Category: One Room Challenge

Things are moving along with my One Room Challenge space! Let’s talk design this week. First up, the bedroom. It will look a little something like this.

And here’s how we’ll get there.

1. Shelby Accessory Tower, Pottery Barn
   This has been in the room since shortly after we moved in. Glasses, scarves, belts, jewelry… it’s all inside.

2. Falcon LED Ceiling Fan, Rejuvenation
   We took the ceiling fan down from the room and are looking to replace it. This is the frontrunner (form + function!), though I’m considering others.

3. Willow Bedside Table, Pottery Barn
   I bought the floor model when these went on clearance a few months ago. I had been eyeing it at full price, so I was happy to score a deal!

4. Beverly Turquoise Ceramic Table Lamp, Lamps Plus*
   The color bridges the two rooms, the brass details are darling, and the simple shape contrasts with the bed.

5. White Trim, Black Doors (example)
   Our stripped fir millwork, windows, and doors have been painted!

6. Linen Curtains (?)
   Still up for debate.

7. White Blush Paint, Benjamin Moore; Painting by Paintzen*
   The palest pink, and not at all ‘baby.’

8. Custom Vintage Dresser, MegMade*
   This dresser is on the other side of the bed. I selected the piece and chose the color, they painted and delivered it.

9. Accent (Blythe) Chair (?)
   I already own this, having bought a floor model and repaired it, but I’d be stealing it from another room. I the right vintage/used/antique chair comes along, I’ll go with that.

10. Antique Wooden Dresser
    From an antiques store in Northern Wisconsin. I bought this right before we moved in.

11. Black Striped Tibor Ginger Jar, Houzz (Talavera Vazquez Pottery)
    Hand-painted black and white stripes update a classic ginger jar shape.

12. Striped Cachepots, West Elm
    More black and white stripes in smaller, more affordable accessories.

13. Round Gold Mirror, Bellacor*
    One large round mirror to go above the painted dresser. The glass is antiqued, so it’s more about the size and scale than needing a true reflection.

14. Nate Berkus Microdash Sheets, Target
    These, combined with the throw pillows, make it seem like we’re sleeping on millions of little eyelashes. But you know. In a way that’s pretty.

15. Moroccan Pom Pom Throw Blanket (example)
    I have one from my trip to Marrakech!

16. Pink Belgian Flax Linen Duvet Cover & Shams, West Elm
    I bought this set in white for my old bed, but when we upgraded and needed king-sized bedding, I opted for pink. Best decision.

17. Wink Wink Pillow, People I’ve Loved
    Seemingly the source of our sheets’ eyelashes. (Fun sentence to write!)

18. Isabelle Tufted Bench, Joss & Main*
    I underestimated the functional appeal of a bench at the foot of the bed until we had a bed so high off the ground that my feet didn’t touch when I sat on the edge. Bench welcome home!

19. Quincy Bed, Ethan Allen
    I’ve written before about my thoughts on choosing this bed. No regrets.

20. Taupe/Gold Nyla Rug, Loloi*
    Quiet enough to work as a complement to everything else, but still beautiful in its own right.

And then we have the den. Photoshop! This isn’t the layout, just an overall idea of how everything works together.

Ta da, the plan.

1. Galileo 8-ight Forged Bronze Chandelier, Crystorama*
   Spiky and kind of tough, but kind of sweet too. A good blend of masculine and feminine.

2. Aqua Round Cachepot, Jayson Home
   I bought one when I was pregnant and for some reason the life growing within me translated to a need to surround myself with life of the growing green plant kind. Weird. This was in the entry, and now it will move to the den.

3. Robert Abbey Light Blue Ceramic and Brass Gourd Table Lamp, Lamps Plus*
   Shapely, and the color looks great with the walls.

4. ART! (But what?)
   That’s the question, isn’t it. I have some ideas — see below.

5. Fiddle-Leaf Fig in a Gainey Planter
   I had my Fancy Blogger Tree setup like this in the library of our first house, and I miss it.

6. Linen Curtains (?)
   Again, still up for debate. This room needs pattern more than the bedroom, and curtains are an easy way to add it.

7. Blake Grey Wash Media Stand, Crate & Barrel
   Picked up a couple of years ago at the C&B outlet when we first moved in.

8. Everard Blue Paint, Benjamin Moore; Painting by Paintzen*
   Right there at the intersection of green and blue. Lots of depth.

9. Barclay Arc Table Lamps, Pottery Barn
   These looked great when we had them on either side of the platform bed, but I’m thinking of moving them to a simple console table behind the sofa.

10. Hemnes Glass-Door Bookshelves, IKEA
    Because we have too many books.

11. Rose Chair in Stone Basketweave, Interior Define*
    A pair of these will flank the couch. They’re great for curling up in — good for movie nights.

12. Silk Hand-Loomed Pink Rosette Pillow, West Elm
    Pink, to tie-in with the bedding the next room over.

13. Kivik Sofa in Isunda Brown, IKEA
    The only way to get a sofa upstairs is to do it in pieces, so IKEA worked well for this room. Maybe a new cover?

14. Threshold Granby Brass Cylinder Drum Table, Target
    A sturdy little side table in hammered brass.

15. Silk Hand-Loomed Moonstone Pillow, West Elm
    I like the texture of these pillows a lot. This one picks up on the color of the lamp.

16. Les Touches Black Pillow, Arianna Belle*
    Grown up polka dots! Reminiscent of animal print, but not a literal copy.

17. Ivy Ottoman in Turquoise Velvet, One Kings Lane
    The original delivery date for this has already passed. It was pushed back and now it’s supposed to get here between “April 29 – March 24.” Say what? I love it, but do I try to find something else and cancel this, or take a chance that it will get here in time?

18. Long Gold Metal Tray, Pottery Barn
    If we’re going to do an ottoman in place of a coffee table, we’ll need a tray on top.

19. Taupe/Gold Nyla Rug, Loloi*
    I chose matching rugs for both spaces for continuity.

So overall, on track. The rooms have already been painted and I’ll have photos for you next week. The colors look so good together! And the white trim? Black doors? YES. I need to order a ceiling fan, then install it along with the other new light. I’m keeping an eye out for the right accent chair, but if nothing turns up I’ll steal from another room in the house. Do I forget about the turquoise ottoman, or trust that it will arrive in time? And go simple with window treatments, or bring in color or pattern (or both)?

And then there’s the big blank wall. It’s the wall that used to have a door in it, before we remodeled the second floor. There’s a big cast iron radiator on one end, and a bump out for the chimney on the other. Trio of beetles? Ten matching brass frames with DIY something inside? Farts neon sign? (Probably that last one, right? It’s super sophisticated.)

Decisions, decisions.

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Claire Brody • The Curated House • Design Manifest • Driven by Decor • Honey We’re Home • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • My Sweet Savannah • Pencil and Paper Co. • The Pink Clutch • Savvy Home • Simplified Bee • Sketch 42 • Jill Sorensen • Orlando Soria • Thou Swell • The Vault Files • Waiting on Martha • The Zhush • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH

* An asterisk denotes the sponsors providing product for this makeover. Their partnership is greatly appreciated!

The One Room Challenge begins today! Twenty designers and design bloggers will each be sharing room makeovers from start to finish over the next six weeks. I’ll be taking on our bedroom and its adjacent room. Two rooms, technically, but I’m treating them as one because they’re open to each other. Also, one side clearly needs a lot more help than the other.

Here’s a shot from when we moved in, so you can better understand how the two rooms work together. The farthest doorway, through which you can see a kitchen sink, is no longer there. We removed it when we turned a former kitchen (from when our house was divided into a 3-flat) back into a bedroom.

The Bedroom

Our home was shot for the Christmas issue of HGTV Magazine last year, and at the time, the bedroom looked like this.

We upgraded from a queen-sized bed to a king last fall, and when we did that I bought a new bed that I absolutely love. I gave away all of our old too-small bedding and picked up a pink linen duvet cover and pale pink sheets. The new bed is much higher than our old platform bed, so I also needed new bedside tables. I found one as a floor model on clearance, and decided that a long, low dresser would work next to the bed on the other side. MegMade is a local Chicago company that refinishes vintage furniture, and they invited me a while back to their showroom and warehouse to select a piece. I chose a vintage 9-drawer dresser (three drawers are hidden behind that door) and had them paint it white.

If you’re noticing that blue mesh guardrail hanging down from the bed, no doubt you are jealous of its beauty. Calvin is co-sleeping because by child number three we have given up. Have at it, children! Raise yourselves! I was working from a desk in the bedroom for a while after he was born. I’m not now, but the desk is still in the room (having moved from the windows over to the french doors). We can’t open the doors now with it in the way, so it’s gotta go.

If you read my last post about the debacle that has been our Victorian’s rewiring, you know that there was a lot of damage to the walls and ceilings. This portion of the second floor fared well though, with only half a dozen relatively small holes to repair.

On the other side of the room, we have two doors with just enough room for a dresser between. The door on the left is the entrance from the hallway, and on the right is the closet/dressing room.

The Den

Moving on the other side of the french doors, we have the adjoining room. The Victorian has some quirks to it and a name hasn’t really stuck for the space (sitting room / den / TV room / family room), but I suppose “den” is appropriate enough. This is the part that really needs to most help during the One Room Challenge. It hasn’t changed much since we threw all of our mismatched furniture in there.

This is where we watch movies or play video games because we don’t have a TV downstairs. We aren’t big sports fans (nobody’s coming over to watch ‘the game’) and with tablets and streaming, I feel like the role of a TV in the home isn’t as important. Our needs may change as the kids get older, but right now this setup works for us.

When we remodeled the second floor, we returned the hallway to its original configuration and were able to remove the extra door. You can play a game of spot the differences below. The white rug is in a different room now, that little lantern came down when the room was rewired, and simple curtains went up a while back. Little changes that didn’t amount to much, but things will soon be looking a whole lot better.

There’s a play table, shoved in a corner, that doesn’t need to be there. The armchair is nice but it isn’t great in that spot. Again, we hadn’t done much in this room beyond the initial attempt to just make it functional. Comfy couch? Check. TV? Check. The bookcases will stay because we have too many books. There are some holes to fix in this room too, but nothing as bad as when we removed that door, so small potatoes.

The Plan

Paint, paint, paint. Do you want to get mad at me for painting the millwork this week, or the next? (It’s going to look amazing.) The bedroom is in a good place but needs a bench at the foot of the bed, a rug, something over the dresser, curtains, and other finishing touches. The den is getting a new rug too, chairs, and a whole lot more. I’ll have all the details of the plan for you next week, complete with a couple of mockups.

I cannot wait to show you. I’ll be sharing tons of sneak peeks and behind the scenes stuff on Instagram and Snapchat, so follow along over there too. The painting is already underway!

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Claire Brody • The Curated House • Design Manifest • Driven by Decor • Honey We’re Home • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • My Sweet Savannah • Pencil and Paper Co. • The Pink Clutch • Savvy Home • Simplified Bee • Sketch 42 • Jill Sorensen • Orlando Soria • Thou Swell • The Vault Files • Waiting on Martha • The Zhush • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH