Primary Bedroom Renovation: One Room Challenge, Week 1
I’ve chickened out of signing up for the One Room Challenge for probably 2+ years. Some of my favorite designers have participated, and I’ve admired their projects through the interwebs, but for some reason wasn’t brave (? organized? motivated?) enough to sign up myself.
This fall, after near-completing a really fun DIY built-in bookshelf project in our office, I was feeling motivated to tackle more of the cosmetic updates I had in mind in our primary bedroom. Before I share some of my inspiration and ideas, here’s where the room has been so far:
The April 2019 move-in “before”
I have fun plans for that bathroom situation (which we’ve started a bit on!), but that’s for another One Room Challenge! Before moving in, we renovated the kitchen and decided to save our other projects to complete while we were in the home. We purchased enough LVT flooring to install throughout the entire house, but initially only installed it in the kitchen, dining, and living spaces. As a next step in this bedroom, we continued the flooding, painted the walls white (we used Sherwin Williams Pure White through the entire house!), and brought my most favorite rug find ever back into the room — she won’t be a part of the new bedroom design, but has been deep-cleaned and passed on to the perfect new home!
The May 2021 “before”
Now, to the ORC! I’ve been doing a little prep work to make the space ready to do a ORC. I really love small space living, but this bathroom/closet situation just wasn’t super functional and didn’t make the most out of the space. I wanted to create a true bathroom-closet “suite” situation, the first phase of which needed to be addressed prior to addressing the bedroom. The doors to both the closet and toilet/shower area make the area feel really tight and disjointed. To help the space feel more open and continuous, I moved the closet door (the white door to the right of the vanity) to be just an opening in the wall perpendicular to the vanity. We’ll also remove the door and wall separating the vanity from the toilet/shower area, and enclose the entire bathroom-closet area with a sliding door (but not in a rustic barn door way, in a really cool, sleek, modern, minimalist way — trust me). We added some framing to the bathroom wall “opening” to hang the sliding door hardware on.
Both of these steps needed to be complete prior to this ORC… because my design plans for the bedroom area include paneling on all the walls!
Moving the closet door
Adding framing for the sliding door
(P.S. — I upload fun timelapse videos of all these steps to my Instagram — saved in my highlights!)
Adding the drywall to the framing was my first “official” task for the One Room Challenge, Fall 2022! Then, we got the news that Hurricane Ian would be heading our way during Week 1 (I’m in Northeast Florida, so it’s mostly been a lot of wind and rain!), so this update post will wrap up with my design plans and some inspiration!
First, my “dirty little sketches” of where I’m planning each of the walls to end up.
North-facing wall: I’m planning to DIY massive canvas artwork here, and let that really be the focal point of this wall. Removing the second dresser we have here will create a really open space, clean entry when you walk into the room.
East-facing wall: I’m building a half-wall ledge to serve as a headboard and artwork ledge. I’ve got a couple light fixture ideas I’m tossing around, too!
South-facing wall: This is where the sliding door will be! We recently moved our mirror to this wall, and we’re really liking it there.
West-facing wall: We’d like to get down to one dresser between the two of us, but with a limited budget, I have a DIY planned for some Ikea dressers.
I’ll finish making my dog’s bench to help her get up on the bed (I built the frame with scrap wood already!), and every wall will get vertical shiplapped. Super thankful the Home Depot recently started making nickel-gap 4’x8’ panels — it’s a much more budget-friendly option, and will save a TON of time!
Truthfully, I’m pretty terrible at pulling together inspiration/mood boards. I usually see one image I really like design-wise, and then build a room around it (this time, it was full-paneled walls!). I then work backwards a bit to find images that capture the way I want a space to look and feel. I headed to my Pinterest/Instagram saves and find that a lot of what I’ve been pinning/saving lately really falls into a solid “feeling” or mood for the room.
Here’s what I came up with for the primary bedroom:
And a hodge-podge collage of some elements we already have and/or have picked out:
I’m always really inspired by living on the coast, natural textures, neutral-toned bases that all color to be introduced in subtle but impactful ways. I’m obsessed with the “Scandifornian” style (coined by Natalie Myers!) — blending the functionality and simplicity of Scandinavian design elements with the iconically Californian linen, natural textures, etc. I also want every room in my home to feel connected and cohesive, like each was designed to fit and work seamlessly with the others.
I’ve gotten more comfortable with my design style and approach over the years. Interiors have been an interest of mine since I can remember — I would beg my siblings to turn off cartoons so I could watch HGTV and Trading Spaces (my first crush was on Ty?). While not perfect, with every project I hone and refine it even more. So excited to be on this ORC journey with you all!
Be sure to check out all the Fall 2022 One Room Challenge entries: https://www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog