One Room Challenge Spring 2018 – Week Three!

After I published last weeks One Room Challenge update, Handyman Dave came over to take down the monstrosity of track lighting in our dining room and MacGyvered our secondhand Kijiji chandelier in place. Our dining room chandelier is a lot bigger than our living room chandelier and is heavy even without all the acrylic crystals. I can attest to how heavy it is because I had the embarrassing task of [trying to] hold the chandelier in my outstretched, feeble blogger arms while Handyman Dave wired it into place.

Do you want to know my favourite part of this chandelier? Its $10 price tag. It’s exactly the kind of warm and fuzzy feelings I get from hunting down really good secondhand deals.

On Sunday I got the worst part of my One Room Challenge over and done with; painting the ceiling. There are few things I hate more than painting ceilings; painting radiators would be one of them and people who don’t cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze is another. I got out my tiny stepladder and in one afternoon I managed to paint three coats of white paint over the existing orange ceiling.

Painting a ceiling is a lot like being pregnant; during the first coat you feel awful. Why did you get yourself into this situation? You’re dizzy and it takes you a while to acclimatize to what’s happening, but the second coat is much better. You feel confident. This isn’t so bad! I’m getting results! I feel great and this isn’t as hard as they said it’s going to be! Then it’s time for the inevitable third coat. You’re sore, irritable and you just want to get it over with. You want nothing more than to give up, but you know there’s only one way out of this situation and you’re left unable to walk properly once it’s all over. But the results are so worth it.

So yes, I am a total martyr for painting the ceiling and not giving up. The white ceiling immediately made the room feel better. I thought many times about why a person would paint a ceiling orange and I still cannot figure out for the life of me why [you can see our previously orange ceiling here].

But the most satisfying part of this week was finally deciding on a colour for the walls. I went three times to Home Depot to get five different CIL paint samples. I wanted to try each paint in every lighting scenario before deciding on one. Up high, down low, from the windows to the walls.

The moment I saw the name of it, Kitten White, I knew it was going to be the right shade of greige for us and luckily, it was perfect! It took a while for me to be fully convinved though as the walls in our dining room are currently yellow, so it made the Kitten White look almost lilac. So I tried painting it up by the [now] white ceiling for a neutral reference, and it looked purrfect. I also held lots of artwork [like our iBride trays I was crazy enough to pack in my suitcase when we emigrated] as well as gold accents and it looks B E A U T I F U L with everything.

It works perfectly with our Classic Burgundy feature wall which, let’s face it, is a colour that will be featured a lot in our apartment so it was important that whatever greige I chose worked with it.

I picked up 3.68L of Kitten White last night and I actually cannot wait to get painting. Also, the faux marble contact paper I ordered to recover the dining room table arrived yesterday so I’ll be updating that in the coming days. I’m also a few steps closer to painting our dining room hutch black, getting a second hutch for the other side of the room, our antique gold mirror should be here within the next few weeks and I’ll be heading to IKEA soon to try out some dining chairs. It’s slowly starting to come together, but I can’t help but panic a bit ZOMG I ONLY HAVE THREE MORE WEEKS / three weeks? That’s tons of time! I am a glass case of emotion.

p.s. Check out all the Guest Participants’ Week Three ORC updates here! There are some amazing transformations happening right now.

Week One – Week Two – Week Three – Week Four – Week Five – Week Six