Here we go…One Room Challenge – Week 2

As a fun summary, here are the positives of participating so far:

• I have connected with a lot of bloggers out there
• Traffic jump to my site
• My kids’ room is looking better
• I still have 4 weeks to go… which gives me some sanity
• Víctor is so excited about the upgrade! He talks about it with everybody that will listen: the cashier at the grocery store, the attendant at Home Depot, neighbors, etc., etc.

Here are the negatives of participating so far:

• My husband is a week away from divorcing me
• I haven’t read a book to my children in 2 weeks
• I walk around the house hysterically planning color schemes
• I wake up thinking about this at night
• I need to find a rug TODAY to make sure it arrives before the end of this challenge!!!!!!! Any recommendations? (Elise, I decided to go with a rug instead of leather… but thanks for the advice!)

Progress this last week:

1. Painted walls
2. Installed wallpaper (which was pretty much a nightmare… says my husband)

Here is what I did, in pictures with explanatory graphics that I learned how to do 2 days ago:
Before starting any project, here are the basic steps you need to follow:Cute, ha?

Now, back to work:

The first thing I did for this week was to paint walls. Because the wallpaper is so dark, I wanted to paint the ceiling and one wall true white. I chose to paint with Decorator’s White from Benjamin Moore that is SO white it also works as a primer. Best decision ever! It looks beautiful.

See the difference?

After doing that, I painted the opposite wall in a blue that matched the wallpaper blue color. Why? 1) Wallpaper is too expensive so I didn’t want to cover three walls with it; and, 2) the wallpaper I chose has a busy design so I wanted to give the room a little bit of breathing by having a darker, moody wall painted to match the wallpaper color without being too busy.

I went to match the color to Cox Paint. They were so nice and put a lot of effort into finding the right color… and they did! I love how the blue looks.

For painting the ceiling and tall walls, you need a long stick to put the roller in. At the beginning, I was trying to use a stool… bad idea. A longer stick was much more useful. Also, for a darker wall, you need two coats of paint no matter what.

For the white wall I didn’t need two coats of paint. I even tried doing another coat in some places of the wall to see if it made a difference but it didn’t. One coat was enough. I was very worried about being able to paint a true white wall by myself after reading this post that Emily Henderson wrote in her blog a couple of years ago, but because the wall was off-white already, getting the true white to shine was easy and it only required one coat. Score!

Next up, the wallpaper. I will write a post on how to install wallpaper later this month, but, in the mid-time, take my word for it… it is very, VERY hard!. I tried to do it myself but couldn’t because I am not the handiest person in the world. Lucky me, my husband is, so he took over and did most of the work installing this paper. I became his minion by applying paste, singing songs, and cheerleading along the way.

Hygge & West gave me a nice discount on the Underwater World –Blue wallpaper that I have been wanting for this space for a while. I LOVE the copper details, crazy drawings and dark navy color for a moody look. Everybody that has been in our place since we installed it has commented on how cool the wallpaper looks. I am very, very happy with the decision. Here are some photos for your enjoyment:

If you like what you see, would you consider following me on Instagram for the latest updates? Here is my account.

Next week: Furniture painting and building. See you then!

And, here is the link to the Week 1 post that has more before pictures and plans for the space, in case you haven’t seen them.

Okie Dokie. Call me crazy or whatever but, with no design background, I have decided to participate in the One Room Challenge starting today! Here is a post about what this challenge is all about.

This is the thing, I love interior design and I have followed design bloggers for a while, so I am ready to take on a challenge, although, I am a little bit worried about that 6 weeks deadline to fully renovate a room with a limited budget. Does not sound easy.

My inspiration is the photo above. I have a Pinterest board filled with other inspirational pictures, but I keep on coming to this one because I LOVE that nursery. Why do I love it so much? It is bold, whimsical, and it takes you out of your comfort zone (Black for a nursery?? who would have thought!?). Also, there is a little of mismatch design in this room, don’t you think? Not sure if that rug is the obvious choice for this space, but it works!

For this One Room Challenge,  I have decided to transform my kids’ room – the ugliest room in my house- to say it is horrible is an understatement. Please, see the pictures below and judge for yourself. My feelings won’t be hurt!

DISCLAIMER: You are about to witness the ugliest children’s room that exists on planet earth. If you don’t like to look at dreadful spaces, SKIP the next 6 photos, or venture to look at them at your own risk. Just be happy to know that in 5 weeks all this ugliness will be mostly gone (hopefully).

Did you spot that diaper baby in that last photo? I didn’t know he was in that picture until I uploaded the photo to my site. I’ll might just take photos of him and post them on the blog instead of going through this whole ordeal. The result would be equally as cute, don’t you think? The real challenge will be to figure out what to do with all these books:There you go. The worst is over. Now, you can breath again.

Right in this moment you might be asking yourself what am I going to do with this space? What is the plan?

I could go for the easy choice: white walls, pastels, and gold accents, but it is not what I intend to do. The easy road is not for me, my friends.

I want a moody room with unexpected pops of color (not chosen based on the  obvious opposite “color wheel” options ), some vintage/thrift art, and “IKEA” hacks. I don’t have the budget to buy all new furniture, so some IKEA DIY transformations will have to happen around here.

Here are some of the items that I am considering using:

1.BÖJA – Pendant Light / 2. Lemon – Benjamin Moore / 3. TROFAST – Storage /

4. Campaign Bookcase / 5. Underwater World – Wallpaper / 6. Multicolored Rug /

7. Mid-Century Rocker / 8. Deep Green – Benjamin Moore/ 9. Mydal Bunk Bed

About the items with the pine finish, I am planning to paint all of them in a different color. I can’t afford the mid-century chair and the white book case, but I’ll might be able to find something similar on Craigslist if I get VERY lucky.

How do I feel about participating on this?

SCARED! I have absolutely NO experience re-decorating a room from scratch, but I do have a lot of opinions and, what I assume to be, a decent taste, so I will jump into the swimming pool (not knowing how to swim) and reach for the gold. Ha! I am ridiculous, I know.

At the end of this challenge, you will be the judge of the room. Hope you like it!

If you want to take a look at what other bloggers are doing, go to Calling It Home (lots of talent out there), and don’t hesitate to give me your opinions as I go along. I appreciate all the comments on my blog, so thank you for sharing. And thanks to Linda for organizing all this!

Wish me luck (and a little bit of vodka)!

For more, here is Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 of the challenge.