I’m catching up on week 5 of the One Room Challenge, a six week challenge to complete the design of an entire room, and boy, oh boy, is time ever flying. This is now the final homestretch!
I mentioned in my week one and week two posts that I had an added deadline within a deadline. My mom was coming up to PA to stay with us for a week, so the room needed, at a minimum, intensive de-cluttering, a bed with a headboard and comfortable bedding.
I checked everything off the short list of priorities but, before getting to the finishing touches, hit the pause button for my own travel, followed by her stay with us. I was a little bit apprehensive about things feeling ‘incomplete’ in the room, but her first reaction walking in was, “I feel like I’m in a hotel room”!
Mom test: passed. Guest test: passed. Mom-guest test: passed. That’s basically like a score of 300, you guys.
We had a great visit with lots of sightseeing, but now it’s back to work on those pesky finishing touches. I mentioned in my week four post that I rushed into buying decorative throw pillow covers and curtains without properly vetting the fabrics first, through selection of samples, to be certain the real-life colors were as they appeared on my computer screen and would work in the room. I knew it was risky but I didn’t have the luxury of time so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
This sent me right back to square one so I’ve taken a sharp right turn from sightseeing and redirected my focus to solving my own pressing design dilemma. I’ve had to start thinking extra creatively about how to pull this rabbit out of the hat and it wouldn’t be a real challenge if there wasn’t a little bit of panic involved.
“When facing any type of problem, the best approach is always to throw money at the problem until the problem goes away” – No One, Ever
Keeping this ancient wisdom in mind, I ran out to all the local fabric stores for solutions after all the retail stores failed to answer my problems. Side note: if there’s a fabric you’re looking for and are unable to find it at any of the local fabric stores, there’s a very good chance I bought it. All of it. Sorry/not sorry.
At this stage, buying an embarrassing amount of fabric options in excessive yardage amounts seems to be the only practical approach, along with quickly brushing up on my amateur-at-best sewing skills. What could possibly go wrong??
Here are just a few of the fabrics I’ve perused and am considering:
Also, I forgot to mention in my week four post that I decided to switch things up in the nightstand department. Previously, there was only one “nightstand” in the room….a little, round particleboard table, covered by a white tablecloth, that I had planned on keeping in place. However, after setting up the bed, the table seemed a bit short next to the now-taller queen size bed. It’s not a very wide table to begin with and, once the new bed was moved over a few inches to clear a wall outlet, this created even more space around the table, resulting in the table looking even punier.
I still held onto the idea of keeping it, though, despite also not being wild about the cheap-y tablecloth material. The biggest issue that finally swayed me was that it sat on top of the only floor vent for the entire room.
Nothing says luxury like freezing your guests out of your home with a cheap, horribly ugly, little table, concealed by a debatabley less ugly, polyester tablecloth.
I recently scored a small, second-hand shelf that needed some major TLC. The dimensions weren’t 100% what I hoped for (it’s a teeny bit tall and its depth from the wall is somewhat shallow), but it works and, most importantly, has legs that allow airflow for the vent. No more freezing guests!
Little shelf before TLC:
It was cute as-is, but neither the yellow nor the distressed look fit my design scheme. I repainted it in Benjamin Moore's Vanilla Milkshake and bought a glitzy new knob to replace the existing one on the drawer.
Little shelf after TLC:
I put the little shelf where the round table was, to the left of the headboard, and put the little round table on the other side, to the right of the headboard. The round table is still not my favorite thing ever, but the room feels much more balanced and functional with two “nightstands”. I’m hoping by bringing in so many other fabrics and textures, this will de-emphasize the tablecloth quality, until it gets an update at some point.
Now, with so many other loose ends to tie up, I’m calling this a win and moving on.
The week six, big reveal is just around corner!
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