Spring 2018 ORC: The Reveal
It’s over! Yes, that’s right – the One Room Challenge has officially come to an end and it’s time for the reveal. Let me tell you, I am so happy that the six weeks is over because I’m exhausted, but more importantly, I have a gorgeous guest room/office that I now get to enjoy every day. Oh, and yes, let me reiterate – I’m exhausted! 🙂
If you haven’t been following along, let me share with you the before images of my guest room/office.
If you notice from the before pictures, there wasn’t much going on with the guest room/office and that’s because we had pretty much just moved in. Being a new construction, the house was severely lacking character, which I couldn’t stand! I work from home and spend the vast majority of my day sitting at my desk in the guest room, so I wanted to make sure it was a space that I could be comfortable in. Additionally, being a guest room, I needed it to be functional and relaxing for my friends and relatives who come to stay with us.
For those of you who have watched HGTV Design Star in the past, you may be familiar with the white box challenge. This is where the designers have a plain white room to completely design from start to finish. Sounds like it would be awesome, right? Well that’s essentially what I felt like while I was doing with this room, and it was so challenging! Having a plain white room with zero character – no built-ins, no color, no real pre-existing furniture – was much harder than I thought it would be.
The Process
I started my design process with my color scheme. Since I was going to be the primary occupant of this room, I wanted to pick colors that I could be happy looking at all day, every day. The colors I chose were navy and blush, with accents of metallics and marble, all on a background of a fairly neutral greige using my favorite, Behr Doeskin Grey.
I knew I wanted to do a built-in to add character and storage space to the room while also giving me a pretty place to work. So my next step was to plan how exactly I’d execute a built-in without taking up too much of the room and detracting from the relaxing feel of the space for any guests who would be coming to stay with us. I finally came up with a design that I thought would work and started buying my supplies, knowing this would be the most time-consuming part of the challenge. I’ll spare you the details on how I made the built-in (mainly because the trauma of it is too fresh 🙂 ), but just know – it was hard. This was by far the most complicated project I’ve done to date, but I’m so proud of how it turned out and I love how it looks.
Next in my design process was planning out my feature wall. I knew I needed something that would draw attention away from the built-in on the opposite wall and would balance out the overall weight of the room without adding bulk. So I opted for board and batten paired with a bold wallpaper. This was my first experience with board and batten because our old house had crazy textured walls that wouldn’t have produced a good result if I tried it, but now that I know it’s not that difficult, you’ll be seeing it a lot more in my photos. 🙂 Also, I highly recommend peel and stick wallpaper. I was so scared that I’d hate the wallpaper once I put it up so I opted for peel and stick. It’s seriously amazing! So easy to put up and if you don’t like it or need to reposition it, it literally peels right off with no damage. It also sticks really well and smooths out easily, so it stays in place once it’s on and if you have air bubbles trapped, you can just run a credit card over it to smooth it out. This is most likely another thing you can expect to see from me in the future.
After I had the big items checked off my list for this room, I focused on the finishing touches. I upgraded our floor vent cover, painted my old Ikea nightstands and added new knobs, and made a slim faux marble console table to hold a lamp just inside the bedroom door.
The Reveal
Without further adieu, below are photos of the transformed guest room/office!
I can’t tell you how many hours I spent on this room between design and work, but it was a lot. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! In fact, I’ve already got my room picked out for the Fall ORC! Be sure to follow along with me on Instagram to see the latest projects I’m working on!
Also, be sure to follow along with all of the participants of the One Room Challenge by following along on Instagram or the One Room Challenge website!
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