One Room Challenge: Week 1
The One Room Challenge officially starts today and I’m super excited to be participating in it this year! It was an easy decision when it came to picking a room to update, our master bedroom. It’s the one room that I’ve had a hard time blending our style with. It’s an attic room with low ceilings, weird angles, and no major architectural features. When we moved in it was a disaster!
I did a quick paint job so we could move in but haven’t been entirely happy with how it works with the rest of the house. I didn’t have enough time to sample as much as I would have liked and the color went a little too sweet for me. I took quite a while to think about what feeling I wanted to create for the space and how to tie it in with the rest of the house. Since the room is so plain I decided to keep with the high contrast look we have going on downstairs and play around with layered textures. Most of this will come in the form of textiles and case goods. But I have something up my sleeve for the wall the bed is on! I’m going to keep that one a secret for the time being! Creating the mood board for this was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I don’t know why, but it’s always more difficult for me to decide on our home then it is for a client’s home. But, I won’t keep you waiting any longer, check out the vision for this makeover!
The first few weeks will be a lot of refinishing and painting of various elements. I started painting the walls this week to start playing up the contrast. This was a pretty easy step since the walls were in good condition and didn’t require any major patch or repair work. I decided to use Benjamin Moore’s White (OC-151). This color is part of their off white color collection and was the perfect white. It still feels white when it’s paired with dark colors but it has a slight grey undertone to keep it from being a stark white. After picking the color I had to pick the product and finish I wanted to the color in. Benjamin Moore has several different product lines but the most popular residential lines are Ben, Regal Select, and Aura, I decided to go with Aura. This is their top of the line product and has a ton of benefits, the two largest being that it is self-priming and the color doesn’t wipe off the wall after it has cured. Here’s a little tip, just because the paint is dry to the touch doesn’t mean that it is dry down to the surface that it was painted on. That period is called the cure time and varies depending on product and environment, but two weeks is a pretty good start. That’s important when it comes to walls because you want to wait that long before washing or wiping down the walls. For the finish, I decided to use a matte finish on the walls to tie into the rest of the house. A matte finish is like the best of both worlds. It’s washable like an eggshell finish but doesn’t have the sheen. This is great for the master bedroom because it helps hide the imperfections in our old horse-hair plaster walls.
Above you can see what a difference a couple of coats of paint can make! All of the weird attic lines and angles disappear and the room feels brighter. It also makes the dark Railings trim and walnut dresser pop. Stay tuned for next week's update and check out my Instagram for updates on my stories throughout the week! Also, check out the One Room Challenge blog, ORC Blog, to see updates from everyone who is participating and follow along!
