ORC: Week 3 – Living Room Transformation

April 20, 2018

How to decorate a room in 6 weeks! That’s the main goal of the One Room Challenge. My ORC transformation room is my Living Room.

The 3rd full week of the One Room Challenge is now complete. Quite honestly, I’ve had a busy week (being sick and then with work). So, unfortunately, there aren’t too many visible signs that things are progressing on the room. I am hopeful, however. Most of my fabrics have been ordered and are either in transit or are already at my workrooms. Here are a few of my workroom projects:

For my birthday in January, I bought myself this pair of George II style Gainsborough Library chairs.

I found them online two years ago and nearly gasped in delight. The Rose Tarlow “Kent” chair is, in my opinion, a gorgeous speciman of art with those dark scrolling legs! I fell in love with this chair 25 years ago and never thought that I’d be lucky enough to own one (let alone two) of my very own. For two years, I stalked them and imagined them in this room. Finally, in January, I made the decision. This is how I decided to bite the bullet. I asked myself “would I be upset if someone else bought these chairs?” – after hemming and hawing to myself – I agreed that I would be very upset with myself if I didn’t buy them. So, I contacted the owner, Erin at Erin Lane Estate in Oakland, CA to ask a few more details. She and her husband, Carlos, were extremely gracious over the phone and answered all of my questions. I very much enjoyed working with them and highly recommend that you go to their gorgeous website and see what other goodies they have. I hope to work with them again – as I had such a great experience.

These Gainsborough Library chairs never made it to my house – they were shipped directly to my upholsterer. She’s going to reupholster them in Jim Thompson’s “Paradise Vine, pink” linen.

For my two existing upholstered chairs, I will have them reupholstered in Pindler & Pindler’s “Zanzibar, pink” zebra cotton and ornament the skirt with a sherbert pastel tassel fringe.

Existing yellow chair to be reupholstered in this “Zambezi, pink” zebra print fabric

Here are a few other fabrics going into the space:

And lastly – one of my surprise favorites for the room is this F. Schumacher’s “Yangtze River, aqua” fabric. It, literally, was a fabric I picked up very last minute for a Client project. But, after realizing it wasn’t going to work for her, I noticed the colors worked really well with my scheme! So, surprise! I’m going to have a couple of pillows made with it and place them on the pink zebra chairs.

F.Schumacher’s “Yangtze River, aqua” will be made into pillows for my pink upholstered chairs.

The only problem is that the fabric is back-ordered and won’t be shipping until the end of May. So, it looks like I’ll have to post-pone my professional shots until some time in June….

The only real noticeable improvements taken in the Living Room redecoration this week was the trim color. That’s a minor drama in itself. But, long story short, the handyman that swore he was going to come on Friday to give me a final quote didn’t show, nor did he answer my calls and texts. So Saturday morning I hopped over to the BenMoore store and bought my gallon of “Chantilly Lace” paint and a good trim brush. Thinking that I’d probably have to paint all of the trim myself, I spent Sunday afternoon taping off the fireplace area and a bit of Monday beginning to put the first coat on. However, after a few hours of tedious trim painting, I had to quit. I resolved to call one of my reliable painters.

Mike and his team answered my painting prayers. Mike came over Tuesday evening to give me a quote. And, by Wednesday afternoon, he and James came over to begin repair work on my trim. Mike and his crew arrived bright and early this morning and applied the first coat of semi-glossy paint on my trim. Already the difference is staggering! I can’t wait for them to finish tomorrow.