Week 3 One Room Challenge – Ikea hacks!

Interiors

One Room Challenge fabric and color scheme options www.pencilshavingsstudio.com

Week 3 of the spring One Room Challenge is here! (Welcome to any new readers. I’m Rachel & I’ve never met a color I didn’t love. I’m a graphic designer with a serious love for interiors. See week 1 and week 2)

Over the long Easter weekend I made some major progress at the lake house on the living room. The biggest change was the arrival of the new rug from Annie Selke.  The thing about rugs (and I know I sound like a broken record) is that you have to go as big as you possibly can. Number one design mistake is choosing a rug that’s too little – and everybody does it. The rug we had in there was lovely but much too small considering how much of the room needed definition as the living space.

ORC-nook-mockup

I love Annie Selke rugs, but this time around I wasn’t as sure which color was going to work with the upholstery, so I ordered a few samples. Six rug samples came in various colorways, materials and styles and Simon and I pored over them for several days. In the end I went with the Bella navy wool rug. It matched the upholstery samples most closely plus it was soft underfoot and had that overall chambray feel I wanted. And the weave of the wool will lend itself to being very durable with renters.

One Room Challenge - lake house living room - Annie Selke rug options www.pencilshavingsstudio.com

It was a beast to roll out – 10×14 rugs are HEAVY. But the instant I got it down, it was like a whole new room. When Simon arrived Friday night, he couldn’t believe how much bigger the entire room felt. Rugs are so great at defining a space, especially in an open floor plan where you need to create boundaries without the benefit of walls.

one room challenge week 3 - 2

AN EASY IKEA HACK

As I mentioned last week, the media stand was another issue to tackle. We’d been using a vintage Henredon campaign chest that was actually smaller than the TV itself and it was lovely. But too small.  And then for awhile we’d been using an Ikea Kallax shelf unit, but it bugged me that it sat directly on the floor. Like it looked cheap, and un-designed. I looked into buying this  from Ballard, but Simon really didn’t want me to spend a lot of money on it. So we compromised. I ordered a set of these Ikea replacement feet from Forge Hardware on Etsy to jazz it up a little bit, as well as 4 of these Threshold milk crates to give it a little more texture (along the lines of the Ballard piece).

Et voila — I drilled a few holes into the bottom of the shelf and attached universal fitting plates to allow easy installation of the feet. Then I screwed them into the holes and boom. A whole new cabinet.

one room challenge ikea hack 2 - 1

I’m so impressed with the quality of those legs. They really are beautiful and well made. I’m also thinking about doing a drybrush or whitewash on the crates to soften the color up a bit. Thoughts?  And I like that the TV cords, etc., are somewhat hidden.

one room challenge ikea hack detail

I also did a fire sale, of sorts, over the weekend and cleaned out a few closets. I sold a lamp and a few other goodies and rearranged. Don’t worry – the Rita Ortloff original and the amazing bar cart aren’t going anywhere.

one room challenge week 3 - 1

The sofa is being sold to a friend of ours who’s buying a house at CL in the next few weeks, and while I’m sad to see it go, it’s not worth the hassle to me to get a uHaul and drive it back to OKC.

one room challenge week 3-3

SNAFUS ETC.

If I’m being honest, I’m a little bit nervous that our furniture isn’t going to come in on time for the reveal.  The Thibaut fabric I’d picked out is on backorder, so we ended up choosing a different Crypton fabric. It’s still a pale chambray color, but I’m sad that we couldn’t make it work with Thibaut. That also means that we had to nix the contrast welt on the sectional to hurry things along a bit. #wompwomp  Nonetheless, I have zero doubt that it’ll be lovely. Design is about flexibility at the end of the day.

Ikea Stockholm rattan cabinet

I’ve also been trying to order this piece from the Ikea Stockholm collection and can’t get it to go through for some crazy reason. DARN IT IKEA AND YOUR ANTIQUATED ONLINE ORDERING SYSTEM. It’s 2017 for Pete’s sake! Get with the program!


All right, Week 3, peace out! Follow along on Instagram  as I’ll be posting progress on the Stories.  And special thanks to the amazing sponsors who are willing to help me realize my vision for the room. I couldn’t complete this challenge without the gracious help these wonderful brands.

HUNTINGTON HOUSE ( Instagram)// CRYPTON (IG:  Crypton)  // SERENA & LILY (on Instagram) // ANNIE SELKE (on Instagram) // MINTED

with love,
Rachel

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