One Room Challenge Fall 2021 – Week 8 – Final Room Reveal

After 8 weeks of design, DIY, and decorating, the big day has finally arrived: the One Room Challenge Final Room Reveals!

About the One Room Challenge

Eight weeks ago, we committed to participating in this fall season of the One Room Challenge, an event that occurs every Fall and Spring since 2011. Every season, designers set out to transform one room over the course of (normally 6, but it’s extended by 2 weeks due to Covid) 8 weeks. They join up in the event to support each other and share ideas via weekly updates in the One Room Challenge blog.

To date, over 5,400 rooms have been transformed as part of the One Room Challenge.

A Quick Recap

We set out to makeover our very bland living room. As a bonus, the living room opens up into the dining, room which opens into the kitchen. And the entire area opens to the upstairs landing. Of course we couldn’t just update the living room and let it look into a blah kitchen dining room, and upstairs landing–so we gave them a makeover, too!

Need to catch up before the final reveal? Check out our weekly updates below:
Weeks 1 & 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7

Design Goal

The vibe we decided to go for was:

Moody modern vintage, a touch gaudy

To keep the budget on track, we weren’t going to buy any additional furniture (except 2 dining chairs) or wall decor (except curtains), so were going to rely on a LOT of diy to get there. Let’s see how we did!

Before & After

Let’s look back at what we started with 8 weeks ago: aged cream-colored paint and too-long curtains. But a lot of potential!

The living room opened into an equally bland dining room, kitchen, and upstairs landing.

Fast forward to today, and our moody, modern vintage, a touch gaudy transformation is complete!

This is my first time making over a space of this size, and I’m still in disbelief. I can’t stop looking at it!

When I tackled this challenge, I worked through one diy project at a time. I was so focused on each individual project that now I’m kind of shocked seeing how they all came together!

Let’s take a look at the individual projects that helped us transform this room.

DIY Horizontal Slat Wall

Once we’d finished painting (choosing colors probably took longer than the actual painting), the upstairs wall seemed to look even more naked than before we painted it. It needed something.

The wood gives it that vintage feel while the abstract shape keeps it modern. And let’s face it, the unapologetic scale makes it a touch gaudy.

This was the first project I completed and I loved the added dimension of the individual slats. I continued the design onto the neighboring walls and around to the upstairs doorway so that there was something to look at from every angle.

This was the first project I took on during this challenge, and my first time ever trying to decorate an entire wall. Completing this first project made me feel a lot better about the other projects I’d had planned.

DIY Coffee Table

Other than 2 dining chairs, we didn’t buy any furniture for this challenge. So this table was our only furniture chance to set a moody, modern vintage vibe, a touch gaudy vibe.

These coffee table legs somehow manage to be modern, vintage, and definitely a touch gaudy all at once!

This is my first furniture build ever, and I’m so excited about how it turned out! And it was really sturdy! I def laid down on it for a few Instagram photo opps to attest to that.

DIY LED Accent Wall

The TV wall is by far my favorite projects from these last few weeks–it was also the one that took the longest BY FAR. At first I thought I was planning on just creating something to match the upstairs slat wall, and then it snowballed into an accent + lighting feature. And just like that, I signed myself up for a much bigger project than I’d planned.

Since each individual piece of this project was small in size, they were easier to work with than the wall-length slats. That challenge was in the volume of small squares and gridlines that I needed to build to cover the entire wall. But once I got them up on this wall, I knew it was worth it!

As you can see, the color of the lights are different between the two photos, because the LED strips are color-changing! That extra detail really made this wall even more fun.

For a long time I was stumped on what to do with this wall because of that window. I kept thinking it limited my wall space to only the area to the left of the window. Then it finally dawned on me: incorporate the window into the grid!

Stairwell

The stairs started out like this. It took me a long time to figure out how exactly to paint this area: which walls would be painted black and which ones the lighter color?

To keep the stairwell inviting, we opted for all light paint and painted the railing black for a more modern feel and to tie in the surrounding walls’ black paint.

All of Week 5 was dedicated to building canvas frames, stretching and priming canvas, and painting! This was the largest one I made.

Since the other paintings were a bit more bold, I wanted this one to be a little bit more quiet but inviting. I tied in the color palette from the living room drapes and rug.

Dining Room

The main additions we made to the dining room were paint and paintings.

Since the chandelier (which we chose to keep) had a dark frame, we colored it gold so that it contrast with the dark wall colors behind it.

This is the only place in the entire downstairs where you’ll find greens and blues. I deviated from the main color palette here to add an unexpected pop of color and draw you into the room. The dark colors are still moody but the refreshing palette and contrasting frame make it feel modern. And of course the loudness of it all adds that touch of gaudy we’re looking for.

This piece was a last-minute addition. I had originally painted a different painting for this wall, but I wanted to create something more modern with a little more visual interest for guests to look at when sitting at the dining table. I think this did the trick!

Kitchen

The last stop here is the kitchen. We needed to transform this all-white kitchen into one that was modern, moody vintage, a touch gaudy.

Paint, new cabinet hardware, a backsplash, valences and a new lighting fixture did the trick!

This was my first time deciding to paint cabinets and choosing cabinet colors. I wanted a bold color choice that would really fit into our vibe, so I went in both feet first with a bold burgundy paint choice. The burgundy cabinet colors ties in the burgundy couch in the living room and I absolutely love the combination of burgundy cabinets + gold hardware.

Matching burgundy cabinets AND an existing granite color AND black walls took a few tries. But I love these brown mirrored tiles. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfectly vintage and gaudy backsplash.

Woohoo!

This was my first time transforming an entire room like this. Prior to this, I’d only made a square dowel art piece for the wall. Only a week or two before this challenge I used a miter saw for the very first time. And now I look around this room in disbelief that it’s filled with all these diy projects that I didn’t even know I could make!

I’m beyond excited and so thankful that Better Homes and Gardens continues to put on this One Room Challenge that helped push me out of my comfort zone. Be sure to check out all the other big reveals of this season at the ORC blog:
One Room Challenge blog

I can’t believe this is the same space and that all it took was paint and a few weeks of diy! I’m so thrilled with how this space turned out and I cannot wait to apply my newly learned skills to new projects (I’ve already thought of a bunch of new ones I want to tackle!)

Now that our 8 weeks are wrapped up, I’ll be sure to create tutorials for each of the diy projects that helped transform this space. Stay tuned!