The One Room Challenge, started by Linda Weinstien of Calling it Home , is in its 20th season!  The ORC is a biannual event where twenty design influencers are selected as Featured Designers and challenged to transform a room of their choice.  Hundreds of additional decorators participate as Guest Participants.  This post kicks off my official participation as a Guest Participant in The One Room Challenge!  Anyone can be a Guest Participant.  All you need is a room to transform and a blog or Instagram account through which to document and share your project. 

Past ORC Projects

My first ORC was in Spring of 2020 and my project was My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen. 

I also participated in the Fall 2020 challenge with Reclaiming My Dining Room. 

So this Master Bedroom Makeover is my 3rd challenge.  Over the course of 8 weeks, each participant works through the process of transforming their room.  Some rooms see extensive constructive overhauls and some see more budget conscious and more minimal changes.  While my kitchen project had a large budget, this project does not.  I specialize in affordable and low cost DIY transformations.  Consequently, my budget for this room is to keep the costs under $500. 

My Master Bedroom

 When we moved into our home almost 20 years ago, all of the walls were pale pink.  Funny how millennial pink has resurfaced recently.  I had painted the walls to our MBR a King’s Gold.  It was a nice stately color.  My plan was to faux finish with an antiqued look.  

While I did succeed in painting the entire room a pale gold, I completed only about 20% of the antiquing on the walls of the room. 

At the writing of this post, I am still undecided as to whether I will change the color completely or simply finish the walls with the antiquing process.  I suppose it will depend on how complicated I make the design for the rest of the room.  

And, there is it.  My projects usually start out with a preliminary vision and may or may not take a hard curve right in the middle of the process.  I tend to let the “vibe” of the projects direct me when I am creating in my own space.  So, perhaps we should call this the Chameleon MBR Project.  Because I really don’t yet have a complete end goal.  Let’s call my plan fluid.  And here it is…

Create a headboard from an antique mantle

Remove king sleigh bed and replace with this antique mantle headboard. 

The mantle must be restored as it currently sports several coats of black , yellow and white paint.  Our current headboard consists of the headboard only from a massive king sleigh bed.  The piece showed up at my store, The Blue Building Antiques, about 2 years before we closed (which was March 2019).  I love the curves and the detail on the headboard.  The footboard was missing and that was ok because the scale of this bed would have been magnified by a footboard.  We decided to just use the headboard with the intention of painting it at some point to refresh the look.  That never happened.  And it’s time for a change. 

The mantle will be completely stripped, widened to accommodate a king sized mattress, and sealed.  The fun part will be selecting embellishments.  

Select and Paint Side Tables/Nightstands

Once the headboard is restored, redesigned and in place, side tables or night stands will be added.  I expect to use one of these two sets and will need to decide if they should be painted. 

I am hoping to have several antiques with complimentary wood tones as the anchors for this room.  As I am an experienced furniture painter, this is an option for all of the furniture pieces for the room.  Note, we have mismatched furniture and my goal is to unify the look of the room with stain, paint, and other magic tricks.

Wall Color

I’m having a hard time deciding if I want to repaint the walls.  Over the last 18 months, we have whitened and lightened up most of the rooms in our house.  The MBR has not had the whitened effect so I am considering painting the walls with a very light color, perhaps a very pale blue or greige.  I do, however, love the Old World feel of the antiqued gold walls.  And with the restored mantle, I believe the gold would be a nice compliment.  Mr. Blu is quite tired, like most of the design world, by the farmhouse white trends and would love some bolder color.  HOWEVER, my style severely leans toward the woods and whites of a classic traditional french country home with a mixture of rich wood furniture against the crisp whites of neutral walls.  As I’ve obviously not made a decision, the final color should be a nice surprise for us all.  So you will be as surprised as I am by the final selection.

Furniture Switch-A-Roo

Having owned an antique store for 10 years, I have accumulated many incredible furniture pieces but nothing matches and consequently the furniture does not always appear complimentary.  Life is too short to not use your favorite things.  So I am going to move out some older furniture pieces and bring in some favorites.  Here are some of the players who will be undergoing transformation.  Some will stay and some will go.

What do you think?  Can you imagine any of these in the same room with this…

These are the main elements of this makeover.  As my budget is quite low, there are other bucket list items such as:

• Buy a new rug and runner
• Create a comfy sitting area 
• Replace curtains
• Make a cushion for the lane hope chest 

Who knows??!  Maybe I will be able to complete a few more of these items on my wish list.

Check back next week for updates.  I hope to be well into the mantle project.

Here is the ORC Blog .   You can check here to see all of the project from the Featured Designers and from the Guest Participants.  

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