Updated One Room Challenge Reveal

Over the Christmas break I managed to snag a few more pics of my updated One Room Challenge. November is a pretty dark month, and that made it tricky to get some bright pics. Plus I had some spare time to hang pictures and do a little more tweaking to the styling.

Click here for all of the before pics and my original final reveal post. 

Merry Christmas and happy New Year! 
Ashley

One Room Challenge - Week Two - Before Pics & Plans

Hi Friends! Last week I shared my hopes and dreams for the future of this room with a few gorgeous inspiration pictures (you can see that post here--pretty, right?). And explained how my dad and I are teaming up again to add some character to an otherwise 'blah' room. It was a good post.

This week, with the help of Ashley from Metrie, I managed to nail down some trim and moulding selections. Typically my dad and I will make a couple hundred trips down to our local hardware store to peruse the sales, comapre the mouldings and trim available and design as we go, but now that we are working with Metrie, we had to make some tough decisions early on (and by tough, I mean choosing a rail size and then going back and choosing a different one because the original one didn't work with our applied moulding. And then hoping math was right and we ordered enough. It got intense.)

I'm not going to share what we chose just yet, but here's an idea of where it will be going:

As mentioned before, I'm going to try really hard to avoid purchasing anything new for this space. I'm going to shop what I've got as much as possible, but will likely make some impulse purchases somewhere along the way.

Things I am definitely in the market for: New TV unit - hopefully something second-hand that could be refinished, an area rug, and possibly some wall sconces.

I'm also in the market for a new paint colour. I think I'm going to break from my usual go-to, Benjamin Moore, and try out Canadian Tire's Premier Paint collection. They've got some pretty options, one in particular is called Cakepop. I like it mostly for its name, but also because I'm really into nude nailpolish and it kind of reminds me of it. Just hoping it isn't too pink...

 Regardless, Canadian Tire has lots to choose from...

I'm also going to share some pretty ugly before pictures. Normally I would tidy up and style things a little more when taking pictures, but there's no time for that. They aren't horrible, but not great...

 

One Room Challenge - Week One - Inspiration & Planning

Here goes another One Room Challenge!

This session I will be redecorating our upstairs guestroom, and reconfiguring it into our second media / living room. The room gets tons of natural light, and is a very cozy and welcoming space. Since we're entering into the winter months, we don't get many house guests, and for those who will be coming up north for a winter getaway, will have two other alterative rooms for them use (one being this past ORC post).

My first One Room Challenge was my bedroom, and (when clean) is still my all-time favourite bedroom that I've ever had. I love the mix of colours, textures, traditional and modern elements, and especially the Metrie mouldings. My dad has transformed our family's past three homes with mouldings, mitre saws and elbow grease, and it is definitely one of my favourite ways to personalize and add character to a space. We used Metire mouldings in my bedroom, a simple 3" rail, and created an improvised board and batten look that has continued to influence and inspire the remaining rooms in our current house.

In addition to all of the positive feedback I've had on my bedroom, the icing on the cake was when Metrie included it in their list of Top 25 Rooms from the 2016 Every Room Tells a Story contest. It was definitely a proud moment for my dad and I :)

This season of the One Room Challenge we've been fortunate enough to partner with Metrie to create something that will push my dad's carpentry skills a little further and cross off another room reno on our to-do list.

The goal for this space is to transform the room using Metrie moulding, paint (I've been itching to try Canadian Tire's Premier Paint...), a new rug (loving this one from Rugs USA), a new media stand....and that's pretty much it! The goal is to shop my home as much as possible and use furniture and accessories that I've already got on-hand.

What I'm re-using: My Kivik Ikea couch from my first apartment, my steamer trunk coffee table, my TV, existing linen drapes, Hemnes Night Stand from Ikea, table lamps and art work that have been otherwise collecting dust. I may cave and purchase something fun along the way, but otherwise I'm hoping to stick to my plan as much as possible!

I've got a pretty solid idea as to what I'm hoping to do with the Metrie mouldings, as you can kind of gather from my above concept board, and below inspiration pictures. But we're going once again for a cottage-vibe with some softer lines, which will be better explained in the upcoming weeks.

Best of luck to all of my ORC participants, and a huge thank you to Linda of Calling it Home for once again challenging all 200+ guest participants.

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Apartment Therapy’s 2014 Room For Color / Colour Contest

I was definitely more than a little excited when I saw my bedroom had made it into Apartment Therapy’s annual Room for Color contest. And I have to admit to being more than a little obsessive about tracking every vote myself and my competitors fellow home décor enthusiasts have received. Living in Canada qualified me for the International Division, which makes it all sound very exotic! There are currently five rooms competing and I managed to hold second place for a few days, but was recently knocked down by Johanna’s “Belgain Summer” room. Contest closes October 3rd so there’s still time to move back up to second (and then work on first place!). If you haven’t yet, I would very much appreciate a vote! A quick and painless sign-up is required, but worth it :) Another exciting result of the Room for Colour contest was a retweet of my entry from my new favourite Twitter account, Potter Barn Teen, aka PBTeen. Despite being well out of my teenage years, they do tweet some great content and I was / am honoured to have been recognized by them! My bedroom is probably my favourite space in the apartment, and one of the most enjoyable places to spend reading a book or perusing the internet (despite having a very weak signal in there…) My previous apartment was on the ground floor and two feet from a fence that blocked most of the sunlight from both windows, so I was pretty thrilled to wake up to sunlight streaming in through the window my first morning after moving in. 
When decorating the room, my goal was to create a calm and relaxing space. The west-facing wall is a deep teal / blue colour called Plumage, Martha Stewart Paints collection (available at Home Depot), it was the perfect colour to ground the space and create that ‘relaxed’ feeling. To carry on with the ‘relaxed’ theme, I wanted the bedding and pillows to be simple and opted to keep it entirely in blacks and whites—to save money, I simply switched out my current floral throw pillows with the black and white checked ones in the living room. I had written about the nightstand in a previous post, the yellow was a bit of an impulsive choice, but being a fan of colour, I wanted something that would be a great contrast, and add some interest to the space. The downside to this second-hand nightstand was that it doesn’t have any drawers or hiding space for clutter. That meant keeping things neat and tidy with a stack of my favourite colour-coordinated books along with a few that were next up on my reading list. The pink dresser was another second-hand piece I had written a post about, it was also painted on a bit of a whim and was initially intended as a storage piece for inside of my closet. However, once it was painted, I loved it too much to stuff into a closet and instead added another pop of colour to the space with a coordinating arrangement of some prints (the Mayan Calendar I had purchased a few years ago while vacationing in Mexico and the Pink Grizzly Bear was a gift from my sister) an antique mirror my parents had bought at an auction 15 years ago (recently painted white) and my gold initial from Chapters Indigo. 

Caitlin Wilson Textiles

Coral Tall Chevron Pillow - $55-70