fall one room challenge

ORC – Weeks 2 & 3 – Quick Update for Oak

October 25, 2020November 8, 2020 shibangdesigns

The One Room Challenge has been slow going lately and I’m totally fine with that. I’m looking for the easiest way to make some updates with secondhand items.

This media console we bought used with our kitchen table and I believe they’re originally from Pottery Barn.

While refinishing a dining table is worthwhile I just don’t have the energy or interest in making a big mess right now. For the media console I did a technique I’ve used on oak mirrors to emphasize the grain.

Oak whitewashed media console with homemade chalk paint.

Over the years I’ve used name brand Chalk Paint and it’s been good but I now make my own using Plaster of Paris mixed with common housepaint and water. That’s what I have used for this project. It works the same in this application and is a fraction of the cost.

The key is to use a stiff (aka ruined ) brush and push the paint into the grain. Then you wipe away the paint almost immediately.

These are other mirrors I’ve done in this style.

We had a lot of snow fall on Friday and we’ve been so cozy indoors that I didn’t get too far into the basement makeover. It’s comfortable with a couch now and we have so many library books to read.

I have planned the moulding now which will be something manageable to complete with my handsaw and mitre box.

I also found the perfect coffee table a couple of weeks back. I had been looking into how to make a trunk but came across this one at Restore that was in excellent condition and the perfect size – it also locks so that helps keep little brother out of the Lego while the older one is at school.

Here is the link to the One Room Challenge and everyone else’s progress:

One Room Challenge – Fall 2020- Week#1

October 11, 2020October 12, 2020 shibangdesigns

Time for the Fall One Room Challenge – The best motivation to finish up projects!

Welcome to our basement. When we moved here over one year ago the only furniture we brought were our beds, couch and coffee table. This room has stayed basically unfurnished for the past year so now is the time to make it cozy to stay home this winter!

I prefer to use secondhand furniture as much as possible – for the environment, the quality is often better as is the price. This console we bought with our kitchen table, the TV used to be my Nana’s and the lamp is from the last house.

Last year I added curtains to the window. I bought new sheets and sewed them into curtains.

These cabinets I bought at Restore with plans to paint them and make them into a storage bench similar to our last home.

Here is the room (and the kids 😉 ) in a space overrun with toys. Despite the full size windows, it is dark so I will be painting the walls lighter and adding mirrors.

For months I have been looking for a secondhand sectional couch – finally I found one!

We bought our leather living room couch used in Montreal 8 years ago and it has withstood the use and abuse from kids and pets and still looks good. I had hoped to find something used again rather than buying new but was having trouble finding one. I started to look for a new one and asking my Aunt and friends when I saw this one used online. We hired a local person – Your Friend with a Truck – to bring it to us.

Here is step one of the Fall One Room Challenge to make the room cozier – what a difference furniture makes!

In our last home adding moulding throughout the house was a priority to add character. I haven’t done any yet in our current home but I brought this mirror from our last dining room which I plan to finally put up.

This was our last basement where I added this board and batten. I have some ideas for the wall treatment in our current home to give the space more character…they are quite finalized yet.

Here’s some of the materials I’ve been slowly collecting over the past year – paint mis-tints, some leftover Advance paint from the island cabinets and door architraves. I am also excited to sew some new cushion covers for the sectional couch.

To see what else everyone has planned check out the One Room Challenge page linked below:

https://www.oneroomchallenge.com/blog/orcguestss20wk1-khx3f

Fall ORC – Home Office Reveal

November 10, 2019November 11, 2019 shibangdesigns

Today is the last day for the One Room Challenge reveals. What I like about participating is how the event gives me a deadline to finish a room in the house otherwise I tend to let them stay unfinished for months.

I didn’t think that this room was going to come together on time because I’ve been looking for a secondhand cabinet and hadn’t found what I was looking for. When I did the Board & Batten Boys room in 2017 it took months until I found the right solid wood bunk beds and that was in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) where the population is into the millions!

Kelowna and the surrounding area is a much smaller population but after no luck on Kijiji, Craigslist and Marketplace I lucked out at Habitat for Humanity Restore yesterday and had the final piece. Secondhand shopping is so much fun when you find what you’ve been looking for.

Here is the cabinet with louvred doors that I brought home last night and painted this morning. I still need to find hardware and raise the height to make it work as a standing desk.

Another more challenging part of this room was installing the floating shelf above the desk. I used blind shelf supports from Lee Valley to display the plants.

Some work still needs to be done in this area but it’s so close to being ready.

I painted the mirror a glossy black to play up the round shapes of the wood and give it a more modern look.

I loved this ceramic lamp base that was hiding beneath a very big and brown shade, I’m still looking for the right shade. Part of the inspiration for this office was the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg that mixes traditional, modern and whimsical decor.

Remember what this room looked like at the beginning of October?

There are so many spectacular rooms that have been transformed in these past 6 weeks that are definitely worth checking out at www.oneroomchallenge.com.

Fall ORC – Week #3

October 20, 2019November 2, 2019 shibangdesigns

Unifying with Paint

This week’s update for the One Room Challenge is about a quick and easy project.

We no longer have our plants or pots so I set out to get new ones for the office. Finding plants was easy but to buy new pots gets pricey and I needed quite a few. Now that we’re starting off fresh in so many ways and I’m continuing to use secondhand as much as possible I went to check out thrift stores for pots. I decided to unify them with paint and in a grey, imitation cement look. Here’s the before (I’m still looking for a pot for the fern).

I used a chalky finish spray paint (and did a terrible job of it) to have a base for the paint to adhere to.

Then I painted them with a couple of different grey paint samples, Benjamin Moore Willow Creek and Baltic Grey to be specific.

Here’s the finished look. Now that the pots are all the same grey it’s not as busy with lots of colours and the plants take centre stage. Being able to choose secondhand items for their shape rather than colour made it much easier to find the right pieces however I still need to find a couple more!

These will be going on a floating shelf that I’m planning to put up above the desk.

Here’s the link to see how the other One Room Challenge projects are going:

UPDATE: Thanks Apartment Therapy for featuring this project!

Fall One Room Challenge – Weeks 1 & 2

October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 shibangdesigns

It’s that time of year again for the Fall One Room Challenge. I haven’t been blogging much since our move across the country because we’ve been enjoying the new city and working on meeting people instead of house projects.

I had planned to do a kitchen update by painting the kitchen cabinets but instead I’m focusing on my husband’s office. Since we moved this summer (with very little furniture) we have become used to living with less and haven’t set up any rooms properly yet.

This is the temporary set up of the office and how the bedroom looked from the listing photo.

The main priorities for the office:

In the last home office, I made a large L-Shaped desk using Ikea tabletops and legs which created a lot of work surfaces. This time I’m going to make something customized using wood from the hardware store and secondhand cupboards.

Painting the room was the first step – what a difference already! As with our previous homes, we are trying to use secondhand furniture as much as possible. That being said, it can take a while to find the right pieces when shopping used. I was happy to find two matching cabinets at Restore and the white paint for the walls there too.

I painted the cabinets black to work with the filing cabinet that we brought with us and then tried different layout options.

That’s it so far, excuse the blurry phone photos. To see the progress of the 300 + other rooms being transformed visit One Room Challenge.

ORC – Week 7 Reveal

November 19, 2017November 19, 2017 shibangdesigns

The One Room Challenge is now done and it’s time to see the finished spaces for all participants. There were a lot of changes in our home during these past 7 weeks, especially with the addition of our newest family member who was born 3 weeks ago.

Completing this room by myself while being very pregnant and then with a newborn had its challenges. I was able to install the Metrie trim but I didn’t have enough time to paint the bunk beds — I may have been a bit unrealistic about what I could complete during this time!

The foundation of the room is finished with the new trim, casings, baseboards and new light fixture. With the board and batten on the walls, the ceiling seems higher and these formerly blank white walls have interest even though one side of the room is currently bare.

Remember how this wall looked before when it was just plain white and had narrow baseboards? See the difference now?

This is the side where the bunk beds will go. In the meantime, here is a clear view of the new, Wide Baseboards and Solid Pine Lattice that I used for the board and batten. It was a new challenge to change the baseboards and I’m so glad I did because it gives the whole room a more updated look.

What I learned from installing wide baseboards is that you need a large blade on your mitre saw in order to properly cut them. That’s just something to keep in mind when choosing a saw if you like the wider moulding profiles.

The board and batten worked well with the awkward angles of this room.

For artwork, I used this painting that was done by my husband and just happened to be the right colour scheme for the room. While mum was visiting in October she made this flannel crib sheet.

Here is my 3-week old son testing out the new space and of course our dog, Cali is right there beside him.

Thank you to Metrie for helping to make this vision a reality! I love when a sketch or an idea comes to fruition.

Even though many elements in the room stayed the same (curtains, curtain rod, crib) with a new foundation the whole room looks new.

To see how all of the other 200 + rooms turned out click on the ORC logo below.

ORC- Week 5

November 4, 2017November 10, 2017 shibangdesigns

The pieces and materials are all coming together for this room, now it’s just a matter of completing all of the projects.

This is my son who was born last Thursday and was the reason that I decided to take on the One Room Challenge this fall. This pineapple quilt was made by my Mum and is part of the theme for the room.

Since my last post, I’ve ripped off the basic mouldings in the room so that I can replace them with Metrie baseboards and casings. Since I’m going to be adding board and batten to the walls, I wanted to add weight to the baseboards and casings to make the whole room have more architectural interest.

I am so excited to partner with Metrie again to complete this project. This time I’m using trim from their Pretty Simple Collection because the profiles were the perfect complement for the lattice I’m using as the battens.

This is what I’ll be using in the room:

Solid Pine Lattice 1 5/8″

Pretty Simple Casing

Pretty Simple Baseboards 5 1/4″

This is the current state of the room with all mouldings removed. Before installing the new ones I will paint them outside in the garage. Since I couldn’t wait to see how it would look I propped up the new baseboards to get an idea of how it will look.

We have bunk beds now as well. After searching for months without any luck, I finally found this set of solid wood bunk beds on Kijiji.

This was the only picture in the ad but it was enough to tell that they were what I was looking for – good quality, solid wood and could be separated into twin beds in the future if we ever wanted to.

This is part of the bunk bed frame that I’m planning to paint white.

After seeing the bunk bed ladder in the room I think I’ll leave it as is for practical reasons and also because the colour of wood works with the white walls and yellow curtains.

To see the progress of the other One Room Challenge participants click on the logo below.