Guest Bedroom Updates: Ceiling Fan, Floor Decision, and Bedside Tables

Progress has been slow and steady on the guest bedroom over the last week. I’m at that point where it feels like all of the wood filling, sanding, caulking, and painting are never going to end. I’m trying to push through, but I’m getting pretty bored with it, and I really want to move on to the fun stuff!

But I did make one decision for the guest bedroom that I really love and wanted to share. This may sound strange, but it’s the ceiling fan!

I’m one of those people who generally hates the look of a ceiling fan, but I’m also a Texan, and so living without ceiling fans really isn’t an option. For me personally, I absolutely must have a ceiling fan in the bedroom.

I had purchased one previously, and it was one that I just settled for because I’ve never thought it was possible to find a fan that I really love. So I got a fan that was just okay, but then decided I could probably do better. But after searching through hundreds of fans online, I realized that none of them really thrilled me. So I headed back up to Home Depot to see what they had, and bought the least ugly one they had in stock.

Well, it turns out that I really do love it! Not only was it easy to install (I installed it by myself), but I really love the look of it…as ceiling fans go.

The fan blades are different colors on each side, and I used the gray-washed oak side. And the integrated LED light has three different colors/temperatures you can choose from with the remote — daylight, soft white, and warm white. I prefer the soft white. And I LOVE that this fan isn’t hanging from a skinny pole that can wobble when the fan is on high speed. So this is my new favorite fan. I should probably go ahead and get three more for future rooms before they sell out. The price is great at $139, and it comes in a really dark bronze finish as well.

I’m also trying to make a decision on the floor in the bedroom. I’m about 97.25% sure that I’m going to paint the floor rather than stain it.

My reasoning?

I really love area rugs, but wheelchairs and area rugs just don’t play nicely together. I don’t want to cause unnecessary struggles for Matt by insisting that we have a rug, and I don’t want to go through the headache (again) of trying to find the perfect rug in the perfect size and the perfect colors that’s also thin enough to not cause frustrations for him, so I’ve decided (well, almost decided) that I’m going to paint the floor.

I don’t want it to be anything too loud or too bold. In fact, I think I’ll just repeat the same colors that I’ve used in the music room, the hallway, and the guest bedroom already — Behr Polar Bear (the trim color) and Benjamin Moore Classic Gray (the wall color).

At first I considered staining the outer edges of the floor, and then painting just a “rug” sized area in the middle of the room where the bed will go. But the problem with that is that the room is so small that by the time I paint an area that is an adequate size for a “rug” to go under a queen size bed and extend the proper distance on either side and past the foot of the bed, it’ll pretty much take up the whole floor anyway. So I think I’ll just do the entire thing.

As far as patterns, I’ve narrowed my selection down to two. Since I have a floral wall, I think the floor needs to be geometric and simple, so this is the first of the two designs I’m considering…

But again, keep in mind that mine will be much more subtle with white and very light gray. In fact, they’re the same colors I used on the music room walls. Remember how subtle it was before I added the black Sharpie marker accents?

And the second design I’m considering is this offset stripe design…

Obviously, that design is painted onto a rug, where mine will be painted directly onto the floor.

Anyway, I started off with about ten designs, and those ended up being my two favorites. And now I’m having a hard time narrowing it down to my favorite. I’m almost certain that I’ve considered both of these designs for other things for other rooms in the past. They keep coming up because I keep being drawn to these same patterns over and over, so I don’t think I’ll get tired of either one of these designs being on my floor anytime soon. I just don’t know which one I like more.

So with the main accent wall done, the decision made on the upholstered bed, and the decision almost made on the floor, I’ve been trying to decide on bedside tables or nightstands as well. And I keep running into a road block there. As a reminder, here’s the accent wall with a very bad mockup of what the upholstered bed will look like against it.

I won’t have that exact bed, but it will be similar.

So…nightstands. I’ve looked at hundreds, and I keep coming back to this one…

I think the price is good at $301, but there are a couple of things that keep me from purchasing two of these. First, the color. I absolutely LOVE the color as it’s shown in that product picture above. But it doesn’t look like that in any of the customer-submitted pictures. In those pictures, it looks darker and…I don’t know…it just doesn’t look nearly as pretty.

Also, those legs. I love a mixture of styles in my house, but mid-century modern has never really been my thing. I have a hard time bringing anything mid-century modern into my house.

But I could deal with the legs, and probably even really like the legs, if the color and finish were exactly as shown in that picture. I just don’t have confidence that it would look like that based on the customer pictures.

So I’m thinking I’ll try to build something very similar to that, and that will give me the chance to get the finish I want, and also use a style of legs that fit my own personal style and taste a bit more.

Anyway, that’s where I’m heading with this room if I can ever get past all of this wood filling, sanding, and caulking. Fingers crossed that I can get all of that stuff done today…or tomorrow by the latest.

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