I feel like I’m starting to get the true experience with this One Room Challenge now. See, I’m doing most of this room transformation in real time, and I went to Seattle for the weekend with some friends, and now I feel a little behind on the room. But that’s okay! Laughing so much was a welcome excuse and that’s how life goes. #transparency
If you remember from my inspiration board in the first post, and my plans after adding the console table from my second post, you might have seen that my vision includes adding two stools under the table in the room. They need solve a couple functional problems in the room:
- They need to be light enough to be moved around
- They will offer seating, if needed
- They can also function as a luggage rack
The ones that I had my eye on are from CB2, because I like the wood grain and the shape. I’m not crazy about the cowhide for this space, nor the price tag. I love CB2 and furnished my first home with big pieces almost exclusively from them, but remember, I’m trying to find cheaper solutions for this room. Well, my biggest personal hurdle in life is that I always feel like I can create things myself, so that’s what I’m doing with these stools. I drew up a plan and decided to build two of them with four 1” x 2” x 8’ boards and two 1.5” round dowels rods. I can do a break down of it later if you’re interested, but I’m in the throws of it now, so I don’t have a final product just yet. I’m also thinking of getting some faux leather in black for the top part of the seat.
This week, I also picked up a few Benjamin Moore paint samples from a local Colorado store, Guiry’s, that I’ve been thinking about using in this space. I’ve heard that in order to be sure about your paint color, you should put a couple samples up on multiple walls in a space so you know how it will look in all lights. That sounds like a bit much for my attention span, so I stopped by the craft store with the intent of picking up foam boards, but came across a screaming deal on 16” x 20” canvases! I bought the pack of five for $10, brought them home, and put two coats of a different color on each one. From then, I was able to prop them up in the room and ask Matt what his thoughts were. I already had a favorite, and luckily, after he made jokes about how they all looked the same, his matched up with mine! Hahah. I don’t blame him. I tested the canvases in different spots of the room at different times of day.
The color of our home is a great neutral gray. Everywhere. Our townhouse was flipped before we bought it and so every room has been treated the same. In that sense, it feels very much like we live in a new build in that there’s no real style to the home. And though the color on the walls is a good one, it’s always bothered me and it took me the better part of a wear to figure out why—the paint sheen! Our walls have an orange peel texture treatment on them and the flippers used a paint finish with some gloss in it, I’d guess at least satin. I know that for practicality, it was smart of them to use a paint sheen that is easier to wipe clean, but messes on walls don’t happen very often around here with no kids and small cats dogs. Even if a wall did need to be touched up because it has a matte finish on it, I’m not opposed to doing that with paint. So, I’m planning on painting the guest room with a matte finish, and it will be the the first of many new, still textured but less shiny walls in this house.
The Benjamin Moore colors I tested for the walls were Going to The Chapel, Edgecomb Gray, and Olympic Mountains, and for the ceiling color, I tried Graphite and Midnight Dream. Going to The Chapel looked like it had too much of a green undertone for me in the store, but I still wanted to try it in my home’s lighting to be sure. Turns out I still think it’s too green. Edgecomb Gray was really nice, but felt darker than I wanted, like it was taking me back to a beige room. Olympic Mountains felt perfect! Warm, but not too dark on the walls. As for the black colors, I was pretty sure I wanted a true black on the ceiling, but again, I felt like I should try another option. Graphite is a dark gray color and although there is nothing wrong with it, both Matt and I picked Midnight Dream. Currently trying to decide what to do with the white smoke detector that is hard wired on the ceiling… Oh by the way, I don’t think I’ve shared any photos from these posts yet that accurately show you the pitched ceiling in this room. See below. I’m excited to highlight it!
As far as my craft store paint test method, I’m happy to know that I can save the canvases I bought when I’m done with this project and use them to try out other paint colors in other rooms in the future! Also, since we left for the weekend in Seattle, our dog sitter was going to be staying in the guest room. Another unforeseen perk of this paint testing method was that we didn’t have to put her in a room with a ton of paint squares on each wall, or have a lingering paint smell in there. In fact, I would bet that she has no idea that we’re planning on painting in there at all!
So, here’s hoping my plans for the stools come together quickly and I make the time to paint this room over the weekend! Can’t wait to show you more next week. And again, be sure to check out what the featured designers of the One Room Challenge are doing here, and the other guest participants (like me!) are up to this week here. Love, Shauna
