One Room Challenge – The Big Reveal – Living Room

living-room-22Today is the big reveal. Six weeks of the One Room Challenge are over, my sanity is back, and my living room looks so much better.

(Here is Week 1Week 2Week 3 Week 4 and Week 5, in case you want to see.)

This time, the challenge wasn’t as crazy as when we participated this last spring. For the last ORC, we designed my kids’ room. It was a complete makeover. You can take a look at it here. The change was impressive and the results beautiful.

This time, I didn’t have the budget or the time to do such a huge overhaul, so I committed myself to make an impressive change with a small budget. To do this, there is only one real and loyal friend: paint. I created a mural and it looks so good.

Before I show you more photos, I need to give a big thanks to my friend Daniela and Yassi. Dani helped me painting the mural. She is a graphic designer and an artist. The mural was labor intensive and fun to do. Luckily, Daniela has a huge attention to detail and made me work hard for it so it looks good. (Here is the tutorial about how to make this mural).

Yassi helped me styling my shelves. This was a major endeavor. Months ago, I went to her house to take photos of her shelves for this blog, because she is good at decorating and doesn’t get overwhelmed by a big amount of real books. She took her job seriously and did a great job (you can judge by yourself below).

The mural and bookshelves made a big difference for our living room. I still have to buy a new light fixture and furniture, but that would happen another time, when cash is more abundant. Right now, I am very happy with the progress we made. Also, I have become a huge advocate of creating cool murals to get fun walls. They make a huge difference for little $$$.

How do I feel about the results?

Ecstatic! The biggest surprise was how much larger the living room seems now that we painted this mural. It looks luminous and grand. I wouldn’t have been able to anticipate this change. The wall went from blah to stunning.

At the other end, the bookshelves look sophisticated and colorful. This change just took serious reorganizing. Nothing else. You can do so much good to a room by having the right eye. That is all. Changing furniture, painting, adding or taking out decorations, are all easy solutions to a big design problem.

OK, let the photos do the talking now.

Here are the before pictures so we are reminded of how the space looked like before.

jestcafe-com-living-room-before1 jestcafe-com-living-room-before4

And here, ladies and gentleman, are the after pictures. First, the mural all by itself:

living-room-19-copyliving-room-22 living-room-11living-room-21living-room-8living-room-20living-room-10

Cute, ha?

About the bookshelves. Here is how they looked a week ago:

white walls

And here is how they look now:
living-room-14living-room-17 living-room-16 living-room-15living-room-13 living-room-12
living-room-6 living-room-5 living-room-4living-room-3 living-room-2living-room-18

So, that is the big reveal for now! I hope you like it.

If you are interested in learning how that mural became a reality, tune in next week. I will be posting a tutorial about it.

Thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate it!

jestcafe-com-orc

Let Us Connect:
49 replies
  1. H says:

    You win the prize for the most impact with the least budget! I have found that dealing with little to no $$ really sparks one’s creativity. The juxtaposition of the mural with the simplicity of the wooden theater seats – love! And the shelves are truly a piece of art. Great job

    Reply
    • Mila says:

      Yes, so many designer rooms look amazing, but who has $10,000 to decorate a room? I don’t! But sometimes small changes like this can make a difference. Thank you so much for your positive comment!

      Reply
  2. Jeanne says:

    MIla – Love the Mural – It’s So Happy! And the bookshelves are fabulous…all those books are tough to style and this is a masterful job. Glad you stuck with it. Can’t wait for the tutorial on the mural!

    Reply
    • Mila says:

      Jeanne, I really wanted the mural to look happy and bright. Finding the right colors was HARD! Lots of effort. I will write everything about it next week. thanks!

      Reply
  3. Ariel says:

    These bookshelves!!!! That mural!!!! A well thumbed copy of Infinite Jest?! Can we be friends?!
    I’ll be including the space in my ORC round-up tomorrow 🙂

    Reply
    • Mila says:

      haha! Yes, we TOTALLY can!!!!! So funny that you noticed the Infinite Jest copy. The name of this blog comes from that book! It is an untold story. Thanks for all the encouragement!

      Reply
  4. Jess says:

    You amaze me all the time! Your shelfie game is on fire!!!! I love the accent wall and stadium seating. I like that you did not over-accessorize that side. Truth… We can be bff’s, I thought I had a ton of brass knock knacks, girl I think you have me beat. I absolutely LOVE it!

    Reply
    • Mila says:

      Jess, you are so sweet. It is funny that you mention the brass because I felt the same way when I looked at the photos before posting them: I have a brass obsession and this whole thing looks GOLD!!! haha.

      Reply
    • Mila says:

      I think bookshelves are SO hard, because it is difficult to make a lot of stuff look good. Clean “design” style bookshelves are not always realistic because people actually HAVE books and other things. I am happy it worked out.

      Reply
    • Mila says:

      Thanks, karrie! i am so surprised that people liked the shelves so much! Even more than the actual mural. That just proves that you never know. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] Jest Cafe // This living room.  It’s definitely the surprise room of the ORC for me.  It’s […]

  2. […] a bonus knock-out when you visit the room – a kick-ass mural! You can visit the post // here […]

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