This week of the One Room Challenge has been about choosing art and other details for my kids’ room.

Deciding on art for a room takes me a lot of time, sometimes years, because I like using vintage pieces and thrift store finds that you don’t encounter in just one visit to the market.

Throughout the years, I have been collecting cool art for the kids’ room from estate sales, flea markets and thrift stores, but I need more!

I want to have this wall covered with art from top to bottom:

I want the wall to have a worldly feeling with art from different geographical places and cultures. In my last trip to Chile, I bought some pieces that I want to add. I also went to the Rose Bowl this month and found some cool and colorful paintings. I am also thinking about adding some of my own photographs to the wall because it is a cheap way of adding art.

Here are some photos of my trip to the Rose Bowl, my favorite way of spending a Sunday:

These are some of the items I  found.
How cute are these bronze figures?  And these small penguins!!! I bought them in Chile.

I have found more art for the wall, but I will wait to show you the rest… I don’t want to give out too much before the big reveal.

Now, the question is, how do I fix the dresser?

First, I need to finish taking out the stickers and cleaning the surface. I had bought these knobs from Anthropology to replace the current hardware, but they don’t look good – they are too small and get kind of lost. I am thinking I should do some DIY copper hardware to add to the dresser instead. I like that the dresser is white, so I won’t change the color, but it definitely needs an extra “something” that I am trying to figure out.

Maybe this should be the plan?

So it looks similar to this bookcase from The Land Of Nod? We will see.  Next week I will let you know what I have done.

As for the problems I have to solve this week, I need help deciding on:

• Bedding: what color should I use? I am thinking about something neutral because the emerald toy storage and the yellow door give the room enough color, plus, the gallery wall will be colorful and I don’t want the room to look too busy. Any ideas on what I should use? Also, I need to get affordable and fun pillows. Any ideas on that, too?
• Rug: I am inclined to get this one. Thoughts?

Right now I am a little bit stressed out about the final details. I don’t have much time to order items and receive them before Week 6, so I need to make decisions by Sunday. HELP!

Here is my story for this challenge so far: Week 1 – Week 2 and Week 3.

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.