One Room Challenge – Fall 2016 – Week 1

06 Oct One Room Challenge – Fall 2016 – Week 1

Here we are again!  It is One Room Challenge time.  I am really excited to be participating again!  It will be difficult to top my Boys Bunk Room from the last One Room Challenge since that was such a dramatic before and after in six weeks (technically 5 weeks!), but now that I have completed one season of the ORC, I think I have more of a feel for how it should go.  I definitely hope I will not be up painting three nights in a row like last year.  OY!

In case you missed it, here is the Before…

And this is the After…

image by brian mcweeney photography

Here are all of the links if you want to go back and read about this makeover:

Boys Bunk Room – Week 1

Boys Bunk Room – Week 2

Boys Bunk Room – Weeks 3 & 4

Boys Bunk Room – Week 5

Boys Bunk Room REVEAL!! – Week 6

I am so glad we did it because it has been wonderful for the boys and all of our kids in general.  All four of our children love to be in there together, and it has been fun. It is such a vibrant, happy room!  This past summer during our vacation at the beach, the one thing the boys talked about missing was their bunks.  It makes Kent and I feel good that they love their space so much.

Speaking of Kent, he was really the motivation behind the room I decided to transform.  Our bedroom has never been totally put together since we moved in, and we have both expressed a desire to have a “retreat” for both he and I.  (Kent has especially been wanting to work on our room for the past year or so)  Through all of the construction we have had for the past nearly six years, furniture has shifted in and out of our Master, and it has served as a catch-all depending on what space we have been working on.  I felt it appropriate to show you where we started.

This is what the bedroom looked like when we moved in.

It had a really thick texture on the walls, and it had been sponge painted a cornflower blue color.  It was ridiculously difficult to get the texture off, and I have to say removing texture from walls and ceilings is one of my least favorite jobs ever.  It just makes me upset because all I can think of is why, Why, WHYYYYYYYYYY???!!!

Little PSA: If you have the option, make your walls and ceiling smooth, it looks so much better, and it will not look dated in the future.  Your builder or contractor will not like this option, and will probably try to talk you out of it.  The reason?  Texturing is cheap, and much much less work.  It takes more time and energy to get a smooth wall.

Once we had the texture off the walls, we painted it white, and it looked like this.  This picture is circa 2011.  We still had a long way to go though.  (i.e. fan)  You can see the original 1919 sconces on the wall, too.  Although I love old things, and we have kept 98% of the old lights in this house, these did not stay.

We eventually covered the walls in a beautiful grasscloth wallpaper that I love.  Even though I did not think the rest of the room was right, I do like the grasscloth.  This room has been tricky to get right because of the size (not big), the shape (rectangular), and the issue of where to put the bed.

I like the bed to be in front of you when you walk into the bedroom, but I also like to look out the window from my bed.  As you can see in the above photo, we tried the bed on the right wall for awhile, but that did not feel right to me, and this setup seemed to shrink the room even more.  We eventually moved the bed in front of the windows, but the sills are really deep so the bed sticks out.  This bothered me for awhile, but I have since embraced the window sills as a small nightstand.

There is some definite “old house character” I like in this room such as the original blue opaline doorknob, and the arched nook for books.  I picked up this old porter chair at an estate sale years ago, and it is getting a makeover, too.

Some old house character I am not so thrilled about are the majorly cracked ceiling (we are addressing this) and the different sized windows.  I wrote about the windows and the cornice boards (which are getting a new home) in this post long ago.

The element I am most excited about bringing in for this room makeover are these pair of doors I found at my favorite local salvage yard.  They are nine feet of glorious, and yes, they need some TLC, but in my mind, their makeover will look amazing!

P.S.  I have a predilection for old doors – read this post and this post to see how I have used them in my home

Probably the biggest challenge in this transformation will be matching my husband and I’s views of what a Master Bedroom should feel like.  If it were up to me, it would be all white and airy and light.  : )  My husband wants it to feel cozy and warm and intimate.  I love the use of natural materials in a bedroom and in any space for that matter – raw wood, linen, silk, etc.  So definitely expect those elements, plus see how I meld my husband and I’s styles together next week when I reveal the design plan for our Master Bedroom.

Thank you for following along!

Follow me on Instagram for sneak peeks as we move forward.

Until the next story.

xo, G

Be sure to check out all of the One Room Challenge participants by clicking here.