Creative Upgrades Transformed This Childhood Bedroom into a Stylish Guest Space

Melissa Inman knew she couldn’t keep her daughter’s room the same after she moved away for college. Once her daughter gathered everything she wanted to keep, the teenager’s bedroom looked like “a hot mess,” Inman says. “I couldn’t leave it the way it was because it made me sad, so I decided to revamp.”

With some help from her husband and a few ideas for DIY projects, Inman got to work redoing her daughter’s teenage bedroom with hopes of turning it into a stylish guest room. The first task on the list? Painting it a pretty shade of pink.

Choosing a Paint Color

Inspired by artwork from graphic designer Jade Purple Brown, Inman decided to paint the room a bright shade of pastel pink. The rest of Inman’s house features blues, whites, and creams, so her pink color choice came as a surprise. “The peachy pink was very far out of my comfort zone,” she says. “When I got it, I was a little concerned about how much peachy pink there was.” In addition to three of the walls, Inman also painted the closet doors and the back of the bedroom door.

Inman wasn’t sold on the color until she incorporated warm tones and textured items. She says the neutral runner at the end of the bed, brown accents, and a wood nightstand helped to ground the space, making the wall color less overwhelming. “I do like it now,” Inman says. “It definitely is still a very different vibe than the rest of the rooms in my house, but I think it’s really a fun vibe.”

Building a Feature Wall

The DIY honeycomb wall (made from pieces of wood the Inmans cut and attached to the wall themselves) was one feature Inman wanted to keep in the room. When her daughter lived in the room, the wall was painted in a collection of colors ranging from blue and green to yellow and purple. Instead of removing the colorful honeycomb, Inman painted the wall a neutral white to balance out the other pink walls.

Because of the busy honeycomb shapes, Inman kept the surrounding decor simple. A wooden bench with a few pillows gives guests a place to sit and slip on shoes, and an indoor tree brings a fresh pop of greenery.

Combining Old and New

When it came to decorating the room, Inman used a combination of new and existing decor items collected over time. For example, she paired a new bouclé headboard with vintage marquee letters that spell “snooze” that she found on Facebook Marketplace and at salvage stores.

“I thought ‘snooze’ was funny,” Inman says. “It just felt appropriate for a bedroom.” To dress the letters up, she gave them a coat of paint and lined the back of the letters with contact paper to hide existing holes where wires would connect the letters to lightbulbs.

In addition to the marquee letters, Inman updated an old dresser to fit the new-and-improved guest room. To revamp the dresser, which was originally outfitted in bird-patterned wallpaper, Inman covered the fronts of the drawers with pole wrap, painted it a creamy white, and switched out the drawer pulls. For the top, Inman said she wanted the look of marble without the spendy price tag, so she topped the dresser with a faux marble top made from MDF board and self-adhesive paper.

Along with a new duvet, lamp, runner rug, and curtains, Inman decorated the room with pieces she gathered over time. Artwork from her favorite artists (plus two drawings of her dogs) hangs above the dresser, and books, plants, and a vintage camera sit snugly inside the marquee letters above the bed. Inman said it’s the little details that make the new room feel like it’s still a part of their home.

“It feels like ours … even with the peachy pink,” Inman says.