How to Build a Guest Room in One Day for Minimal Dollars

1.) Get a bed. Check out your local thrift stores. Get frustrated at all the cheap particle board crap. Drive 1.5 hours to Ikea. Buy the Leirvik Queen bed for $99 (includes headboard, footboard, side rails and midbeam).

I didn't expect the bed to be so sturdy, but it's quite nice!

2.) Get a mattress. Since it's an Ikea bed, you don't need a boxspring if you can't afford it at this moment (We plan on buying it later). You can use wood slats from Lowes, just make sure to buy the $10 steel midbeam from Ikea when you go. Boxsprings are just a myth mattress companies think you really need when you don't anyways. I promise your guests won't spontaneously have backs that burst into flames without one. 

Back to the mattress, go to Garden Ridge and buy the cheapest pillow top Queen that they have. It's called C-Q and it's $149.99. It also has a 10 year warranty (not too shabby). 

It's much better than any hotel mattress (and bed bug free!) but if you have finicky guests, a quality memory foam mattress topper will make it softy soft.

3.) Make the bed.

Borrow bed linens from any family member who has extras. Think outside the box, mix patterns! 

Hit up Goodwill too! I found the ikat duvet there for $1! I didn't have the money to buy an insert and use it as the main duvet yet, so I just draped it over the foot of the bed. It's still pretty. 

I always avoid touching Goodwill fabrics overly much so it wasn't til I washed it at home that I realized it's made by Pottery Barn. Kaching! Awesome bargain, no wonder I loved it so much. 

4.) Construct roman blinds out of cheap $3.47 muslin from Walmart and $4.47 mini blinds from Walmart:

There is an excellent guide that Welcome to Heardmont created that I used to make these (click here). I won't repeat the how-to, just go to her site if you're curious. They're easy to make, just a bit time consuming (about 2 hours to make each one). 

I also bought a curtain rod at Target to hang some sheers from but I didn't have the muscle power to do it myself with my wimpy white girl arms, but these were good enough to make in one day! 

Open...

And closed! They let in light without being cheapy plastic. :)

4.) Add a dresser (all bedrooms need dressers and you need to fill all the empty space!)

I'm not sure why the dresser looks blue up against the builders beige walls?

Looking better and better (ignore the unused curtain rod).

5.) Add in some random stuff to make it feel lived in from random boxes.

In this shot I  threw down an apple green rug that tied in with the bed pillow for guests' feet in the morning. For the dresser top I kept it simple with a pineapple palm tree and a candle that is pumpkin scented.

On the other side of the bed I stuck an extra Ikea Lack side table and a random desk lamp I pulled from a box. Gotta put your late night glass of water somewhere.

6.) Lastly, don't sweat the small stuff. You did this whole room in a day and on minimial dollars....

And no one will notice that you totally forgot to joint compound up the fist hole behind the door. Oops! 

Budget breakdown:

$99 for the Leirvik Ikea bed frame in white. 

$150 for queen mattress from Garden Ridge

$18 for 8 1x4x8 furring strips from Lowes to work as bed slats

$25 for curtain rod from Target (not hung yet)

$26 for WILMA curtains from Ikea (not hung yet)

$12 for 4 yards of muslin from Walmart

$9 for mini blinds from Walmart

Total: $ 339

Obviously it still needs wall paint, art on the walls, and curtains. Plus the majority of the bed linens aren't staying. Not bad for one day though, eh?