Front Room Turned Guest Room Makeover and Ikea Holmsund Review

 I've said this time and time again, almost like every other month, but my front room has seen yet another makeover. But this time, it's big. Like, new furniture big. We only have 3 bedrooms in our house, so when our littlest finally needed a nursery, I had to find a place for guests to sleep. I mulled over a lot of ideas, but turning our front room into a quasi guest room was the best idea being the most practical and cheapest.

 We have people staying over maybe only a couple nights every other month, so it really didn't make sense to have a whole room dedicated to guests anyway; especially when we need the space so desperately.

 So, the hunt for duel purpose furniture began. I had a couple of ideas for the bed, but this one from Ikea won. It's the Holmsund. It's kind of like a grown up futon. It looks like a couch, but then folds out into a bed. Plus, it has a slipcover which is a win in my books :) It gives me the look that I love of Ikea's Ektorp, but with the bed I need. Apparently, as I was researching, the Ektorp used to come in a sofa bed. I'm sad I missed that boat :(

 The couch itself is far from comfortable. Not at all actually, at least compared to the couch we used to have here. Sitting on it kind of gives a jolt especially when we're used to sitting on a really good cushioned sofa. Over the past weeks I have somewhat gotten used to it though.

 The plus side, you can layer and layer tons of pillows and still have room to sit. This thing is deep!

 The bed is roughly the size of a queen so it fits standard queen size bedding and sleeps 2 people. As you can figure, since the couch was hard so is the bed. I had to go buy a 2 inch memory foam topper for this to be comfortable enough. Didn't plan on the extra expense, but it still came under half the price of the other sofa sleepers I was looking at.

 Another plus, it has great storage! The seat pulls out and reveals a spot for your bedding...and the mattress topper :) Then the back folds down to get the whole bed.

 Would I buy this again? Yes. Even if I knew I would have to buy a topper I would do it. It's super cute both ways. Obviously, in my perfect world I would have a dedicated guest room with a real bed, but for now this will have to do! The cost of the Holmsund was about $550 plus tax. The mattress topper I picked out was from Target was a Threshold 2" Gel Memory Foam that I got on sale for $115. The good thing also with the mattress topper is that you won't have to worry about the little gap where the top meets the bottom when your sleeping :)

 The next thing to change in this room was the rug! Santa brought me this rug for Christmas :) It was too pretty and soft to put in our living room. I knew it would get trashed in there within a week, so I decided to put it in here temporarily. Then I fell in love with it. So, it's been in here ever since. It's the Keno Moroccan Shag Rug from RugsUSA.

 I also did a few updates to my faux fireplace I built before Christmas. I enlarged the wood mantel and added some wood into the center. I was going to go with birch slices, so I bought a few pieces of birch logs and starting cutting them up. Four pieces in, I hit a knot and the wood kicked back at me, bruising my hand. So, I'm not dumb. I stopped that quickly and went online to buy some already sliced pieces of wood lol :) I got these from Amazon; 50 pieces of $25. Worth the money in my book :) Not birch, but I still like the look.

 Another addition was this amazing bench. The tree stumps gave me anxiety every time the kids played in here, so I decided to move them outside. Plus, I'm all about multi-purpose furniture nowadays and those did nothing :) I was wanting a large storage ottoman, but I also wanted to add a little bit of wood. I was thinking of making one, but priced it out and decided it would be cheaper to buy one instead.

 I did a lot of searching and found this awesome bench. I decided I could totally use it as an ottoman or coffee table. It's the Abilene Fabric Storage Ottoman from Target. It has great storage for the kids toys. So, yes, I guess this is a living room/guest room/play room :) I'll talk more about the storage in an upcoming post. But, until then, just take a look at the wood on this! I love it. It gave me the perfect blend of what I wanted and needed. I got it on sale for a little under $150.

As for the guest room part again, this armoire works as the perfect closet. I just have to get rid of my plethora of pillows first :)

The only problem now is figuring out what to do with this wide open door. Obviously it lacks a little privacy. I have had this curtain hanging herefor years now, so it has worked for the time being, but I think I want to hang some barn doors. The only problem is figuring out how to work around the air intake on the baseboards that are right by here. I have some extended guests staying next month, so I guess I should get working on that lol.

This poor room has seen so many changes, and if you are a regular reader, thanks for sticking through yet another one! And as a disclaimer, I did not receive anything from Ikea for the review of the Holmsund. I just didn't see any out there when I was doing my due diligence, so I figured it would be nice to have at least one out there for now :)

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