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Guest Room Ideas: Upcycling

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guest bedroom ideas, upcycling furniture, upcycled furniture, guest room ideas

Thank you to Luxi for sending me this mattress complimentary. All opinions & experiences are my own. Some links in this post may be affiliate links.

Today is the next room in our home reveal: our guest room inspired by upcycling!! I hope you get some ideas for your own guest room. Before we head into peak at the guest room, I want to talk about the inspiration behind our upcycled guest room.

[RELATED] Jungalow Inspired Home Office

You guys know how much I love mattress shopping online! It's SO nice to skip the store and pushy sales person, and get something delivered straight to your door! Plus, if you lay on a mattress in the store, still won't know how well you'll sleep on it.

For example, who has gotten into a hotel after a long day of traveling, laid on the bed and thought “ahhh this is a dream bed!” only to find yourself with aches and pains in the morning because it was too stiff or too soft ??? It's really hard to tell how good a mattress is by laying on it for a few minutes. Especially if you're tired from traveling or shopping. Which is why I put together an in-depth guide on buying a mattress online.

Environmental Pledge

Most online mattress companies have amazing return policies. Like at least 100 night free trial with a full return no questions asked, don't just go ordering every mattress under the sun to test it! Financially it won't cost you anything upfront. However, the social and environmental costs are massive. Ultimately, we'll pay for generations to come! Can you even begin to imagine the harmful effects to the environment if someone bought five mattresses (or even two) and just threw away 110+ pounds of urethane, rayon, and nylon!?

dead earth

Which is why I partnered with Luxi to bring awareness to this growing issue, and for this room. Listen, I get it, we live in a “burn and churn” society more than ever. We are accustomed to free shipping and returns for most items that can be ordered from our phones. However, Luxi's Environmental Pledge is an important reminder the impact returning a mattress has and our “consumer mindset.”

Shannon Farley, Co-founder of Luxi explains, “owners are empowered to take responsibility for their purchases—from proper cleaning to repairing, reusing and sharing. Consumers take, make, dispose and repeat—a pattern that is driving us towards ecological bankruptcy.” Increased popularity of online mattress sales over the last few years has resulted in thousands of mattresses ending up in donation channels. Seriously, check your local GoodWill or Habitat for Humanity before buying a mattress, because SO many of these retailers are having to dump essentially new mattresses there which ultimately end up clogging landfills.

As part of their environment pledge, Luxi has actually made a customizable mattress! You can unzip that pretty white cover and flip the insides to your preference of soft, medium, or firm! The queen and king allow you to swap the setting on only half the bed. Allowing you and your partner have different preferences you both can get your ideal sleep. How cool is that?

So while some mattress companies are doing their part, like Luxi with their non-toxic materials (no formaldehyde! Yeah, mattress companies literally put formaldehyde in them!) and Nest Bedding with their organic, natural, and certified materials, it's now up to the consumers to not take advantage of the return policy system and harm our environment.

Upcycling

For this room, I decided to take Luxi's environmental pledge to heart and upcycled the bulk of it! That's right, one man's trash is another's treasure for our guest room. The bed frame and end tables came from E's friend whose girlfriend just moved in with him so they were consolidating furniture. The comforter is from my mom's house (formerly a furnished rental she just sold). One of the purchases for this room were these Target pillows I couldn't resist to bring in the plants and blue from the picture.

The desk is from over five years ago. E used it as his workspace in our tiny one bedroom apartment. It's actually where he ran his company from! The chair I bought as a pack of four when we first moved in since we didn't have anywhere to sit. I actually bought them thinking we'd use them  for a kitchen table, but instead used them in my office, guest room, and bedroom. The sheets you can't see, but I need  to shout out since they are so soft and so affordable from Nestl Bedding. We got them for this room first, at $16 and loved them so much we got them for our bedroom too!

The picture above the desk was a gift and the work of the phenomenal Peter Lik. You might recognize it from a post I did a while back on how to make your apartment feel like a home.

 

The 52 Lists Project book is from a PR sample from Caring Crate, an awesome self-care subscription box for those living with mental health or chronic illnesses or just for those who need the extra TLC. Highly recommend you check it out!

The pink Himalayan salt lamp I've had for years, because #ions and it's pretty. I have them in every room of our house and just love the look of them. On the note of earthy materials, I added conchs and urchins to the window sill and desk. I've collected conchs from walks on the beach for years. The urchins are special to me, they're from my parents trip to New Zealand over 10 years ago!

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The Apple MacBook is one of our spares for guests or if I have multiple interns at once. And the plants are all Homegoods finds we've acquired over time.

One of the other purchases were curtains. They're actually a fun hack I learned from Tilley's Threads. Basically I bought a painters drop cloth from Walmart, and these curtain rings. I just cut the drop cloth in half and folded it over to give the top flare look. Total cost? $12! Truth though: My local store only had white with a plastic lining, which is why mine came out more stiff than Tilley's, if you're in my boat too, I would also recommend finding a cheap tablecloth on Amazon like this ($11). I actually bought the one linked. Currently I'm in the process of swapping the curtains out to give them a more natural look. Just double-check your dimensions on that, we have really high ceilings so I needed extra long.

That's it! Nothing fancy, super minimalist. The total cost of new things for this room:$108 (“curtains”, decorative pillows (we got them on sale), and sheets).

I really wanted to show how you can still bring a room together even with hand me downs and upcycling! Guests have room for stuff in four drawers and a huge closet with shelves so we skipped the dresser. TBH, the dresser is actually in our garage. We were too lazy to move it up the stairs, haha! It's a great little peaceful oasis and that window is Tucker's favorite spot in the house! We actually call this, “Tucker's Room” ?.

Check out other rooms in our home tour:

Mid-Century Modern Meets Boho Living Room

Jungalow Inspired Home Office

Minimalism Meets Industrial Decor In Our Master Bedroom

93 thoughts on “Guest Room Ideas: Upcycling”

  2. Kristen Jones

    LOVE your upcycle!! It’s so bright and cozy. That mattress looks so comfy, too!

  4. Amanda | The Light Owl

    So beautiful. Our guest room is SO drab right now and needs a major update. In fact, we were just talking about how we need to get a new mattress for in there! Right now we have an old twin with some pretty ragged sheets. No one will want to sleep in there hahaha.

  6. Ana Catalina Amador

    I’m so in love with this room, I love the colors, the light. Everything about it os so peaceful, perfect for a guest bedroom. I also love that you up cycled your furniture.

  7. Cameron

    I absolutely LOVE this room! And ironically, I just saw an ad for Luxi and was definitely intrigued. How awesome is it that you can customize your mattress and it’s earth friendly? I’ll definitely look into them when it’s time for us to get a new one!

  11. Amanda

    The space is absolutely lovely! I have not heard of Luxi, but am super excited to check them out!

  12. Anna Hubbard

    This is such a pretty guest room! The fact that you can swap the pads in the mattress to make it firm or soft is so cool!

  14. Linda Luke

    I love the idea of a customizable mattress. My last one was sold by a company that marketed latex free, but is not that comfortable. The 52 Lists book is amazing, too.

  15. Jessica Bradshaw

    Your room is beautiful!! I love all of the things you choose for decor. It’s so bright and airy.

  17. Sara Montague Miller

    It looks great! I had never given much thought to the environmental impact of mattresses… thanks for the info!

  21. Bria | Tendril Wild Blog

    I’m obsessed with Himalayan salt lamps, and my mom thinks I’m weird for it, haha. She doesn’t get it, but hello?? Ions.
    I love how each room you reveal is so bright and airy. That’s the only type of room or work space I want to be in!

    Tendril Wild

  24. Robin

    I love the sea urchins, conches, and salt lamp! Gives such a natural, beachy vibe to the room!

  28. Elizabeth Johnson

    Yay! I love room reveals! I love the bed and the small decor choices you made. Simple yet homey!

  36. BakerStBabe

    I love the ideas you shared. I have a salt lamp in my room which I use as a nightlight (because I’m 30 going on 4) and it is really awesome. I also love that you can customize the mattress for each guest!

  41. Jordyn

    The guest room turned out so cute and AMAZING it was on a budget. I love the idea of up cycling for a mattress, Ive never heard of Luxi until now but when I am in the need for another mattress I will totally look into it <3

  42. Corey Wheeland

    Just goes to show that you don’t have to spend a fortune to make something beautiful!

  43. Ashley Stephenson

    I love how you decorated the space and at such a low amount to spend! I need to redo both of our guest rooms – I really want to make one an office but we always have guests at our house!

  46. Jos A

    Wow, can’t believe you created such a great space for a hundred bucks! So pretty and serene!

  47. Hally Yerger

    Oh my gosh! such a beautiful place on a budget! I cant wait to do my house with this move!

  49. Nicole Green

    This room turned out so well; I love how bright it is and that desk is so cool! Upcycling is so smart and helps so much with the overall budget too.

  50. Jaye Shields

    The room looks great, thanks for sharing. I’m doing some redecorating on my boat so I’ll keep these things in mind!

  51. Amanda Kanashiro

    I love upcycling. I prefer it to buying new. Those salt lamps are beautiful. Thanks for the links and ideas, especially the curtains. I need new ones for my house, but they are so expensive.

  52. Patricia @ Grab a Plate

    Wow! Great job on upcycling! Your room looks amazing – I loooove the comforter cover! Great to hear about Luxi since I may be in the market soon 🙂

  53. Kiara Catanzaro

    Gorgeous reveal! Loved your point of upcycling and how you were able to create a bedroom that is environmentally responsible! ☺️Also, I love salt lamps and I need one for my room ASAP!

  55. Sydney Power

    Fantastic work! The room looks great. I am definitely looking into Luxi’s mattress

  57. Chelsie Carr

    So one of my biggest goals for decorating our space is to not buy a ton of new things and try to decorate/repurpose what we already have. Thanks for showing such a great example of that! What a great mission for Luxi!

  59. Bethany

    I LOVE your guest room! I am a big fan of our Himalayan rock salt lamp, AND of houseplants in general. I think this room is going to be so restful, and relaxing for your future guests!

  62. Chanel van Reenen

    We have that same salt lamp and desk chair in our guest bedroom as well! This room is so bright and cozy, I would love to stay here!

  63. steph parrell

    I care a lot about recycling the old to make something new. I love these ideas. Especially the urchins on the window sil, simple yet beautiful. 🙂

  64. She's Not So Basic

    This room came out amazing! You have such a great eye for interior designing! I loveeee the environmental aspect of Luxi and I think it’s super cool that you can customize each side of the bed.

  65. Sheila

    It is beautiful! I am all about upcycling! I also love to take various items in my home and just shift them around for a whole new look. I love box from Caring Crate! The room looks light, lovely and welcoming!

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