One Room Challenge Week 1 – The Plan

My first One Room Challenge!  I am excited to be joining the challenge as a guest participant this fall. What is the One Room Challenge? It is a design event twice a year, where 20 featured designers and hundreds of guest participants makeover a room in five short weeks!

Check out the other participants in the One Room Challenge here to get some inspiration for your future project!

What room am I tackling in the next five weeks? Last week I decided yes I am going to do the challenge this fall and decided I could complete the master bedroom by the reveal date. For me, one week of planning and research is not enough time. I like to browse for inspiration, research ideas, order samples, and have a plan in place before I get started.

If this is your first time to Birchwood Dream, welcome! A little about myself, my name is Aubrey Costello, and I created the blog Birchwood Dream to document and share my journey in updating the 1997 home we have had now for nine years. I love crafting and DIY projects and have found the blog to be an excellent outlet to share it with the world!

The Starting Point

The current state of the master bedroom, yes, I know I know there is nothing wrong with the master bedroom right now.  And yes, I did a little refresh on it last spring; see the post here. But I am craving a change here and want the master bedroom to be filled with light and moody neutrals, void of color at the moment.  If I want a little color, I can also switch back to this duvet cover for a splash of color.

The Inspiration

When I saw this photo on Pottery Barn’s website, I knew instantly that this was it! White and ivory bedding with lots of different textures contrasted with dark, moody walls.

I have never done all-white bedding before and have always loved the look of it. I am a little scared of what my family will do to the white duvet, but the beauty of whites is they are easy to brighten and clean again, thank you The Laundress.

The Mood Board

Here is the gathering of all my thoughts at the moment. This is not the final plan, but more of a working mood board to keep my thoughts and ideas together.

The Details – The Ceiling

I want to do something fun and dramatic with the ceiling, something that I haven’t done before. In our master bedroom, we have a decorative tray ceiling. In the current state, it doesn’t stand out at all.

Some of the ceiling ideas I am playing with is to paint it a dark color. On the center portion painting it dark or wallpapering it. A lot of this will depend on the wall color, and we will have to wait and see what happens!

The Details – Walls

I have decided to add wallpaper to the wall behind the bed. Craig didn’t like my first option of Frond Silhouette (see above) that I have been eyeing for years. He said I already turned the basement into a Florida Golden Girls theme and that he didn’t want it in the bedroom as well. Just because I painted the basement walls blush doesn’t mean it’s Golden Girls, guys don’t understand!

Here is what I came up with this week and have samples on order. I am going for a modern glam look.

I am struggling with what color direction I want to go with for the walls and ceiling. Here are some of the ideas that are floating around in my head right now. At one moment, I want everything to be a deep charcoal/black color. Then I switch to light walls and dark ceiling color. The exact colors will be based on the wallpaper.

Depending on if the walls are dark or light affects the furniture color since I want some contrast, I think. Until I finalize the wall and ceiling colors, I can’t select anything else. Hurry wallpaper samples, hurry!

Homework

For the upcoming week, I will be patiently waiting for my wallpaper, vinyl, and paint samples to arrive to make some final decisions. I need to plan a trip to Minneapolis to purchase nightstands and accessories. Purchase molding and giving them two coats of paint to be ready when the installer has time.

Other than that, I am in a holding pattern until I finalize the color scheme, which will be designed around the wallpaper. Stay tuned until next Thursday to see how I am progressing!