One Room Challenge

Week Six: Not ready for our close-up.

Welcome back to my One Room Challenge! If you are new to ORC, it is Linda's of Calling it Home brainchild. Linda invited 20 designer bloggers to totally make over a room in six weeks. And did she line up the talent! Their now completed transformations are nothing short of amazing. Check them out here.

Linda then invented the ORC Linking Party where scores of design crazed bloggers post their progress and transformations. I am in this latter group. 

My daughter's old bedroom is being given a new look and purpose as a library/bedroom. 

Week One laid out my plan and inspirations. 

Week Two documented dismantling three bookcases. 

There was no Week Three. 

Week Four, the three bookcases are now one. 

Week Five found me in Savannah, which was perfectly lovely, but did nothing to advance progress. 

This, my first One Room Challenge taught me valuable lessons:

1. Don't get sick and then go on holiday and think I can make up two lost weeks.
2. Next ORC, do not enter the alternate reality where I expertly paint, operate a power saw, and do upholstery, because the 'expertly' part vanishes when exiting alternate reality. Line up the talent and support far in advance. 
3. Re-read number 2.

No surprise, Week Six is here and my room is not. But I am positively thrilled to be so far down the path. The end is in sight! Just not this week. Glass half full and I am forging ahead with my original goals: do the work myself and no new furniture (I'm a slow learner. Not totally out of alternate reality.)

Some bright spots.

Fulfilling the 'no new furniture' goal. The wretched table my husband brought home last Fall was given new life and purpose as a bedside table.

the things we do for love. "Linda, look what I got at a garage sale! For free!" 

There was no saving the leather top. Underneath was an ugly mess so I painted the backside of a piece of glass. 

Ed of Demers Glass cut and polished the glass and carried it out to my car.

Here she is after being sanded within an inch of life and then bleached and painted.
The glass paint is Sherwin-Williams Jamaica, the base is Skylight, a Farrow and Ball color in C2 paint.
I lined the drawer in my favorite linen from Anna French.

The painting, textiles, upholstery, lighting and mirror all coming along nicely.

My lovely daughter came home early Friday afternoon for Mother's Day. News flash! She loves the new wall paint and the little table. That makes me happy. Very happy.

my DIY version of the real gold gilded seashells I fell madly in love with, but at $200 a pop, I am more than happy with my home made version. The blanc-de-chin on the right is the new lamp for the desk. Looks fab against the blue wall.

That fish in the background? It is a carp kite flying over the taro fields in Princeville on Kauai. Natasha and I, my mother and sister were all at that exact spot many years back. Last month, the same sister found this giclée at the Good Will in San Diego. It fits over the desk, perfectly. Thank you sister.

All in all, I am truly grateful to Linda of Calling it Home. If it hadn't been for her I would still be designing and redesigning, and the room today would look just like the '90's refugee it was six weeks ago. I wouldn't have looked twice at my sister's text of the Princeville carp but the blue caught my eye -- it is a blue room -- I love the Hawaii/San Diego/Boston connection. The pièce de résistance? Both my husband and daughter are excited about this change. This is huge, monumental, colossal, epic. Honestly. The two most change averse people walking the earth, are happy and excited about a change! This alternate reality I can learn to love. I'm still in shock.

Thank you Linda! Make sure you visit Linda's project and the fabulous rooms of the other 19 talented designers she lined up for this One Room Challenge.

My project? If I were you, I'd stay tuned.

can two worry warts find true love and occupy the same shelf?

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks for reading,
Linda Pakravan

This post was not sponsored by any of the companies mentioned.