Before and After - Spare Room

We have a weird spare room off of our master bedroom that has served several different purposes in the past. It began as an office, but it was too secluded from the rest of the house. Then it became a nursery for my daughter. Later, it was a spare bedroom, but it doesn't have a closet or a bathroom so it didn't really work well as a bedroom. Lately, it has been a messy catch-all space for random furniture and accessories. Hmmmmm...what to do....

Before

The armoire served us well 15 years ago when televisions were big and bulky and had to be hidden away.

Before

The guitars had to stay and be easily accessible. I really did not want to get rid of anything.

Before
At one time I thought about making the room into a large closet, but the sunlight from the windows would ruin my clothes. Plus, there is a door that leads to the lanai from this room.

After

Voila! I hung one of the guitars on the wall using an instrument hanger from the local music store. I stacked books from an over flowing bookcase in another part of the house on the floor. I LOVE this idea. It is easy, it costs nothing, and it can be done in any room.

I tried to group the books by subject. These are mostly travel books mixed with a few decorating books.

I hung the brown, Pottery Barn, drapery panels on both ends of the window wall. This made the windows less dominating, plus it hides ugly hurricane shutter levers. This guitar is played the most, so I left it on its stand.

Instead of hiding these boxes away, I stacked them neatly as part of the decorating scheme. Under the table, I stacked some old magazines that I cannot part with just yet. I am thinking of painting this little table another color. I haven't decided yet.

We bought this birds-eye maple, antique desk years ago for a song.

This antique tray originally had a painted glass insert that was sooooo pretty. My mom gave it to me for Christmas, but it arrived broken! So I removed the broken glass and had a piece of plexi-glass cut to fit inside. I also had a piece of black picture matting cut to fit the bottom. Now it serves as a display tray for photos and postcards.

I moved the ottoman against the wall. The lid lifts for storage. This is a great place for coats and sweaters that are rarely used.

I hung ledges on this wall to unify all of the random pictures and objects.

Now for my favorite part!

I converted the old tv armoire to use as purse storage! This freed up valuable closet space for me and made the purses more accessible. I hung cork boards on the doors for photos, notes, etc.

I stacked flat purses in the large plastic drawer and small evening bags in the lower portion of the armoire.

I arranged my small Enid Collins bag collection so that it can be enjoyed anytime instead of hidden inside my closet. I used to have a large collection of the Collins bags, but sold them on eBay. I kept the ones that were in the family and a few that were just special to me.

Small cup hooks were used to hang the vintage Lucite purses. Now I can enjoy my purse collection every day.


This was such a fun project. The only things I bought were the drapery panels, drapery rods, the guitar wall hanger, and the picture ledges. Everything else was re-used, re-arranged, or re-purposed. More organized, more enjoyable, and much more useful!