I put together a quick interim guest room for my mother-in-law’s visit while prepping to finally decorate the room for Sol. For a year and a half this room has had almost nothing but an IKEA PAX wardrobe and a crib. I hate the crib, which I half-unintentionally bought off Facebook Marketplace, but that’s a story for another time. Here’s the before:

Sad state. The crib might work in a more traditional home, but it makes no sense in mine. Crib aside, whenever we have guests we move Sol to our room. Often people sleep on the floor:

The chair is now in Jake’s office and the runner is in our bedroom, so there wasn’t much left to make the room inviting. Since I was already gearing up to turn Sol’s room into something other than four walls, I decided to pick up a few extra things while at IKEA to warm up the guest room.

Rules for shopping at IKEA include:

1. Don’t get one of the ubiquitous geometric rugs. Instead choose a neutral one, like a LOHALS or HJORTSVANG or SVÄRDBORG.

2. Steer clear of the art.

I broke both of these rules in this room. I picked up the (in)famous STOCKHOLM rug for Sol because I love the black and white. This rug might be the most IKEA-screaming rug of all IKEA rugs. But it’s been around for so long I feel like it has turned a corner from cloyingly pervasive to … iconic. Surely debatable. I skipped the art section entirely on this visit, but when I backtracked to pick up something else, I spotted a giant peacock on the wall. It’s the new PÅLHULT hanging tapestry and for ₪75 ($19.99), why not.

The MOLNSKIKT lampshade has a suede-like texture and will stay in Sol’s room. The NEIDEN bed is on loan from Talia’s room and on it I put the TIMJANSMOTT bedspread with a NATTSLÄNDA pillowcase (Talia is using its comforter cover). I took the doors off the IVAR storage unit we already had to make it a bookshelf, and I picked up a bunch of the SÄCKKÄRRA bags for linen storage to clear out space in the closet for guests.

I moved one of the chairs from the kids’ LÄTT table to by the bed, stacked coffee table books on it, and clipped on the NÄVLINGE light so it can be used as a temporary bedside table. Then I added some more artwork that I had in storage: a photo I took of the Sea of Galilee, a small map of the Washington D.C. area where I’m from, a green Warhol cat, and a tiny painting from Mexico. The large leaf fell off a tree outside our building.

The result is, no doubt, very IKEA, but for two weeks it will serve its purpose.