Dreaming of a bungalow/cottage…the guest room.

I know that I have written of our wish to downsize before.  Every time Dave and I talk about this people try to talk us out of it…telling us we need our space with teens.  Well, the fact of the matter is Will goes off to college in a year and Harry will be gone 3 years after that.  Also, I don't really think we need as much space as we have.  I think we will be fine with less. I actually crave less stuff and less space. I am also craving a creative design project.

If the perfect cottage/bunglaow came up in our neighborhood we would grab it.  But they never come for sale or builders buy them and tear them down.  So, we are looking in surrounding neighborhoods with the intent to rent the house out for about 3-4 years and then remodel it to suit our needs.

Currently, I feel frustrated because I love remodeling/designing/building.  Before I ever blogged, Dave and I bought an old home in a fabulous neighborhood and we gutted and designed a new kitchen.  This was 14-15 years ago (I was pregnant with Harry:). It was stressful but I loved the creative process.

Then, we built our house in Virginia.  These were the pre-pinterest days and I had an artists sketchbook full of ideas and photos of what I wanted in that house. I had been collecting those images and ideas for years.  I took them to the architect and challenged him to design the house.  He did and it was a fabulous house.  I loved choosing all of the details for that house.

The market in Houston is tough.  Things go quickly so we have missed out on some opportunities.

So, I am going to get my creative urges out here through the blog and pinterest.  I've done it before but I intend to go room by room fantasizing about my dream home.  I want fewer room but not small rooms. We have giant hallways in our current home.  They are beautiful but they are completely wasted space.  Kate does have her balance beam set up in one hallway;)

Today I will start with what I will call the guest room.  In all likelihood our next house will be a 3 bedroom that we move into when both boys are in college so it will be their room when they come home for summer/Christmas breaks or a guest room when they are gone. Therefore, it makes sense to me to have two twin beds.

I like that this has both masculine and feminine touches.
But it might be a little too feminine for the boys.

Source

I like this simple masculine look above.  I think I'd use much more streamlined sconces though.

The cords and wires bother me.

Source

This Sarah Richardson design is also clean and simple and can be changed easily with accessories.
Plus it seems very gender neutral for the guest room/boys room.




I love this one above but I would use a different light fixture.  Something more modern and less feminine. I'd also have a dark gray  chest in the middle instead of white.  These are full beds which would be too big for most of the cottages we're looking at but I love the idea of two full beds in a guest room if they fit.




I think this is from Martin Bullard but could not verify the original source.

This one is my favorite which kind of surprises me.  I am not usually a fan of this bed style. I think I like the light and dark with touches of coral.  Plus the draped fabric over the beds visually separates them a bit.  I like the clean simplicity of all of these. I think this is the look I am leaning toward.

What Dave and I really need is either The Property Borthers or Chip and Joanna Gaines to come help us makeover one of these original bungalows.  We saw one today that we know had potential but everything needed to be re-done. Seriously, it had a pond/fountain in the dining room y'all!  It also needed more repairs than made financial sense. It seemed too overwhelming even though I could visualize it down the road.