my life.  I’ve had the bookcases since before I was born! They were originally built ins for my parents living room in a house they had before I was born. They’ve stayed with me since they were in my baby room and with a new fresh coat of paint, they are good as new!
When designing a room it’s best to make a theme and a color palette. My senior year room color had a blue beachy theme and I was able to use the room decor again and purchase a few items from Target and Home Goods to improve the space. Most of the items in my room were from HomeGoods found in the clearance section for just a few dollars (or pennies!).