Paint & Mood Boards: Week 2 One Room Challenge

Interiors

Welcome to all new readers! I’m Rachel, a graphic designer with a major obsession for colorful interiors. For this round of the One Room Challenge, I’m updating my almost-10-year-old son’s room and adjacent play space to reflect his next phase of life. And because I’m semi-crazy, I’m also updating our upstairs living room too. (See week 1 for the floorplan!)

THE PLAN

For Jude’s room, he REALLY wanted a bunkbed. And at first I was kinda meh on the idea, but the more I thought about it, I felt like it was a good plan. After all, our spare bedroom has been my prop closet/office/storage facility for some time, and we don’t have a spare bed for a friend or guest to stay on. So, I agreed to go along with the bunkbed idea.

I met the generous folks at Universal Furniture when I went to High Point last year and I thought their kid spaces were so beautifully designed. They were itching to do a One Room Challenge project, and it seemed like the perfect fit for this round. More on them as we get closer to the reveal – but I’m already crazy pleased with how their pieces have turned out!

The mood board for the bedroom space (above) and the mood board for the lounge space (below). I wanted to integrate my vintage green velvet tuxedo sofa (fun fact: it’s from the 1970s and was in my Dad’s clinic for years until I inherited it in college) into the former playroom as it seemed like such a great piece to help make the room feel more grown up. Plus I liked that we already had it (and you know I’m all about rearranging).  With the room freshly painted in Benjamin Moore’s China White, I wanted to also integrate some more masculine textures and patterns like gingham, plaids, and denim.

And out in the living room, there’s not much happening out there in terms of paint. It’s already bright white, and it’s more a matter of continuing to clean out the toys, sell off any old decor pieces (keep an eye out on my IG stories!), etc. Here’s the plan (although not with the correct colors). I’m working with local design shop ME Home to design a custom banquette for a corner of the room, and we’ll do a couple of small stools that will double as seating. I want to do a round table so it can be a homework station. And I also want to do a white console for the TV. Opposite that will be a sofa and ottoman with the play area back behind it.

I cannot WAIT to show you how this is all panning out. Crossing my fingers everything makes it in time.

PROGRESS

Jude’s room is painted and it instantly felt sooo much brighter. I’ll be honest – I was a little bit sad to see the blue stripes go. I meticulously handpainted them right after I had my first miscarriage in 2011. I channeled my grief into making my then-4-year-old’s room something really special. I watched movies on my laptop, taped off the stripes, and focused on making something beautiful out of a really dark time in my life.

But things are different now. My miracle baby is almost 2, and my first miracle baby is about to be 10. (SOB)  Anyway, my fab painter knocked both spaces out in a day and then I rolled the Serena & Lily rug (20% off right now) out and clapped my hands in glee. YES YES YES YES YES. The texture is perfection. Just WAIT til you see that emerald green velvet sofa in there. SO SO GOOD.

You can also catch a glimpse of the new SmartStuff Axis dresser. I’ve been cleaning out oodles of Jude’s clothes, as well as toys and progress is happening (even if it’s not terribly exciting to see in a photo).

The downer of this particular week is that I hired a local company in our neighborhood to come assemble the bunkbed for us as I wanted to make sure it was really well done.  Plus everything was on a giant palette and I didn’t want it to sit outside and get wet from the sprinklers, so  after 4 guys spent approximately 5 hours collectively scratching their heads and (finally) figuring out how it all went together ????, they billed me $570. I nearly died. EX-ORB-I-TANT.  But it’s done, and it looks amazing. And now our lesson is learned. And obviously I won’t be hiring them again, although to be fair they did respond very promptly to my request for help. EXCEPT, this story does continue and it’s pretty funny. I’ll tell you about it next week because the crazy just. doesn’t. stop.

 WHAT’S NEXT?

This week, Simon got a wild hair that we should rip out all the carpet upstairs (finally! carpet is naaaaasty!) and replace it with the same wood floors we did downstairs. However, it turns out that Pergo has discontinued the color we did there (#murphyslaw), and I’d like to keep things consistent. Frankly I also semi-dread the idea of having to move EVERYTHING in order to (1) get the carpet up and (2) lay the floors. So I suggested that maybe we purchase all the flooring in a similar colorway, but maybe just do the living room upstairs for now and then after awhile, do the boys bedrooms. I just don’t know if I have it in me to move out every single piece of furniture – and the bunk bed is HEAVY. Like, even with the two of us we can’t get it to budge.

So, we’ll see. He knows that if it’s going to happen that it will have to be ASAP to meet my deadline.

SPONSORED BY

The One Room Challenge comes together very quickly, but it wouldn’t be possible without some major help from these fantastic sponsors. Thanks for supporting these brands that I love!

Universal Furniture // Stroheim  // Serena & Lily // ME Home Collection // Highland Hardware // Grace Allen Design // Minted

And thanks to Linda at Calling It Home for hosting and for House Beautiful as media sponsor.

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with love,
Rachel

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