One Room Challenge Week 4 – Fall 2015

Hello there,

{Before I share this One Room Challenge update post, please go here to see the online House & Home video of my daughter’s bathroom that I mentioned last week. I completed it for the last ORC so if you haven’t seen it yet, you can get caught up in 2:33 minutes. 🙂 And thanks to everyone for their support on Instagram, FB etc. xo}

Welcome back to week four of the One Room Challenge, where 20 designers/bloggers are in the midst of transforming a space in six short weeks. It is now crunch time as my photographer will be here a week from Monday (that is only 12 days away!), with the final reveal for all of us on November 11th.

You can catch up on my previous posts here:

Week 1:  Before photos, inspiration, plans

Week 2: Concept, sources, progress (hardwood installed, ceiling scraped)

Week 3:  (Lack of) progress

A lot has transpired this past week so I apologize for the length of this post in advance.  Thank goodness for Instagram to help me jog my memory. 🙂

1. Paint Colour:

After painting no less than 11 paint swatches on the wall, I finally decided on a paint colour – Farrow and Ball’s Pointing.  I knew I wanted an off-white, not too stark and not too yellow. Something creamy, warm and reminiscent of a Parisian pied-à-terre (see previous posts.) Here are 7 of the 11 colours on the wall (this phone pic isn’t too clear but gives you an idea, anyway.)  You can barely see Pointing as it is a warmer version of what I had on the walls. All White will be the trim colour and Wimborne White is the colour in the closet which you can see below. I never liked that the builder’s default white for trim at the time was a creamy white while the shutters which they installed were a true, clean white. Now, the window casings and the shutters will be the same colour. That has bothered me for 10 years!

A very close contender was Great White – it is a beautiful greyed down lavender and I must use this colour in the house somewhere. Strong White (not shown) and Ammonite (a darker version) looked very green in my room as I have north facing windows. “Northern light tends to bring out the cooler tones within a colour, so if you’re using a lighter tone, avoid anything with a green or grey base” via Farrow and Ball.

I initially thought Strong White was the colour for the room as I had seen beautiful rooms online and the paint chip (which is actual paint) looked similar to what is currently in most of my house (a light warm grey.)  It’s so important to test out the colours on the wall first.  If you have an existing colour on the wall, then you have to paint over it with white before painting the swatches OR paint the colours on art board which you can move around. You can’t just go by the paint chip!

When I found these testimonials (from a National Post article last year) for Pointing, I was sold:

Tommy Smythe’s former apartment with Pointing (via House and Home)

If you have trouble selecting a paint colour, then Farrow and Ball makes it easy with their edited palette of 132 carefully chosen colours.  They recently introduced three new wallpapers which you can read about here.  This one is my favourite – Feather Grass BP5101.

And go here to read past posts I have written about Farrow and Ball. I have loved this brand forever!

 2. Moulding and Trim:

The trim from Metrie went up last week – panel moulding, chair rail and crown. Even though it hasn’t been painted yet, the room already feels drastically different – more of a grand feel. I chose the trim from their Pretty Simple collection as I love the simple yet substantial feel. You can read more about Metrie’s Then and Now Collections in this blog post.

Below is a photo of #superallen (as my friend Christine refers to him) working his magic. He is her go-to guy for installing trim (but also does everything including furniture building.) Christine has shared his contact info on her blog for years and having seen what he can do (notably the “piano room”), it was a no brainer for me to contact him to install this.

 

3) Closet Installation:

If you have been reading the blog for awhile, you know that I used to work for California Closets as a designer. I love their products and I had a few closets done in my home before I left so I decided to have them also do our bedroom closet.  Trish Lazar was my designer and she was an absolute dream to work with. You can reach her or another designer (southwestern Ontario region) by visiting their site here or their Houzz profile.  The process is much more hi-tech since I worked for them, with Trish designing the closet on the spot using Autocad so I could see a 3D of it. (Ignore the mess in the background I was in the midst of redoing my living room art wall – it never ends, I tell you!)

A few weeks later and this was installed.  It’s not even filled with clothes or styled and I love it. I chose one of their newer finishes, Belissima white which has a subtle wood grain.  I love the contrast with the bronze poles and valet rod.  The latter will hopefully help mornings run more smoothly as I can hang up my outfit the night before.  I cannot wait to get my clothes back in. :

As I mentioned on Instagram a few months ago, I read “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up” by Marie Kondo and as a result I donated about four garbage bags of clothes. I was hanging on to items that I hadn’t worn in ten years. It felt so good to say goodbye to some of these items and only have pieces that I truly love and feel good in.  Here is what the closet looked like before – jammed with clothes I never wore.  So embarrassing – don’t judge! 🙂 The closet feels so much bigger and is more functional, with both more hanging storage and shelves/drawers.

 

4) My beautiful area rug from Karastan was delivered. More on that next week.

 

5) And these beauties from Crystorama were installed (again, more on that next week or this post would be way too long!)

Here’s what still needs to get done in the next 12 days:

1. clear the room
2. go through clothes, purses etc. and donate or throw away
3. disassemble closet and sell it
4. scrape popcorn ceiling
5. install hardwood
6. paint closet walls, ceiling and trim
7. install closet
8. install panel moulding, chair rail and crown
9. paint room (ceiling, walls, trim)
10. electrical: hang 3 ceiling fixtures
11. order closet door hardware
12. pick up headboard (new shape and fabric) Yes, I have to drive with a king size headboard in my car as they don’t deliver. 🙁
13. pick up ottoman (this will fit in my car!)
14. install rods and hang drapes
15. hang art, mat some frames
16. hang mirror
17. change hardware on dresser
18. source bedding; pick up bedding
19. source accessories
20. pick up flowers from my favourite shop
21. style it pretty!

There has been a delay with the painting – partly because of my indecision in choosing a colour and partly because my painter of 10 years had the nerve to go and switch professions 🙂 and then my back up painter cancelled on me. 🙁 Thankfully, a friend stepped in to tackle the painting and it should be completed by Friday (fingers crossed.) Until then, nothing can be brought into the room. Wish me luck!

Next week I will share more regarding the lighting and rug solutions and more progress pics of the room as it begins to come together. What do you think so far?

Have you been following along with my talented design blogger friends?  They are all bringing it this round – so good!

Apartment 34 | Arianna Belle | Because It’s Awesome | Coco+Kelley | Design Darling |
Design Indulgence |Design Manifest | Christine Dovey | The English Room | Vanessa Francis | Hi Sugarplum | Honey We’re Home | Jojotastic | The Pink Clutch | The Pink Pagoda | Simplified Bee | Style Your Senses | A Thoughtful Place | Kimberly Whitman | The Zhush | TM by CIH

You can also follow along with the linking participants here.  Again, lots of talent and ingenuity here.

Until next week,