ORC Week 7 plus...we're almost there!
Since our final reveal post for the Spring 2020 One Room Challenge will be just the pretty pictures, I wanted to bring you this interim post to show you some of the behind the scenes happenings!
For previous weeks and an explanation of what exactly the One Room Challenge is if you’ve just stumbled across this post and have no idea what I’m talking about, check out our previous weeks here: WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 | WEEK 3 | WEEK 4 | WEEK 6 (and sort of 5) | more WEEK 6 | WEEK 7
Special thanks to ORC founder Linda Weinstein for providing this opportunity, and media sponsor Better Homes and Gardens! You can check in on the other ORC participants HERE!
Official media sponsor of the One Room Challenge
This was my first time as a guest participant in the ORC after watching from the sidelines for the last few years. And wouldn’t you know, I picked a pandemic to jump into it! Talk about the deep end of the pool?! The ORC was delayed, thankfully, and extended 2 weeks (again THANKFULLY!) because of the pandemic. My workrooms were just coming back online a few weeks ago, so I am SO grateful they were able to quickly turn around the custom things that I wanted. I did have an emergency plan B, in case they couldn’t do it, but I am so glad I didn’t have to go with that! We also got a little extension on the reveal posts since the ORC paused in solidarity with the BLM movement and our brothers and sisters of color around the country on week 5.
Most of the DIY is also done, HALLELUJAH! We have just one more little painting project to finish up. But our DIY list was born out of imagination and, as is so often the case, fiscal necessity! We gave our vanity a chic update with paint, created new curtain hardware out of what we had and a few judicious additions from the hardware store and Amazon, and conceived and installed our feature wall!
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You can read about our drapery hardware crisis here, but suffice to say, we ended up with a very creative DIY approach. You may recall that my biggest irritation with ready made rods is that they are telescoping to accommodate a variety of window sizes…a necessary evil since there is no such thing as a “standard” sized window. But that always makes the rods look cheap and crooked.
Cheap unlined tab curtains, barely long enough when hung on the window casing, and even cheaper extension rods that look perpetually crooked (a bent bracket is not helping the situation either!) are dragging down the whole room.
SO we took our cheap (and I mean REALLY cheap, $6.99 from the Christmas Tree Shop cheap) rods and upcycled them with ingenuity and paint. The finials were permanently attached, but were leafy branches that worked with our secret garden design direction. In a stroke of genius, we purchased conduit from Ace hardware store in a diameter to just fit over the rods to make solid rods, and rings with eyelets from Amazon in the correct diameter to fit our 3/4” conduit pipe. The custom rods and rings I wanted cost over $400 (and that was WITH a sponsorship!), these cost $42 (we already owned the paint) They aren’t my perfect ideal, but they are certainly a reasonable solution for the price, and I can change them someday when money starts growing on those trees in the mural…
My hero at Ace, cutting my conduit to the right lengths for rods! Not sure how I would have gotten the 10’ piece home, otherwise!
our old rods and soon to be new Frankenstein-ed rods!
Rub ‘n Buff makes the magic happen, but at the price of gold fingers! It comes in a variety of metallics, and even some colors.
Because the rings only came in black, the conduit in silver, and the rods and brackets and finials were green, we got to work with our trusty rub ‘n buff to make them all the antique gold that we wanted! I have no idea what that stuff is made of, but it is MAGIC and the best way to apply it, seems to be with fingers. My fingernails have never been so festive…and I’m not sure it is EVER going to all come off!
We picked up the curtain panels…and they are, of course, GORGEOUS! Even though we DIY’d the rods, there is no way to DIY curtain panels and have them look great. The ability to sew notwithstanding, half the battle is having an enormous cutting table so you can be sure the fabric is squared up and a huge pressing table to give them the right finished look. Having had enough of DIY to last quite a while (or at least until the next ORC…), I have begged my drapery installer to come hang the window treatments. I’ll do it if I have to, but hopefully I won’t have too - {Gold} fingers crossed!
I heard from the upholsterer this morning and he sent me pictures of our headboard, which is almost done!!! I’m picking it up on Thursday!
This is Danny, the upholstery genius at Boston Furniture Design, helping me figure out the best way to make the headboard so A, I could transport it in my car (removable legs is the answer!), and B, we could attach it to the wall with the windowsill and curtains in the way behind it (blocking and Velcro to the rescue!)
The matelassé from our coverlet that turned into the headboard. We have a matching dust skirt for the bed frame so the overall effect will be of an upholstered bed.
The Diva’s princess headboard! Created in an updated reference to Chippendale style. It also has upholstered legs so that the view from the side will be a clean line of matelassé
The other exciting update is our feature wall panels!!! They are up! And they look exactly how we imagined - I’m SO excited! Can’t wait to add the finishing touches!
The first wallpaper panel is up!
Our feature wall with mural panels over steel sheets for a magnetic surface!
Note to self: move the red car out of the driveway that is making all the pictures look pink! We are just waiting for the wallpaper paste to dry completely (one of the panels keeps peeing a bit on the paint?! Apparently the lemon tree has incontinence issues…), and then we can get to work on the styling!
We still have a few wish list items…a new vintage vanity chair, a new mahogany vintage side table with storage, a great vintage painting…and the Diva is on the hunt for vintage vanity accessories, but we have enough stuff floating around here that we can shop the house for styling if needed! And aside from that one pesky paint project that we’ll tackle tonight, we are DONE, hopefully, with the DIY portion of this adventure.
We’ll photograph early next week so stay tuned for the big finish!!