The Interior DIYer
Architecture

One Room Challenge Spring 2020 – Week Four!

It’s week four of my One Room Challenge and this week has strange feelings. It’s a feeling that starts off with look how much I’ve done! that quickly melts into holy shit, I’m half way through and I don’t even have drywall up yet, and then a ton of anxiety rises up inside of me when I realized I’ve gone one step forward and need to take two steps back. I’ll share what I got done this week, both good and bad …

I built up the courage to take off the window trim on the front wall of our front room. I found it easiest to remove the top corners first, followed by everything else. I also worked on removing the skirting board, but whoever installed the new wood floors butted the floors up against the skirting board [instead of taking off the skirting boards, putting down the flooring and then replacing the skirting boards], so the original skirting splintered and shattered as I tried to pry it off. There were many words uttered.

Last Sunday we hired a U-Haul trailer and collected some pieces for the front room. The most amazing piece being the secondhand tufted Victorian-style couch that I found on Kijiji. It. Is. Amazing:

We got a lot collected on Sunday including drywall, insulation, vapour barrier, tools and a few other essential ingredients. They all went into the back of our rented U-Haul – including the couch – and off we went.

I then built up the existing studs with leftover wood, insulated and tacked up the vapour barrier before realizing I need to rip it all off and start over again; the studs I magic-ed together won’t be secure enough so I’m going to build a new 2×4 frame to sit inside two exterior walls insulate and drywall. I had a sneaking feeling a few days ago that I’d need to start over … One step forward, two steps back, but at least I’ll be doing it properly?

Don’t bother getting me a glass. I’ll drink straight from the bottle, thank you very much.

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

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Secondhand tufted Victorian-style couch

I feel there’s no point adding text to this blog post because this couch is perfect.

The end.

Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to preach about sourcing pieces secondhand for my One Room Challenge, I will continue!

I’ve been on the lookout for a statement couch on Kijiji for at least 8 weeks for our front room makeover. I wanted an over-the-top yet comfortable couch. I had a general idea of the perfect shaped couch in mind [as seen in my mock-up shared on Week One, and never did I think I’d actually get the exact shape I wanted!], but while I was looking, I was really flexible; something that’s vital when shopping secondhand. Here are the guidelines for what I was looking for in a couch:

  • Have an unusual shape, yet be comfortable enough to curl up and could read a book on
  • Ideally, be velvet
  • Have an element of drama [see: unusual shape]
  • The colour would ideally be cream / gray / pink or burgundy, but I was also open to possibly painting the couch or reupholstering it in the long run, so I wasn’t too narrowly focused on the colour or pattern
  • Be affordable [some people need their heads checked and a dose of reality. $2,000 for a 40+ year-old couch is not a good deal]
  • The couch actually be available / not be ghosted by the seller

A combination of all of the above makes for a bit of an arduous journey, BUT BE PATIENT. IT WILL PAY OFF IN THE END. Trust me. I’ve been buying secondhand for years now and you have to be patient. That’s why I started looking for a couch well ahead of the ORC beginning. It takes time, sometimes months, but that’s all part of the hunt and makes the final find that much sweeter.

I had this couch saved for a long time but it took me weeks to contact the seller because it was outside of our budget [and I didn’t want to come across as insulting by lowballing the price]. It was advertised at $600 and after a few messages we agreed on $400 for the couch. My budget was $300 [which in fairness, was a number I randomly chose], but this was definitely one of those situations where if I didn’t get this couch, it would haunt me forever, so I was flexible. And I’m so glad I was because LOOK AT MY GORGEOUS NEW VAMPIRIC COUCH.

Check out My Top Tips for Buying Secondhand Items Online blog post, which details the four techniques I use to win at secondhanding. One of these ‘techniques’ got $200 off the final price of our couch [though, it’s not really a technique so much as just being a human person]. Check it out!

Click through to four top tips for sourcing secondhand pieces online! #Secondhand #Thrifted
Environmental Resolution

Secondhand tufted office chair – before

As soon as I started working from home in October I was on the lookout for a proper office chair to use. I started off using one of our secondhand IKEA Tobias dining chairs [as seen here], which yes, I can physically sit in, but thanks to hip issues after having Cora, sitting in a hard chair all day wasn’t doing me any good. So, I took to Kijiji to see what I could find.

This was a search where my patience definitely paid off. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted so I kept an open mind, but at the very least I knew I wanted something padded [hello, hip separation], sturdy and if I’m honest, something that kind of looked amazing.

I was completely open to the idea of a typical ergonomic office chair, but of that type of chair I found, they were either in my budget, worn down and needed repair, or they were amazing ergonomic chairs but were way outside of what I’d be willing to pay for a chair. So I kept looking. Until I found this chair! It of course immediately got my attention aesthetically.

I arranged to view [and sit in] the chair last weekend and it was perfect and exactly what I’ve been looking for; comfortable and unusual. Much like myself I guess you could say.

I know I may not get a great response to this, but I am planning on updating it. Hold on, let me explain! The wood has a very orangey stain and has sloppy faux-aging technique added to it using a darker paint [you can see this in the first photo along the groove on the arm]. The shape is really beautiful and I’ve already tried sanding the finish off, which has me really excited.

Please, trust me. It’s going to look beautiful.