It’s the end of the 6 weeks of the One Room Challenge and boy did that fly by. Overall I am really happy with how this space turned out. Especially because I only spent about $400 for everything!
The new space is much more ‘guest room’ and less ‘cluttered craft room.’ I moved my sewing machine and most of my crafting areas to the large walk in closet.
The night stands I found a few years ago at the the Mid Century Furniture Warehouse in Fishtown PA. They actually were really affordable, and I almost got rid of them a few months ago. That would have been a mistake!
The swing arm lamps and the blue swivel chair were other finds for the Brand*eye Home shop. I am glad they never sold, because with some new shades and fabric they look great! I made the shades by buying regular white ones, and then covering them with the same fabric from the chair. The chair was professionally upholstered, but the shade I DIYed and here’s what I watched to figure out how to do it: YouTube.
The credenza was a very last minute find the day before the room had to be done. I seem to be really good at finding these, like for the bathroom mirror. I am so happy that this turned up at the last minute. On Tuesday I had a half hour to kill between Lowe’s and an appointment. I remembered that there was a good thrift store in Glenside, PA, New Life Thrift. They had this beauty for $65!! I could have found one for much more, but really didn’t want to settle, spend more, and just buy something to meet an arbitrary one room challenge timeline. In reality it does need some refinishing, but I’ll get around to that eventually. It has good bones so it was worth it. 
The wall hanging is a vintage hand hooked rug that I found at a flea market in Maine in the summer of 2016. It is absolutely divine. I was going to frame it, and then I found some binding that worked perfectly as a hanging sleeve. I hand sewed it to the back, and used a wooden rod to hang it. 
The top of the dresser is pretty beat up, so I covered it with all of this stuff 🙂 
The crochet coverlet was a flea market find from several years ago. I’m so glad I’m finally using it, but in reality I can’t keep this on here all of the time. Winnie would destroy it.
The black pillows are king size pillow forms that I covered in black linen. This was a fun sewing project. Pillow covers are about the easiest thing to make.
Behind the black pillows is a really large rectangle bolster. As you can see, the bed is rotated 90 degrees and set up like a giant daybed. The wall on the left will hold our TV, I just ran out of time to hang it. The bed will also be used as a sofa and the back cushion was made from the leftover foam from our camper cushion renovation. The camper cushion backs are also the inspiration for this idea!
The hanging plant thing is made with a combo of the hanging rope that I got at an Estate Sale a block away and a lamp shade that I found at a flea market in Jersey. The oversize ridiculous branch is from our yard. 
The bed was the biggest splurge for this space. It was actually a really good deal from wayfair and was less than $200. You can find it here.
In reality the adorable little lady above will use this space the most. And a fun fact is that the two plants above are from the same plant. The one on the right I had outside all summer and during a storm it fell over and two branches fell off. I put them in water and they have lived on our counter all summer. It’s interesting how the leaves look so different, but they started from the same plant. That’s a good metaphor for life. You can’t predict what madness you will face, but you can decide how you handle it and thrive in a new environment.
This little area is what remains of my craft corner in this room. I even used it to make a few things in this room for the one room challenge (lamp shades, pillows, bolster, rug hanging sleeve). It actually works much better to have everything in one space, instead of spread throughout the room. The yellow chair I found at the Clover Market a few years ago. I removed the crappy looking curtain that I had across the entryway of the walk in closet. The AC unit is hidden behind the orange curtain. This closet is huge and really works great to store all of my craft supplies. I was happy to find out that the sewing desk would also fit in here. It’s from IKEA and I bought it a few years ago. It doesn’t come in orange anymore, but it does come in black or white. It’s really hard to get a good picture of this area, so please forgive this crappy photo.
The view out of the windows is so beautiful. I am so glad that I’m finally taking advantage of it!
Here is a small recap of the last 6 weeks:
Day 1: Oh… we just finished the guest bathroom yesterday, but let’s start this guest bedroom and have to finish it in 6 weeks! And I haven’t really thought much about it, and parts of my life are falling apart that I’d like to avoid so let’s stay occupied. Let’s finally redo the floors!
Week 1: Oh yeah, stop spending any money, because you have spent way too much and have a ridiculous amount of unanticipated expenses now.
Week 2: Travel to Ireland for work for a week. Spend the weekend by having Dave fly out and meet me there. Nobody could believe we were there for the ‘weekend.’ They would just laugh at us, like it was the most ridiculous thing they have ever heard of. I would find an amazing vintage 60s coat and we would drink a lot of Guinness.
Week 3: Didn’t do much. Decided on hanging plants and a credenza for the TV.
Week 4 : Started thinking new flooring was probably not going to happen. I told Dave we should not redo the flooring, because it would be too much work in a short amount of time and I couldn’t handle it. I have not seen him happier then in that moment. It meant that the weekend and the next weekend would be free and we could just chill. It also meant the many after work days would be free. Whoohoo!
Week 5: Empty out room and repair walls, repaint everything. Notice that the room has an amazing view that I need to stop covering up.
Week 6: Put it all back together. 95% of this room is made up of what I already owned. I had an online vintage shop for the last few years so it helped that I already had lots of cool vintage stuff. I recently closed the shop, because I have a full time job (not in the design world, sadly) and the vintage resale business is hard if you can’t spend a lot of time with it. Plus I just love to buy things that I love, so many times everything just goes together.
Make sure to check out all of the other one room challenge participants. There are 20 real designers, and you can find links to all of their stunning rooms here. The guest participants (like me) can be found here.
I’d love to know what you think of this room. Let me know in the comments below!
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