The Interior DIYer
#DarkRomanticLuxe

One Room Challenge Spring 2022 – Week Five!

I will admit I don’t have a huge update for this week’s One Room Challenge. My MIL arrived from Ireland this week, so leading up to Week Five I got next to nothing done in our home office. A few things arrived that I had ordered online, so that was exciting! Here are a few of the things that came in …

I ordered a magnetic doorstop and holder from Lee Valley for the back of our bathroom door. Since our house is old and hasn’t been level of plumb in about 50 years, the door to our upstairs bathroom will flap open at a strange angle. Up until now I had been using a gift bag [full of nail polish] so keep the door wide open when it’s not in use. Instead of doom scrolling one evening I started looking into some alternatives to door stops and I came across magnetic doorstops and holders.

I installed the magnetic doorstop and holder up quite high toward the top of the door. This was so, a) no one destroyed their ankles when walking by it, and, b) I overthink things and I was terrified Zelda might unscrew the magnet and then eat it somehow. So I placed it way high up.

The other order that came in this week was our EKBACKEN white marble effect laminate countertops from IKEA:

I got the idea from Christine Dovey when she updated her son Malcom’s bedroom to include a desk, which she created by adding a countertop on top of two drawer units. Pretty amazing if you ask me. So we’ll be working off of a similar vibe in our office, except I’ll be reusing the legs off our old dining room table [painted black this time around] to aid in supporting the desk [along with hidden support along the walls]. I will of course detail that process as soon as I’m finished it [which I’m excited and nervous to start].

Because I didn’t get much ORC stuff done this week, I feel I should share what I did do to kind of prove that I was super busy?

THINGS I DID THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ORC:
– Painted the hallway
– Painted the main staircase
– Painted the skirting boards, doorframes, window frames and doors throughout the house
– Paint the kitchen
– Wet vacuum / deep clean the sofa
– Painted the 2nd hallway
– Moved all of Zelda’s furniture into Cora’s room
– Rearranged Cora’s room to accommodate both girls
– Set up Zelda’s room with a double bed and furniture for my MIL

As for the ORC, below is where I stand at Week Five, and as usual you can catch all the Guest Participant’s Week Five progress here!

ORC SPRING 2022 TO-DO LIST:
– Skim coat / patch ceiling
– Skim coat / patch walls
– Paint ceiling
– Paint walls
– Replace / upgrade banister at top of servants stairs
– Update and reinstall handrails
– Repaint stairs [not super necessary, but I might as well]
– Install desk system
– Update secondhand tufted office chair
– Source chandelier / remove the boob light
– Source storage cabinet[s] for office items
– Possibly source and hang curtains [not sure though for either window]
– Decorate / hang artwork / overkill the space

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

Baby

Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™ reveal!

I’m very excited to finally share some photos of Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™! Yes, it’s taken me *checks calendar* 13 months to take photos of her room since sharing my moodboard and layout plans for it last year. And while it’s a pretty tiny bedroom, the layout and design packs a punch and still works as efficiently as the day she graduated to her Big Girl Bed™. I had a lot of fun thinking of how to make this previously brown bedroom a perfect room for a curious little girl.

See something you like? A complete SOURCE LIST is included at the end of this post.

Cora’s bedroom is TINY. For most of these photos I’m standing as far away as I can in an opposite corner of her room. It’s so small that there’s no room for built-in storage and it’s just wide enough to fit a bed, as seen below [you can also see more of my 3D mock-ups here!]. I really do love a challenge so I took my time with creating the best layout [as simple as it seems] and worked from there.

I sourced a gorgeous spindle-type bed secondhand on Kijiji for $80 as well as an armoire perfect for all her clothes [and that would fit her dormered room] for $50 [via Facebook Marketplace]. The bed was pine and didn’t have a great finish so I wasn’t guilty about painting it in Fusion Mineral Paint‘s ‘Coal Black’ [after doing a mock-up of it in SketchUp and seeing it would look *chefs kiss* against the green walls].

Speaking of walls! I gathered a huge amount of inspiration for Cora’s room from her dollhouse. I matched the colour almost perfectly [‘Agaves Green’ by Sico Paint] and painted half the walls. When I say I, I mean Robert did all the painting. I was in peak pregnancy nausea with Zelda at the time and wanted to sleep and puke so Robert did all the tedious painting #Blessed.

I wanted Cora’s room to feel sweet, creative and earthy with a sprinkle of odd. I can’t remember what I searched for in Etsy to find them, but when I found Grannet Home‘s mushroom linen fitted sheet and pillow case I knew this was the pattern that was going to tie Cora’s room together. Its sweet birds, mushrooms, beetles and and berries were just gorgeous and a perfect mix of earthy and odd.

Going with the wall colour and bed linen, I built the room from there. I filled it mostly with pieces Cora / we already had. I tried my best not to smother the room in burgundy or pink and I think it worked out well.

The irony is that I took these photos the day before doing a total bedroom reshuffle and upgraded Cora to our spare bedroom to turn this room into Zelda’s bedroom, so this room doesn’t even look like this at all anymore.

I had a lot of fun with Cora’s room, but I already have HUGE plans for her new bedroom, and even more amazing plans for Zelda’s version of this very room.

SOURCE LIST:
– Walls painted in “Agaves Green” by Sico Paint
– Bed secondhand from Kijiji
– Bed painted in ‘Coal Black’ from Fusion Mineral Paint
– Sequin gold and white pillow thrifted from Value Village
– Pink pillow gifted from Cora’s Nana
– Mushroom linen bedding [fitted sheet and pillowcase] by Grannet Home on Etsy
– Pink bedsheet from IKEA’s DVALA bedsheet set [including fitted sheet and pillow case]
– White embroidered blanket from Mariposa Design
– Grey faux fur blanket from !ndigo [light gray option no longer on their site]
– Not pictured, but used: IKEA’s LENAST mattress protector
– HUSVIKA twin mattress from IKEA
– Armoir found secondhand on Kijiji
– Vintage pink porcelain knobs via Firstfinds on Etsy
– Brass Cappa curtain rod by Umbra
– Sanela velvet curtains from IKEA [olive green curtains are since discontinued, welp]
– Irish landscape painted by Cora’s talented Nana
– ‘Cora’ embroidery by Hextrovert
– STORM book by Pieces by Georgie
– ‘C’ scrabble-style artwork DIYed by me years ago
– Isild medallion bird portrait tray by iBride
– Felted piggy faux taxidermy by Felt Fauna by AC
– Shelf with peg hooks found secondhand on Kijiji [then painted in FMP’s ‘Coal Black’]
– Gray EKET cabinet from IKEA used as a bedside table
– TARNABY table lamp from IKEA
– Miniature dollhouse dollhouse DIYed by me

Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™: before – moodboard and layout – after

Bedroom

Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™ makeover – moodboard and layout

I’m quite excited to share my moodboard and layout plans for Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™ makeover. It took me about 6 months to get my head around a colour scheme, theme, and design for her room, not to mention working around the physical limitations that came with her dormer sloped ceiling [see what I mean in the before photo’s of Cora’s room here].

I took a huge amount of inspiration for Cora’s room from the dollhouse I updated and gave Cora for Christmas 2018. Mainly, the shade of green paint I used [pictured above] set the tone of her bedroom makeover.

I matched the green craft paint to the shade “Agaves Green” by Sico Paint via Rona hardware store [I feel I have to write hardware store as poor Rona has the misfortune of also being a slang term for the ongoing global pandemic. In case you needed clarification, I am not painting COVID-19 throughout Cora’s bedroom].

I decided early on that her room wouldn’t be entirely green, but half of it, similar to the little hallway I designed and coffee-stick-bead-boarded for Cora’s dollhouse [above].

Once I had the basic design figured out, it was time for the layout.

Cora’s bedroom is tiny. Like, hugely tiny. And it has the added obstacle of a dormered ceiling, plus no built-in storage, so I had to be creative [and cut-throat] with what furniture I added to her room. I measured her room and created a layout in Google SketchUp. Since there was little-to-no wiggle room when it came to space, I had to be certain the pieces of furniture fit and worked. Oh, and did I mention I sourced the furniture secondhand? If you’re new here, you may not know that I like to give myself a challenge.

So here is the basic layout I decided upon for Cora’s Big Girl Bedroom™ makeover, using an armoir and bed I sourced from Kijiji:

There was very limited options for furniture placement, so unless Cora was prepared to sleep in a bean bag or stand in the corner like a vampire, there was only the above layout option.

I also took a great amount of pleasure getting the perfect armoire for Cora’s room; I looked online for a few weeks and the armoires I found were either too wide, too deep, or too tall, which were immediately ruled out because of the dormered roof. I took my time and found the perfect armoire for $50. It fit perfectly, and I actually love the shade of wood it is, so I won’t be painting it. Just updating the hardware.

This actually won’t be Cora’s room long-term. Once Cora’s 5th birthday rolls around, baby will be 6 months old and it’ll be time for her to move into this room. Cora will be moving into our spare bedroom later this year, and just wait until you see what I have planned for that room. It will essentially be my dream childhood bedroom. No spoilers.

SOURCE LIST
– Walls “Agaves Green” by Sico Paint
– Isild female bird tray by ibride
– Needle felted pig by Felt Fauna by AC
– Bed and armoire sourced secondhand via Kijiji
– Bed painted in “Coal Black” from Fusion Mineral Paint
– Mushroom linen fitted sheet and pillowcase by Grannet Home
– Vintage porcelain pink knobs from Firstfinds