One Room Challenge, Week Seven – Spring 2020

We have reached the final week of the One Room Challenge project! For those just joining me, I’m a guest participant in the Spring 2020 challenge. You can read more about the One Room Challenge here, and if you’d like to follow my project from the beginning, definitely check out my Week One post where I share the before pictures and how the room has evolved up to the point of starting the challenge.

So, what have we been up to this week?

On Monday the cabinet doors arrived. Our painter was as meticulous and amazing with the doors as with the rest of the cabinetry. He brought them in and reinstalled all the hinges, drawer fronts and doors, and then did one final touch up. It took the better part of the day, and WOW did the room start to feel like it was coming together by the time he left!

Next I painted the contrast color for the feature wall. It’s the same blue we used on the back of the glass door cabinet and the open area.

The gray grommets arrived and the blend with the wood top pretty well.

One item up in the air was the mesh insert for the router and computer hardware. It needed to be breathable, and I really wanted it to match. After considering a number of options, I decided to purchase some utility screen fabric and paint it to match the cabinets. With the whole wall having such a soft finish, I didn’t want a contrast material to draw attention to the lower section. The other upside is the combination of the paint coatings and the lighter color decreases the transparency because it’s more reflective.

So I gave each side a good 3 coats of paint, and my husband fitted the screen material into the door to secure it. I think it turned out great – it obscures the view of the space inside the cabinet but gives plenty of air flow to prevent the components from overheating.

My hubby installed the drawer pulls and can I just be the first to say, they are kinda sexy!

What do you think?

After a few (ahem *cough* 5) testers, I settled on Edgecomb Gray for the walls, which is a pale green gray and works well with Pashmina. It’s a tinge greener than the rug but it reads like a creamy greige overall, which is what I want. Not too creamy, not too gray.

We also tackled the cornice board, which I’m upholstering. It wasn’t in the original plan, but it evolved over the past few weeks and my husband and I are both really happy with the change.

I designed the board, bought the lumber and gave him a schematic and (pardon the pun) he nailed it! He had a chance to try his pocket bore tool which made it nice and sturdy.

For this board, we used 1×4 pine for the sides and top, and 1×10 pine for the front. Since it’s being upholstered the seam between the boards isn’t visible, and we didn’t have to rip plywood. He added a small piece of wood behind the seam to stabilize it as well.

Once he finished the build, I wrapped it with quilt batting (doubled up), stapled it into place and trimmed the excess. There are a number of tutorials you can find for how to build one, and many use foam, but I felt batting would be soft enough but not too cushy for this version. The main thing to remember when you’re padding it is to really trim the corners well so they stay square and there is nothing bunched up. Pull tight when you’re stapling, and trim the excess away after all the staples are in.

Next I dry fitted the fabric before cutting it. Since it was 100 degrees out, after the batting went on in the garage, I brought it inside to upholster it.

This cornice is wider than the fabric I’m using, so rather than seaming it, I decided to railroad it (run it across instead of up and down). Railroading is a term that refers to changing the direction a fabric is milled so the pattern actually runs side to side on the bolt, which allows the pattern to look the same from top to bottom when the fabric is rolled out from side to side. It usually requires a little more material (in this case 2x the yardage), but it certainly makes the upholstery process easier!

With any pattern, when you upholster a cornice, make sure you measure the width and height and locate your centers, and then center the pattern on the board on both the width and the height. With this quatrefoil, I want the to make sure the pattern matches on the left and right edges, as well as the top and bottom edges, and that pointed axis of the pattern lands on the center of the cornice.

I’ve stapled the fabric and and working on the trim this evening so we can get it installed tomorrow.

We’re on the home stretch and it’s really starting to look like a transformed space! I’m so excited to share the final reveal with you next week!!

What is left to be done?

• Paint the baseboards
• Hang the cornice
• Pick up the doors and glass shelves from the glass shop
• Install the rug
• Complete the feature wall: We have an art installation that remains to be completed and I’m a little nervous that we are going to run out of time. Continuing to shelter in place with a preschooler while also keeping up with my workload means squeezing in little pockets of time, and this one will take a chunk.
• Complete the electrical: The ceiling fan finally shipped on Friday and is due this week, so fingers crossed we can get the electrical done in time too.
• Decorate/ stage the room
• Photograph the competed project

Sooo… lots of boxes got checked off this week, and lots more to check off in the coming days!

Stay tuned for the final reveal next week… until then, stay cool, stay hydrated, and stay inspired!

Crystal