It’s week five of the One Room Challenge. If you missed the first weeks you can catch up on them here: week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4!
If you are new to the blog, welcome! I am a financial auditor by day and started this blog to pursue my passion of design, renovation, and all things home. We bought our house two and half years ago and are slowly renovating it room by room.
We are overhauling an upstairs bedroom that we are transforming into an office for this challenge. We started with a room full of boxes housing office supplies, craft supplies, and random décor.
If you read last week’s post you know I decided to switch up my original plan of creating a reading nook in the office to adding a craft table instead. We brought the craft table and chairs up to the office and I am loving it in the office!
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This week I tackled managed to tackle two smaller projects space.
The office chair I ordered had a very bright, yellow-y brass finish on the base. After living with it in the office for a few weeks I decided it was a bit too much for my taste. I really LOVE the shape of the chair and how comfortable it is so I knew I did not want to return it, instead I chose the next best option: Rub n’ Buff. I used this to tone down the gold color on the base – it is truly an amazing product! I am writing a separate post on my tips and tricks to using Rub n’ Buff, so stay tuned if you are interested! But, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at the difference it can make.
The above image is mid Rub n’ Buff- this picture is pretty accurate as to the bright yellow brassy-ness of the original finish – you can see the top right leg is still the original finish and the leg I am working on has already been had the product applied. Much more muted and toned down brass. Such a difference!!
Now the final product (or at least mostly finished) – I still need to touch up the legs in a few places, but you can’t really tell from this picture.
The second project I tackled was the lighting. We do no have a central overhead light in this room, only a recessed light directly above the closet doors. Why oh why was this popular to do in the 70s/80s?? I knew I wanted an overhead type of light for above the craft table otherwise doing crafts at the table was going to be a little difficult. I had the idea of hanging a swagged plug-in pendant light. I searched high and low at stores near us for a light that would work and finally found a light at our local world market: gold wire pendant light. I really liked the style and shape of this light. It also added a bit of interest since most everything else in the space has cleaner lines. Plus I got it for a very good price, which was good since I was not originally planning on buying a light for the space. The day I bought it I brought it home and immediately hung it up.
Almost instantly I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. I really do like the light itself a lot, however, both Nathan and I couldn’t get behind the swagged cord. The cord for this light is just a regular electrical cord. I think if the cord had been wrapped or woven it would have looked prettier when hanging, but this looked a little to messy for our taste so I am going to return the light. Now we were back to square one for a light fixture. Due to the time crunch and also really not wanting to buy anything else for the space I did what I do best – I shopped my house. I ordered this arc floor lamp for the den when we completed the One Room Challenge last spring. I love this lamp so much – so much that I keep moving it from room to room because it looks good in every room in our house! I moved it from the den to our living room where it has lived for a while (I moved another floor lamp into the den #serialfurniturerearranger) and knew it would be the perfect light for the office above the craft table! I have been planning a small living room refresh which includes adding sconces to the wall so I knew it would be alright to snag this lamp for the office.
I love the look and function of this floor lamp for this room! It’s the perfect height for above the table, we didn’t have to pay an electrician to wire an overhead light in the room, and we don’t need a messy swagged cord hanging from the ceiling. For the record – I think swagged lights can be really pretty and look nice if done right, I just couldn’t find a light at the price point I wanted (or in the time I needed) for this room. I am so happy with how this little corner is turning out! Now I just need to add a few decor touches, maybe some small items on the table and art on the wall.
This is the point in the challenge where I start question myself… WHY DID I PROCRASTINATE SO MUCH?! There is so much left to do on this list to cross the finish line. Here’s everything we have left to get the space completed (I keep adding things to the list every week – still):
- clean everything out of the room/organize/donate unused items
- prime: window and door casings
- paint:walls, baseboards, closet, and closet doors
- remove and patch outdated intercom system
- replace electric outlets and plugs
- wallpaper the closet (leftover material we have from a previous project)
- install Ikea closet organizing system (leftover material we have from a previous project)
- order and install a window covering
- order a pendant light (??)
- order a rug
- order a desk chair
- DIY a giant mood board/pinboard
- makeover existing filing cabinet (paint & hardware)
- paint storage cabinet
- hang art
- organize, decorate and style the space!
There’s a lot to do for this space, but I am confident I will finish it all this weekend — because next week is the reveal, eek! Be sure to come back next week and to see the final reveal!! In the mean time check out the other participants here. As always, I would love for you to follow along as we make over this space! Follow along on Instagram for more updates along the way!
