Tag: Sitting Room

One Room Challenge: Week 6 (the Bedroom and Den Final Reveal!)

Today’s the day! The final reveal of my One Room Challenge space! Our bedroom has an adjoining room that we’re using as a family den, separated by a set of French doors. Two rooms, but I’ve been working on them together as one larger space because they are so open to each other.

Shall we?

A little different from the starting point, eh?

So much orange-toned fir. I don’t miss that unpainted wood at all! Again, a huge thank you to Paintzen for taking on the paint job. I can’t wait for the day I can make the rest of the second floor match these two rooms with white trim and black doors throughout. And no holes in the walls! Oh, smooth walls and unblemished ceilings, how I long for you.

All right, let’s dive in and see these two rooms from every little angle. The bedroom is painted in White Blush, and the den, Everard Blue. Simply White is the trim color, and the doors are Black Beauty, all Benjamin Moore colors.

I worked with a lot of the existing furniture in the bedroom, like the black cannonball Quincy bed, an antique Empire dresser, a jewelry armoire, and a vintage wooden dresser provided by MegMade, painted white. Some of the accessories and other elements were already here too, like the pink linen duvet cover and Wink Wink pillows.

The dresser is standing in for a bedside table on Brandon’s side. (His stack of books is usually precariously high, so I edited it down to the just a couple and we’re going to pretend that it always looks like this.) I hung a huge new mirror from Bellacor above it on the room’s longest wall. It has antiqued glass (which is more noticeable in these photos than it seems to me in person), so it bounces light around and fills the space nicely without being a perfect reflection. The mirror is 43″ in diameter and weighs 38 pounds — kind of a beast to put up, but it’s nice and secure hanging from our room’s picture rail.

Our turquoise lamps are from Lamps Plus. I like the simplicity of their column silhouette, and those brass details paired with that blue are perfection. They can be pretty bright, but we’ve long used a little trick to dim our bedside lights and make it easier to turn them off before going to sleep. Ta da! Put those lamps on dimmer cords, people. No more going through all that effort of sitting up and reaching to turn off the light like some sort of animal.

The dresser is his and his alone (the man has as many clothes as I do), but I decorated the far end as I pleased with this cute trio. I added a succulent instead of flowers, so you know. Manly. The polka dots on the bud vase have blue centers that match the cachepot, and I’m digging the hand painted stripes of the ginger jar.

On the other side of the bed, I have a round forged iron table with an antiqued mirror top that echoes the mirror on the wall. It’s 34″ in diameter, giving me a pretty nice sized surface to clutter up, but I cleared it off before I took these photos. Books, books, books everywhere in this house. Magazines, too. Let’s just pretend that’s not the case and that I always have a fresh flowers there, deal? (I think the pillow is in on the charade. Wink.)

Opposite the bed, between the closet and the door to the room, is my dresser. I know the red of the lamp is out of nowhere and I’m breaking the design rule of repetition (repeat a color/shape/whatever 3/5/x times), and I don’t care. It’s like wearing red lipstick. You don’t need red nail polish and red shoes too, it can be its own thing. Look how happy Mr. Muttonchops is to be in close proximity to such a fabulous lamp!

I found a pair of vintage slipper chairs at Divine Consign, a local furniture consignment store. I only needed one here, but I’m hanging on to its mate in case we ever want to move them to a different room. They’d look amazing reupholstered in pink velvet or a killer print, but I like the way the blue bridges the space between the bedroom and the den. (These are similar, if you’re looking for one of your own.)

The tall dresser that looks like a printer’s cabinet is a holding my scarves, jewelry, glasses and sunglasses, what have you. Above it is a painting by Jenny Vorwaller and a Junk in the Trunk ceramic tree stump that I’m using as a vase (a gift from Brandon a few years back). And a beetle! Little silver beetle, you’re so cute. We’ll get to your larger brethren shortly.

I added a tufted bench from Joss & Main to the foot of the bed. It’s a nice place to sit, sure, but it’s also a very handy laundry basket holder. Multitasker! The natural linen color will always work with our bedding, even as we change it and mix and match over the years. Adding to what we already had, the bed is dressed in black and white dashed sheets and a boyfriend matelassé coverlet from Pine Cone Hill. I’ve missed having a blanket to layer on the bed since giving them all away when we upgraded to our king-sized bed last fall, and this one is so soft! There’s a matching throw blanket in the den. We also have matching shams and I was going to add my Moroccan pom pom blanket to the bed, but it was all a bit too much at once.

I changed out the ceiling fan that came with the house for this one that looks (and works) a whole lot better. There’s a remote! Like we live in the future! May we never lose it, for it will not work without it!

The Nyla rug from Loloi that’s in the bedroom is also in the den. There’s a lot of dimension and subtle color in the pattern, and it feels so good on bare feet. It’s made of viscose (an alternative to pricier silk rugs), so it wouldn’t be the best choice for a high traffic area, but it should be fine here. Matching the design between the two rooms adds cohesion.

Keeping the window treatments consistent between the two rooms helps with cohesion, too. Tonic Living turned their pale pink linen into lined pinch-pleat curtains for me. They were great to work with, taking the dimensions of my windows and creating panels in the right sizes (the ones hanging on the double window in the bedroom are wider to ensure that yes, we can fully close them). I hung the curtains from the brass rods in an antique brass finish and glass finials that I bought shortly after we moved in to this house. I’d hung two in the den before the ORC makeover, but it’s very nice to finally put all four to good use.

Moving on to the den, what’s that on the far wall? Questionable DIY art!

Just what this room needed: illustrations from the 1700s of insects, blown up to be six feet long. In 3D, no less!

I looked through three volumes of these illustrations by Rösel Von Rosenhof to find my favorites. The images are in the public domain (and this project is for personal use anyway), so I downloaded the PDF files I needed, lassoed the bugs in Photoshop, and scaled them up. I sent the files to a local printer to be printed on matte paper, then I cut the insects out with an X-acto knife, mounted them with spray glue onto black foam core boards, and cut them out again with an X-acto chisel blade. I attached picture hanging hardware to the backs (two per bug), added extra blocks of foam core to lift them away from the wall, and hung them with fishing line from the picture rail. I painted simple clouds on the 4’x5′ canvas behind them using leftover interior paint (the pale pink from the bedroom and a medium pink from another project).

I could have just bought a bunch of these (which I love), but after a good 12-15 hours of work, I got something nobody else will have. Perhaps for good reason, but no matter. We’re goin’ buggy.

I had been considering picking up a new slipcover for our IKEA Kivik sofa, but as the room came together, I still liked the one that we had best (Isunda Brown). There was one that I preferred the look of when I saw it online (Tullinge Gray-Brown), but not in person. I did pick up a table to go behind the sofa while I was out there though: the Bestå TV unit without legs lines up perfectly with the back of the couch. It gives us a place to prop up the brass task lamps that used to be beside the bed and adds some storage space.

We have overhead lighting and table lamps too, but these lights are nice for reading without having to make the whole room bright — helpful if someone else wants to watch TV, or when one of us are sleeping in the bedroom.

You can see that they play a supporting role in the larger picture. The Galileo chandelier from Crystorama kind of steals the show in the lighting department. I needed something dark with some edge to it. Something masculine. Something that says ‘my husband likes to tell me how the plot differs between the George R. R. Martin books and the HBO series.’

Speaking of television, this is where we watch it. We do have another (smaller hand-me-down) TV tucked away downstairs, but we don’t use it often — it’s not even plugged in right now. The kids can stream shows on a tablet anywhere in the house and we try to limit their screen time, so we haven’t had any issues with our TV being in the room off of our bedroom. Our solar shades from Lowe’s just arrived, so it will be helpful to have those up on the windows to cut the glare, in addition to the curtains.

More flowers! I brought my vases to Moss, my favorite florist, and they did their thing. Pink ranunculus, lotus pods, big garden roses, and all kind of pretty greenery that I’ve already forgotten the name of.

As I was leaving Moss, I walked by Jeanine Guncheon’s shop, Gallery Etcetera, and noticed that they had a pillow in the fabric I’ve been obsessed with. Sold! It stands on its own, and on the other side of the sofa is a pillow from Arianna Belle in one of my favorite fabrics, Les Touches, in front of a blue linen pillow with fringe from Pine Cone Hill.

You can see the other pair of lamps that I ordered from Lamps Plus below. The classic gourd shape is lovely, and I’m glad I went with the light blue color — I think the creamy white I was considering would have been too blah, and the peacock blue too bright.

And how about that ottoman! It actually worked out well, but I was worried that the room wouldn’t come together as I’d hoped when I learned that the turquoise velvet ottoman I’d ordered had been pushed back for delivery yet again. I had grabbed a wooden coffee table from the consignment shop as a backup, but the scale was all wrong. I kept looking, and luckily I came across Annie Selke’s rug ottomans! They come in a whole bunch of colors, but I picked a platinum rugby stripe that would play off of the chair color, while bringing in a little black for more contrast. Since it’s upholstered in a cotton rug rather than velvet, it’s going to be way more practical with the kids and pets, and I like the way the stripes play with all of the other patterns and textures in the room. The tray on top helps it function as a table.

There’s a blue and white striped dog bed from Fresh American that arrived too late to be in the photographs, but it goes where Murray’s old dog bed was, between the bookshelf and the sofa. I’ll try to get a shot of Murray sleeping on it and put it up on Instagram.

The Rose chairs from Interior Define arrived on Friday. Our sofa is fine, but these chairs are way nicer. More comfortable, more stylish, and better made. I chose a neutral upholstery color (“stone basketweave”) and added a pink throw pillow to both.

Phew, we made it to the end! Thank you so much for following along, and thank you to Linda at Calling it Home for organizing the One Room Challenge and inviting me to participate. I’m honored to have taken part and I loved the experience. Two rooms in six weeks felt a little like a whirlwind at times, but now that they’re finished, I can sit back and do a little happy dance!

I would love to hear your thoughts on the space, and don’t forget to check out all of the other amazing rooms that have been made over in this round of the One Room Challenge. So much inspiration to be had.

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

My One Room Challenge Sponsors

Thank you to the following sponsors for generously providing product.
• Annie Selke • Arianna Belle • Bellacor • Crystorama • Fresh American • Interior Define • Joss & Main • Lamps Plus • Loloi • Lowe’s • MegMade • Paintzen • Pine Cone Hill • Tonic Living

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: All That Painted Woodwork • Week 4: Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics • Week 5: The Lighting • Week 6: The Bedroom and Den Final Reveal

May 11, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 5 (The Lighting)

I had a knockoff Serge Mouille 3-Arm Ceiling Lamp in the den because I came across one for cheap on Craigslist a while back. It’s an awesome light and far better than the dinky lantern that was there, but the scale was all wrong. It isn’t a tiny room (13×15), but it’s not really big enough to support something so sprawling. Plus I wanted to move the task lamps from beside the bed to behind the sofa, and it started to look like there were arms reaching out everywhere!

I was excited to hear that Crystorama was a One Room Challenge sponsor, because I’d had my eye on two of their lighting collections: Galileo and Broche. Once the rest of the room was planned out a bit, I went with the Galileo 8-Light Forged Bronze Chandelier for its masculine spikes and mottled bronze (almost black) finish. I saved my Snapchatted installation process and aside from being delicately stabbed near the end, it was fairly easy! And we now own bolt cutters, so we’ve got that going for us.

After much research and online window shopping, I went ahead and ordered the ceiling fan I’d had my eye on. Goodbye, odd red exit sign fan, hello falcon. I have yet to install it, and I’ve never put a ceiling fan up, but it came with instructions and it can’t be that hard, right? (Fingers crossed.)

Gourd lamps are a design classic that I’ve long admired but never owned, so I figured it was time to remedy that. There are a bunch of manufacturers each offering their own version, but I chose a pair of Robert Abbey 31″ ceramic and brass table lamps. I’ve owned a few other lights by the brand over the years, so they’ve become a go-to for me. Their colors are always beautiful, everything is well-made, and the silhouettes and shades are interesting without being gimmicky.

31″ is the larger size, but there’s also one that’s 22-3/4″ and a triple gourd lamp that’s 24″ high, each in various colors and metal finishes. Brass was an easy choice, but it took some time to choose between the light blue, bone, and peacock blue. Bone is a creamy white that would be the most versatile choice in the long run, but I ruled it out because I don’t actually have plans to change things anytime soon and it felt like a missed opportunity to bring in more color. So then I was between the light or peacock blue, and I chose the lighter one because I felt it would be a better contrast with the dark blue walls.

Besides, I was planning to bring in that darker blue in the bedside lamps anyway! The gourd lamps were provided by Lamps Plus, a One Room Challenge sponsor, and they also sent a pair of the Beverly turquoise ceramic table lamps that I chose for the bedroom.

They look a little lonely all by themselves right now, but all will be wonderful through the magic of styling.

I’m putting a chair in the bedroom by the french doors. I played around with a few options that I’d stolen from other rooms, but decided the space seemed a little table lamp heavy. I may go with a simple floor lamp instead.

The last light to talk about here is the gorgeous Eloise table lamp. I have a trade account with Circa Lighting, but even with the discount this was a splurge. This dresser is opposite the bed though and since I spend a lot of time in bed reading, writing, or wasting time on my phone before I go to sleep, I wanted something really pretty across from me. So you know, Mr. Muttonchops and a red lamp.

Imagine flowers there, and you’ve got the vignette.

You’ve heard that lighting is like the jewelry of a room, right? I would totally rock some pieces inspired by these.

Next week? Reveal time! I have my art wall all figured out and it’s either going to be amazing or a giant flop.

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

My One Room Challenge Sponsors

Thank you to the following sponsors in this post for generously providing product.
• Crystorama • Lamps Plus

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: All That Painted Woodwork • Week 4: Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics • Week 5: The Lighting

May 4, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 4 (Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics)

I shared a photo on Instagram of the paint swatches, fabric samples, and finishes for the bedroom and den, but let’s dive into it all in a bit more detail.

The wooden hand holding the paint chips represents the wood furniture in the two rooms (two dressers and a sideboard). The brass is present throughout in the hardware choices (curtain rods, vintage dresser knobs), lighting finishes, and a small accent table. You saw in last week’s update how the paint colors from the chips below have been incorporated, and of course it’s all in the design plan. The fabrics represent the duvet cover and sheets, pink linen curtains, and a pair of chairs.

I knew from the start that I would be painting the two rooms different colors and because the bedroom and den are only separated by french doors, they need to go together. The ceiling, trim, and doors would be consistent throughout, but I also wanted to add continuity in other ways. I have a whole-house palette going on that I’m quite happy with (pink, teal, black, white, wood, brass, and a little red) and these rooms fit, but of course there is still room to play! Today, I’m focusing on the rugs, curtains, bedding, and other fabrics. What I chose and why, and how it’s all going to work together.

Rugs

The bedroom is 13×17 and the den is 13×15, so both rooms can handle large rugs. I wanted to repeat the same rug to bridge the two spaces, and I looked to Loloi because I’ve worked with them in the past a couple of times and liked both the designs and the quality. Though I’m often drawn to bold patterns, I was looking for subtlety this time — something beautiful, but that wouldn’t draw too much attention away from everything else. Initially, I had thought about maybe using the Journey rug that I’d styled in our living room. Once I decided to paint the walls that color though, adding a matching rug would have been too much. I suppose I could have used it in the bedroom and a neutral (or otherwise complementary color) rug in the den, but again, I wanted a matching pair. I found what I was looking for in the Nyla collection.

The rug I chose picks up on the wall color of the den, but it looks good against all of the pale pinks I’m using throughout too. And it is super soft.

Curtains and Window Treatments

Both rooms will be getting pinch-pleat pink linen curtains from Tonic Living. I’ve had my sample swatch of that fabric for about two years now, just waiting for the right project! The pale pink will blend in with the wall color in the bedroom, but be a nice relief against the deep teal blue walls.

The bedroom has wooden shutters on the bottom half of the windows, and that’s enough privacy most of the time, but it will be nice to have the option to draw the curtains again. Someone asked me how I sleep in with so much light, and I thought ‘hahahahahahaha — I have three young children, what is this “sleeping in” you speak of?’ It will be nice to be able to darken the room a bit though when we want to. I chose a standard lining for both rooms.

The den does need a bit more light control because we get a lot of glare on the TV. Curtains are going up, yes, but I’ve also ordered Allen + Roth solar shades from Lowe’s. They’ll help with both glare and temperature control, which is a big plus in an old home without central air conditioning.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing the right fabric and options. I went with Marquis in White, 3% openness. I also liked White/Linen, and there was a 5% option too, but I think the brighter white will be better behind the curtain fabric and it isn’t so stark that it will look too modern or cheap, as super bright whites sometimes do. I chose the corded option (it has a safety mechanism to mount the chain to the window so little kids don’t loop it around themselves), and options like a finished hem and matching fascia to keep it as clean-looking as possible. Even though the shades are all about function, I want the form to be nice too.

Bedding

I used to have tons of options for bedding that I’d amassed over the years. A few quilts, a down comforter with various duvet covers, different sheets, and plenty of colors and patterns to mix and match. Then we went from a queen-sized bed to a king last fall, and I gave away all of our too-small bedding to friends and family. Now I have one duvet cover, and I’m up to three sets of sheets. I was pretty jazzed about finding that third set of sheets though, because due to the winking eye pillows on the bed, the patterned dashes look like a million little eyelashes are scattered everywhere. I’m so into it!

So the go-to has been those sheets with the pink duvet cover. I have my Moroccan wool blanket too, and while it looks good (pom-poms!) and is pretty warm, it’s not the softest thing. Plus it’s wool, so we can’t pop it in the wash. It’s not such a big deal now that the weather is warming up and we don’t need a bunch of layers on the bed, but I do miss having a light quilt. I’ll be adding the Boyfriend Matelassé Coverlet from Pine Cone Hill. In what color? Pink! (Nope, Brandon doesn’t mind the color at all. Yes, I’m asked about that a lot.)

It’s a lot of pale pastel goodness, but then it’s all set against the black of our bed. Boom.

Other Fabrics

The sofa in our den is from IKEA (Kivik — I wrote about choosing it here), so it would be easy to pop over to the store to pick up a new cover. I like the idea of keeping it neutral though and I still like the color it is now, so I’m not sure if it will change or not.

Ours is the top left and I like the bottom left a bit more, but it’s not a huge difference. Of course the white is nice and I’ve heard that the cushions clean up nicely in the wash, and the bottom right gray color could work too. The den is getting a throw blanket to match the bed’s coverlet, and there will be pillows in pink, blue, and black and white.

There is a pair of chairs coming from Interior Define. They sell customizable sofas and chairs through their site to customers across the country, but I was able to check out their showroom here in Chicago to see everything firsthand. I loved the Rose sofa and if I could fit it up the stairs, I would have chosen it in a heartbeat! English roll arms, turned legs, a deep seat, and very comfy cushions — perfection. Their furniture can be resized (you can do more than just choose a color!), but to shorten it enough to fit up our narrow stairway would have changed the proportions too much and I don’t want a love seat. Luckily, the same style is available in chair form, so that’s what I went with.

The Rose chair is available in 18 different fabrics and I requested samples of my favorites before deciding on a color. It was a toss-up between the ‘Natural Heavy Fabric’ and ‘Stone Basketweave,’ so I called their customer service department and asked about durability and care. The Stone fabric sounded like a more durable choice that would wear better and clean up a little more easily, and as a mom of three with five pets in the house, I was sold. The chairs are going to look great in contrast with our low, boxy couch.

The last big unknown was the coffee table. I had initially planned on a turquoise velvet ottoman, but I was worried about a timely arrival and it was indeed delayed again. I picked up a pair of slipper chairs two weeks ago from a local furniture consignment store (Divine Consign) and I also grabbed a coffee table at a good price as a backup for the room. I like the shape of it a lot, but it’s knotty pine and while I could paint it, the bigger problem is that it’s too big. If I could shrink the height, width, and depth down by about 15%, it would have been perfect! Ha. So I was on the lookout for another option. Turned legs or carved wooden details, or maybe a different ottoman?

Found it! It’s a “Rug Ottoman” from Annie Selke. Yes, as the name implies, it is upholstered with a rug. It’s actually a more practical choice than the velvet would have been, and they come in a bunch of different colors and patterns. My design is changing a bit (the turquoise is out, and in its place, stripes and turned legs), but I’m excited about the way it’s all coming together! And bonus: Murray’s dog bed is in the den and he’s going to get a little upgrade in the form of light blue and white stripes, also from from Annie Selke. Very cute.

Here’s how all of that goes together.

(Oh, vintage chair. You need a little freshening up.)

We’re coming up on that final reveal! Only two posts left!

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

My One Room Challenge Sponsors

Thank you to the following sponsors in this post for generously providing product.
• Loloi • Tonic Living • Lowe’s • Pine Cone Hill • Interior Define • Annie Selke

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: All That Painted Woodwork • Week 4: Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics • Week 5: The Lighting

April 27, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 3 (All That Painted Woodwork)

Let’s talk paint this week! But first, why has only one person chastised me for painting the woodwork so far? People. I expected more outrage. (I still get the occasional comment on this post from 2010 about it.)

OK, for real though. I’ve always maintained that we may paint the woodwork on the second floor. Victorian houses like mine were usually built with the nicest, most expensive materials on the first floor in the common areas, and lesser grade materials were used in the utilitarian spaces (kitchens, bathrooms) and private quarters (bedrooms). The double parlor, dining room, and entryway in my home all have old-growth oak millwork, and fir has been used everywhere else. The details and proportions are lovely — 10″ baseboards! — but the knots and wild, open wood grain are not. Often, the Victorians would paint lesser wood to look like a more expensive variety with faux-finishing, but that’s not my thing.

You know what is my thing? White trim. Beautiful, classic, nice white trim.

You know what else is my thing? White trim paired with black doors. I think the first time I really took notice of the look was after seeing Thomas O’Brien pull it off. (And this was not a deciding factor, but I met O’Brien at an event shortly after moving into this house, and we talked about painting natural wood trim. He was all for it.) Black paint looks better on doors with some architectural interest and you can fake it with flat-front hollow-core doors by adding molding, but luckily I had a good base to start with. My house has, through all of its changes over the years, kept its paneled doors with ornate brass doorknobs, and between the two rooms I’m working on now there are french doors. They aren’t original, but I do like them a whole lot. Even more so now that they’re black.

Eventually, my plan is to paint out the entire second floor. Here’s a before and after mockup of the hallway.

The hall color may change, and maybe I’ll bring in wallpaper or some other wall treatment, but the white trim, black doors, and antique gold radiators — those elements are staying in the plan. And now they have been made reality in my ORC space!

I love it.

I don’t like stark white in an old home. My favorites tend to be a little warmer, with a creamy ivory tone while still reading as white. Benjamin Moore’s color of the year for 2016 is Simply White (OC-117), and while I did look at other options, I found that it was the perfect not-too-stark, not-too-cold white. I used it for the ceiling in a flat Ben formulation, and in satin Aura for all of the trim. The doors were painted Black Beauty (2128-10), which is the same color I painted the walls downstairs, but in semi-gloss Aura. I chose Everard Blue (CW-575) for the den — a dark blue with plenty of green in it from the Williamsburg historic color collection. It has the depth I was looking for, changing throughout the day under different lighting conditions but always looking good. And then for the bedroom, I wanted a subtle pink. Nothing too ‘little girl’ or ‘baby,’ and I found White Blush (OC-86) to be the perfect color. Almost off-white, but with a flattering rosy tint that doesn’t go lilac or peach. I chose Regal Select, matte finish, for both wall colors.

I did pick up several samples before settling on that perfect pink though. Just because you feel confident with a color based on the little swatch doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test it! I painted swatches right on the walls in both the bedroom and the den (so I could see the colors under different conditions). I liked Farrow & Ball’s Dimity (#2008) as a close runner-up, but I preferred the light freshness and soft color of White Blush.

My colors had been chosen and I was preparing to paint everything myself when the opportunity to partner with Paintzen came along. They were about to launch in Chicago as I was about to start on the One Room Challenge, so the timing worked out perfectly for me to give them a try! They make it easy to work with reputable professional painters, and quotes are provided online after giving some basic information about your project. Once you give the go ahead and agree on a start date, they take care of the rest and they send a licensed, fully-insured paint crew to do the work. The service got its start in the NYC area, but they’re now available in other cities too.

You guys. I was very excited about this. I used to paint houses way back when, and I knew how much work there was to be done! It was daunting, and I didn’t want to misrepresent the job because this was a lot more than just ‘painting two rooms.’ I gave them the measurements (two rooms with 9′ high ceilings, 13×15 and 13×17) and explained that there were half-a-dozen small holes to be patched from the electrical work we’d had done. The walls needed to be painted, and the ceilings too. And then there was all of that woodwork, going from bare wood to either white (the baseboard, door trim, window trim, windows, transom windows, shutters, and picture rail) or black (the paneled doors and french doors). A LOT of work, but they were on board. Once I had chosen my paint colors, formulations, and finishes, Paintzen arranged for it to be delivered from a local Benjamin Moore retailer. They also supplied the primer (Zinnser B-I-N shellac-based primer —strong fumes, but good adhesion and coverage). I think we talked things over on a Wednesday and they could start as soon as that Friday, but we moved it to Monday of the next week to give us time to clear out the rooms and move the big stuff to the center. We had planned on staying clear of the two rooms while work was underway, so that gave us the weekend to still be able to sleep in the bedroom.

Come Monday morning, the crew met the paint delivery truck out front and then came inside at 8:00 to start work for the day. They laid rosin paper to protect the wood floors, covered the remaining furniture with plastic tarps, taped off windows and hardware with a combination of painters’ tape and liquid masking, and got started on repairs. They had the holes to fix, of course, but they also went above that and fixed any hairline cracks in the plaster they came across. One section was particularly bad, but they fixed it right up!

I was impressed by the attention they paid to the trim too. No cutting corners. They cleaned and sanded the wood, used an excellent primer, and sanded between coats for a smooth finish. They sprayed all of the woodwork, so it went faster than it would have with a brush, and the finish was nicer. I’ve done my fair share of painting, but I don’t own a professional sprayer.

It went pretty quickly from looking insane to looking really, really good.

The painting crew did an amazing job, and they rocked it out in five days. They were here from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, two or three guys at a time, starting on a Monday and finishing up on a Friday. I can’t even imagine how much time it would have taken me to do all of that by myself! I would still be in there working on it. (A huge thank you to Paintzen for sponsoring the paint job — they were so awesome to work with.)

After the two spaces were painted and cleaned up, and the furniture was put back into place, the rooms started to shape up! I had a few things left up in the air when I showed you the design plan last week, but I’ve made progress on that front. I went ahead and ordered the ceiling fan, and I picked up a pair of vintage slipper chairs. (I may only use one in my design right now, but when they’re cheap and you find a pair, always get the pair. Same goes for table lamps.) I’m still holding out hope for the ottoman-as-coffee-table, but I’ve got a backup in place to be safe, in case the other gets pushed back again. And I’ve decided on the curtains: pale pink linen in both rooms, hung from the brass curtain rods I already own. I’m working with Tonic Living on them, and they’re going to sew the linen into lined curtains with a pinch-pleat top. It’s going to look so good!

There’s still work to be done (installing a lighting fixture and ceiling fan, putting up those curtain rods, that sort of thing), but the only big decision left is the art. Oh, that big blank wall.

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

April 20, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 2 (The Design Plan)
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!
April 13, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 1 (the Before Shots)

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

April 6, 2016