One Room Challenge | Neutral & Relaxing Guest Room Makeover

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

Welcome to week two of The One Room Challenge!  During the course of this project, I will be making over my guest room.  The room is a little boring and not quite ready for guests.  During the course of this challenge,  I will be creating a neutral and relaxing space for my guests.

THE PROJECT PLAN

I will finish this project over the course of the next four weeks. The project plan by week is as follows:

The project plan by week is as follows:

• Week 1 – Add a feature wall using board and batten – completed
• Week 2 – Paint feature wall, trim, and doors.
• Week 3 – Paint windows and hang curtains.
• Week 4 – Paint the existing dresser and install new hardware.
• Week 5 – Paint art for the walls.
• Week 6 –  Add remaining decorative elements and make the bed.

WEEK TWO | GETTING STARTED

Of all the rooms in my house that I have worked on, this one is not the worst.  We painted the walls about a year ago and purchased a bed.  That was it.  I am a little sad that we have waited this long to get this room pulled together.  I am excited about how it is going to look in a few weeks!

Let’s talk about this week.  The husband and I went to a hardware store to pick up boards for the feature wall.  The walls are mostly smooth so we did not have to repair the walls or add MDF to the walls before starting.  We picked out primed 1×4 boards and headed to checkout.

The boards were a bit long and didn’t all quite fit in the car.  This is a shot of me riding home in our SUV with the board sitting behind my head.  But, it gets better…

Here is a shot of the end of the board.  It was a 12 foot long piece that we should have asked for them to cut down for us as we only needed 10 feet.  I rode the five miles home with the board hanging outside the window.

The next day we measured and starting cutting the boards to size.  It took significantly longer than I thought it would take to cut the boards and get them nailed up.

Most of our slow down was because of me.  Originally, I wanted a grid of squares on the wall.  We were well on our way before I started to second guess myself.  I had another idea, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to look.  I put up some masking tape we hand on hand to help me out.  Here is a shot of my masking tape wall.

We got up one row of horizontal boards and I was able to picture what I wanted. I decided to go with my new plan: two square sections on top and one rectangle section on the bottom.

THE REVEAL

One of the things we needed in this room was a light.  We had an old 80’s ceiling fan without a light kit that needed to be replaced.  Since we wanted to add a light, and I really like sleeping with a ceiling fan, I picked out a new fan with a light attached.  This one is quite lovely and it only cost us $99.

I ultimately decided to go with the two sets of squares on top with a rectangle on the bottom for the design of the feature wall.  It is quite lovely.  It isn’t done, but it is already beginning to look fantastic. The boards still need to be painted. I will have them done for next week’s reveal.

PROJECT SPEND

Let’s talk about spend.  I am watching project costs and I am trying to pull this room together for less than $1,000.  So far we have replaced the ceiling fan and installed a feature wall.  The feature wall needs to be painted, but it has in fact been installed.

• The materials for the feature wall included 9 1×4 boards at the price of $6.98 each and one piece of decorative trim for the transition from the baseboard for about $12.  The total cost was $80.02
• The ceiling fan total cost was $105.93
• Total project cost to date: 185.95

I look forward to sharing the details of this project as it progresses over the coming weeks!

Want to see more?  Check out the One Room Challenge Featured Designers.