Hi again! As promised here is the rest of what happened this very busy week in our One Room Challenge Vintage Diva Glamour Den bedroom makeover!

Need to Catch up on where we started and what we’ve been up to? If you’ve missed the other weeks you can read about them here: WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 | WEEK 3 | WEEK 4 | WEEK 6 (and sort of 5)

Special thanks to ORC founder Linda Weinstein for providing this opportunity, and media sponsor Better Homes and Gardens!

This week was all about grunt work and heavy lifting…literally! First we took the vanity apart and hauled it piece by piece to the garage for it’s makeover with chalk paint. It was a vintage piece that I purchased years ago for the Diva and had painted ivory. It is constantly used so was showing signs of wear and tear, and the ivory, while fine, was not as good of a fit for our vision as a deep color.

We selected chalk paint (not to be confused with chalkboard paint - totally different thing) because of the lack of prep necessary and the forgiving flat finish. I am not a huge fan of the work involved in painting furniture, or of crouching on the cement floor of the garage for extended periods of time, which is too bad, because I love the LOOK of painted furniture. We got to work on the first coat and put it on probably a little too thick in an attempt to get coverage. By the time we got to the drawer fronts, we were getting a little better at restraint. We were happy with the olive-y color and then it dried a tad darker and less yellow and it was PERFECT! While the first coat was drying, we did some furniture moving…

We touched up our fabulous American Empire style FB marketplace crotch mahogany veneered dresser find with some Old English and the Diva and I carried it upstairs from the garage because “we are strong independent women” LOL. It’s a little heavy and a lot awkward. With the help of our doorman (my pianist in residence) we got it in place and it is fabulous. The only thing missing was the key to open the center compartment on the top.

The Diva immediately got to work Konmari-ing all her clothes into it and I got online to order a furniture skeleton key - which is surprisingly easy to come by, and makes me wonder why the security lock if literally ANYONE can come up with a key that will work?! Anyway, we needed a key to get it open and it looks prettier with a key in the lock.

Back downstairs we gave the vanity a second coat and took a break for sustenance :) After a late lunch we waxed the vanity with clear wax - especially on the top to offer some protection from the Diva beauty rituals. Frankly, I have no idea if we did it right or not. The instructions in the paperwork were different than the instructions on the can so we did a mish-mashed hybrid of the two and it seems to be okay?! Buffing it (more manual labor) added a sheen I was not anticipating, but it is okay.

More heavy lifting, again with the help of our doorman…to export the pine armoire that the dresser replaced down to the garage making room for the vanity to return to its rightful place. That evening we hauled the vanity back upstairs and the Diva set to reattaching the hardware and organizing all her stuff back in the drawers.

The winds of change are coming! We’ve now ordered the mattress and sorted out most of the feature wall. My brother-in-law has graciously offered to deal with the mitered molding and installation for me…phew!…because “strong independent women” does not necessarily equal talented woodworkers! I’m off to prime the molding before I deliver it.

Be sure to stop by the other participants in the ORC HERE to check in on progress in these amazing designs!

Next week we’ll spill the beans on our feature wall…see you then!