One Room Challenge: First Progress Report

It’s week two of the One Room Challenge! Check out a refresher of my plan for this space, and jump over to Calling It Home to see all the updates for this week from the featured designers and the guest participants. I’ve loved seeing what everyone is planning to do so far. Am also secretly hoping that some people are in the same place as me in terms of getting started, which to say, I haven’t gotten too far. I have bought a lot of stuff so that’s heading in the right direction? Yes?

So, let’s check-in on where I am in my first One Room Challenge:

• Paint the room: Yup, so this hasn’t happened, but is a must-do for this weekend. I have the paint, so just need to get some help (ahem, husband 😉 moving the furniture around so I can get to it.
• Replace the Blinds/Add a curtain: I ordered one natural curtain panel from Wal-Mart, and a new curtain rod.  I decided to keep wood-slat blinds as the bamboo shades would likely let too much light in during the afternoon for a west-facing room. Luckily, since my dog has eaten 8 sets of blinds over the years, my husband & I have become pros at this!
• New Bedding: My sweet mom bought me the coverlet I was eyeing from Kohls for my husband and my anniversary this month (apparently, the traditional gift for the 2nd year of marriage is cotton!), and it will look great with the existing duvet.
• Paint Shelf & Desk: I have made some progress in this area. I painted the desk Paris Grey, and am working on painting the shelf, plus the existing large picture frame. Hoping to finish up all the painting, waxing, etc. this weekend.

My $35 desk from a hotel consignment store

With two coats of Paris Grey

• Rearrange furniture/remove furniture: Still need to get the dresser out of the room …
• Rug:I decided not to order a new rug, but will use a smaller rug for now. I’m stalking a large area rug I want for the living room, and then down the road, will put the current living room rug in here.
• Wall art & Shelving: Making some progress on this too:
  • I bought some basic shelves from Lowes this weekend to hang over the desk, but need to paint the laminate. I would’ve preferred real wood, but sometimes I’m a path of least resistance kind of girl and painting comes much more naturally to me.
  • I love botanical prints, and downloaded a high-res image for free from botanicus.org and am getting it blown up to poster size on Vista print. Also looking for some sconces to flank the large picture.
  • For one of the side walls, I thought about a clock, but remembered that I still have my grandma’s China at my parents’ house so plan to hang some plates on the wall. Below is  teacup with the pattern and it will bring some more color into the room.

• Lamps/Accessories: I decided to keep my current lamps, since the black matches the bed frame and the shelf brackets, but did order new burlap lampshades. I picked up a few other cute accessories from World Market, Target and Ross as well. The woven baskets from World Market are perfect for the made over TV stand, now a bench with storage.

Finally, the last update for this week is that I’m exploring the possibility of adding a window seat with storage. This window nook is the perfect place for a seat, but we’ll see if a) it can be done in a timely fashion and b) if I can afford it. While I’m a great painter, straight lines and I have a questionable history (see my beadboard wallpaper for an example – which is only remedied by my amazing caulking skills) so it’s better for me to hire projects like this out.

All in all, I’ve done a lot of planning, but definitely need to see more action this week!