11 Apr 4 Design Tips – Week 2 of One Room Challenge Blue + White Bedroom

Welcome to WEEK 2 of the One Room Challenge! As a Guest Participant, I’ve selected ONE ROOM, the blue bedroom, and boy, was everyone right….it IS definitely a CHALLENGE to transform a room in just 6 WEEKS! (If you missed my first post where I bared all – our entire messy bedroom and the 6 major problems with it – you can catch up right here on WEEK 1.)

Last week was also my first time creating a Mood Board on Canva. This week’s one above is a tad better, don’t you think? Maybe by the end of this 6-week Challenge I’ll know how to layer and create a fabulous Mood Board….lol.

I love learning new things and this challenge is providing SO many opportunities to do just that!  Last week I shared with you photos of my REAL, not staged, mess of a bedroom HERE, and the story of how it got to be the “Blue Once Lavender Bedroom”.

After deciding in January 2019 to move into the girls old bedroom full time, we knew it would make our lives simpler and less chaotic. Well, it has. And there were some improvements to the room last summer – new wall color and mirrored closet doors – that made a HUGE difference.  But as you saw in last week’s post, the room was crammed with antique furniture and not really designed for us to live comfortably 24/7.

I highlighted 6 major problem areas. On WEEK two of the One Room Challenge I  share:

• my overall design and decorating vision for the room,
• my progress on addressing some of these problem areas, and
• where I am in WEEK 2 of the One Room Challenge. (Not panic mode yet, but close.)

 

FIRST MAJOR DECISION

The first thing I began to tackle was what were we going to do about my corner space, non-functioning nightstands, and non-functioning bureau.

My husband and I had many discussions last week about it. You see, we now sleep in my mother’s antique bedroom set. 4 poster bed, nightstand, matching bureau and mirror, but it just has not been working for us.

So last week I started to look for a pair of more user-friendly nightstands. I searched online for days to find some great options. I thought these would be perfect, because they had a shelf we could put our books and magazines.  Well that didn’t last long, when I realized we ONLY had about 18 inches to work with on either side of the bed.

 

Knowing how much we read in bed, and all the stuff we keep on our nightstands, I realized, well, we’d still have messes on the bottom shelf and we’d only have one tiny drawer like I have now.  How would that be an improvement?

Pillow Goddess Design Tip #1: Leave room in your vision for it to change and evolve.

I’ve learned that sometimes during the process of researching solutions, like a nightstand, you kind of work out the problems in your head, and it brings clarity to your vision. So keep that in mind when you’re redecorating a room.

So a BIG decision awaited us.

What were we going to do about my mother’s bureau? The reality was it crowded us on that wall, leaving no space for nightstands and having me scrunched in the corner.

So I thought, well, I’ll get larger nightstands with 3 drawers. That will work perfectly. NOT!

Would solve the nightstand problem, but not the fact that we need bureau drawers for our clothes.

 

So I did what any reasonable woman would do. I took a break from shopping for nightstands online (I rarely shop online, so I think at one point my brain was seeing double!) to read a dear friend’s blog post, interior designer Linda Holt of Linda Holt Creative. She was a Featured Designer last year and she also has written about downsizing and letting go of family furniture and memorabilia.

Then I thought really hard and said to myself. It’s got to start sometime. We got rid of both storage units last April, and our home can NOT fit all the family antiques I’ve held onto for 35 years. And I knew already which family heirloom my kids wanted. So I told David, I think it’s time to let it go of my Mothers matching bureau and mirror. I’d never get rid of the 4 post bed, but he agreed, the bureau was just not working for us.

Pillow Goddess Design Tip #2: Always determine what works for you and doesn’t.

No matter if it’s a family heirloom or not, if it’s not working, come up with a solution. It is OKAY to let go of family furniture and mementos.

But this sh** is hard to do! It’s a bedroom set that was my mother’s, then was mine, then our daughters. But as Linda says in her post. If it doesn’t serve you, doesn’t bring you joy, it’s time to let it go. (apologies for not linking Linda’s thoughtful post, but ORC rules are we can only link back to ORC and the One Room Challenge Guest Participant’s page or any sponsors).

THIS WAS A MAJOR DECISION FOR ME. BUT ONE THAT OPENED UP A WHOLE NEW RANGE OF OPTIONS.

Phew!! We got that decision out of the way. Now I could start looking for chest of drawers. Because the issue was, we did not have enough room in our closet drawers for our clothes, so we needed a bureau. But we didn’t have the room in this small 11 x 14 bedroom, and we also needed nightstands. The only solution was to let go of the non-functioning bureau.

I’m not telling you all this to bore you, but to show you that there are A LOT of decisions to make when transforming a room. It’s not just 1, 2, 3 and your room is done. There’s lots of thinking, planning, research, shopping, and ordering. That’s why you should always hire an interior designer! I have one, but I wanted to try this room on my own. (Although I will confess, I checked with Patrick Landrum on a couple things just so I didn’t make any costly mistakes.)

Alright, now let me cut to the chase and share my vision for the room and tell you what I have accomplished so far (otherwise this will be a mini-novella, if it isn’t already!)

 

This beautiful blue & white bedroom by Mark D. Sikes is some definite eye candy, don’t you think?

My vision is to create a floral on floral, blue and white bedroom with floral wallpaper on the window seat wall, and then different floral fabric for shades and the window seat cushion. I absolutely love the Benjamin Moore Sweet Bluette walls, so I really want to keep the soft powder blue feeling and bring in some memories of floral wallpaper and textiles from my Grandmother and childhood. The window seat wall would become the one beautiful focal point to the room. Because when I lay in bed, that wall and window is my view. That is my Blue + White bedroom goal. Now onto the nitty gritty details.

 

Plan of action:

1. The curtains needed to go! But, Mr. Fat Cat Zabel was like “What do you mean they need to go? It’s my hiding place”. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea . But here they are finally down, in a heap on our bed. Look how much space and light that decision immediately opened up.

2. Placed order for chest of drawers. I solved the nightstand/bureau problem and ordered a pair of perfect size chest of drawers from Furniture in the Raw. I looked through tons of beautiful ones online, but they were all too big. And I considered refurbishing vintage ones.  But I really didn’t have time to shop around AND a big feature we need in our drawers are gliding drawers, the ease of opening and shutting them. And I didn’t need to order one with mixed reviews and have it arrive and not be up to snuff.

Furniture in the Raw was the only place I could find exactly what I need –  a high-quality, well-made, affordable, small chest of drawers (the right width and height) that could also serve as a nightstand. While they were not able to sponsor completely, they have been SUPER to collaborate with and gave me a fantastic designer discount which I greatly appreciated. And their furniture is American Made which fits right in with the Deborah Main Designs brand. And I just heard today the chest of drawers have already arrived!! So we pick them up tomorrow and start painting them. (Another fabulous talent of Kim’s that she’s going to teach me!)  I can’t wait for you to see how we style a pair of these chest of drawers!

Hint! Hint!

 

3. Learned how to hang wall paper (Now THAT’S a whole blog post in itself!! Maybe next week.) My dear friend Kim Schlinke (who is also Deborah Main Studio’s number one seamstress!) knows all this stuff, shared her knowledge and we knocked out the wallpaper last Saturday afternoon in 6 hours!!  Boy, am I ever glad we tackled that right up front because it’s done!!

But I’m sorry, I can’t show it to you yet. You’ll see why next week. Remember, my vision is floral on floral. Floral wallpaper, bedding , window seat, shades, chair AND even lamp shades!!

But here’s Kim and I with the tools of the trade and rolling the glue onto the back of the wallpaper. Be sure to tune in next week,  WEEK 3 post, where I “might”, probably will, reveal the wallpaper and the wonderful sponsor!

Tools of the trade.

Me spackling the wall holes.

Kim prepping wall for the paper by hanging a “Plumb Line”.

Me rolling on the glue. Boy, do I ever need my hair colored!  Got it done today 🙂

3. Opened up my crammed corner. Because we had to move all the furniture to make way for the wallpaper, I was able to see and feel all the new space I was going to have. Look at ALL THAT SPACE!!! With our bed more in the center of the wall now, we have plenty of room for the new chest of drawers. I’m excited for my newfound space!!!

4. Secured a major sponsor for luxury bedding! I love collaborating with brands. Peacock Alley, one of Deborah Main Designs long-time retail partners, is furnishing the luxury bedding. I haven’t seen it yet, that will be next week, but I think they’re selecting one of their vintage prints from Peacock Alleys archive. That is SUPER exciting to me, because y’all know how much I love vintage. Thank you Peacock Alley for sponsoring my One Room Challenge project!

 

 

5. Secured another “surprise” sponsor, The Lampshade Lady.  Now remember last week I said some new things might come up? Well in getting rid of my Mothers bureau, where was I going to put her antique Limoges lamps I love so much?

Well I think they will work fine on my Mothers desk, but boy, the inside of the lampshades were a mess so that was a new problem that cropped up.

Long story short, I secured TWO sponsors and had to choose.

Pillow Goddess Design Tip #3 – You never know who wants to collaborate until you ask.

I just think it’s amazing that a small Etsy business owner wanted to sponsor handmade shades. I am truly humbled by business owners generosity and wanting to help make my project successful!

Below are some of the GORGEOUS lamp shades that Judy custom makes. I love them so much I just might go out and collect small lamps so I can have more beautiful shades like these! Some have her hand embroidery and needlepoint too!

Because Judy was heading out of town this Sunday, she wanted to get the shades done pronto, so she sent me lots of images of her textiles to choose from. It was frustrating to me that after 15 years of collecting vintage fabrics, that I did not have a single blue and white floral. But it didn’t matter, because Judy had plenty of beauties and using her cotton textiles was the fastest way to get the lampshades made and shipped to me in time.

Below are just a few she shared. Not showing you my final selection quite yet, but you’ll be surprised as I introduce a new color into the blue & white bedroom. I can’t wait to see the shades in person!! They arrive next week.

Now, to wrap up Week 2, Here’s the major challenge ahead. I have NOT selected fabric. I’m waiting to see the duvet cover pattern from Peacock Alley, which I should know by weeks end. Then I can start pulling together all the different fabrics for the window seat, shades, valance and chair. I also was hoping to collaborate with an interior designer who has launched a fabric line so I can promote their beautiful fabrics, but that hasn’t come through yet either.

I may have another sponsor, Accent Upholstery, a local small upholstery business I’ve known and worked with for 20 + years. Thrilled they want to be involved, but I’m concerned I may not be able to get fabric to them in time. So I’m going to work on getting all that squared away by the end of the week. I hope it works out, but it may not in time.  We’ll see.

I WILL have fabric to show you in WEEK 3, cause if I don’t, I’ll be in an absolute panic!! Isn’t it funny that I work with textiles and I can’t get ahold of the right designer textiles to use in my project? I’m dreaming about the gorgeous blue and white fabrics by Schumacher…but that is probably a far-fetched dream. Fingers crossed that this important part of the room transformation doesn’t have too many more hitches. I look forward to showing you soon some of the textile designer samples I will use for Deborah Main luxury pillows on the bed.

Oh, one other important detail I lined up this week, was the professional photography. I’m THRILLED that my long time photographer, the talented Gregg Cestaro is sponsoring shooting the BIG REVEAL of the Bold Blue Bedroom (You’ll see next week why I’m calling it that ).

Pillow Goddess Design Tip #4: Plan ahead, especially if you are getting a design project or home professionally photographed.

Many photographers have their schedule lined up months in advance.  Good thing I contacted Gregg right away, as we have to to shoot the room one week early, as he’ll be out of town. That means even LESS time to finish my room. YIKES!!

That’s a wrap on WEEK 2 of the One Room Challenge.

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Have you been inspired yet and following some of the other Guest Participants? Till next week, when hopefully I will have fabric selected, be sure to also check out the Featured Designers rooms too! XO PG

Note: All photos and opinions are my own, except where noted.