This week, I have been painting my little hiney off. And I discovered that painting is not my ministry. I will stick to designing interiors, and let the specialty trades create my designs. Your girl is tiiiiiirrrrrredddddddddd -- to say the least!
Welcome to Week 6 of the One Room Challenge. This week, we began our construction/renovation phase of our design process. Color is the last thing one should do for the design of the room. You should choose color based on your furniture, accessories, and artwork to make certain everything complements each other and the wall color is the proper backdrop for your design. For our guest room revamp, Caribbean tropical themed room, I wanted the overall colors of the room to complement the area rug we selected and purchased from CB2. I used the rug as one of my inspiration piece for this room. If you need to refresh your memory of our inspiration pieces, please click here to read our "inspiration" blog post for this challenge. For this room, for some reason, I desired to use a green as the main color of the room (this does not include the accent wall color). I loved the idea of green because when I nostalgic about my home country, Panama, I love all the plush landscape of green that we have...the mountains, the banana trees, the plantain trees, the mango trees, the hills...I see them everywhere we go and every time I visit home, I enjoy the breathtaking view of plush green landscape. Therefore, I desired to have those same feelings of zen and comfort in my guest room renovation. The green color I selected complements the rug really well, and the juxtaposition of both, gives me the "island" vibe and earthy tones that Panama embodies.
Once I selected the green color, I needed another color for the accent wall that will be a "wow factor" along with the green... just as bold and rich. I was browsing through a color book I purchased a few years back, and fell in love with a portrait of wooden plates, vintage newspapers and pearl colored plates. That portrait caught my eye, and the purple color is a perfect complement for the green color. Moreover, the purple color in the room goes altogether with the green wall and the rug...I believe it enhances the beauty of the rug, really.
Like I stated at the beginning, painting is not my ministry. I began painting the accent wall in the purple. Then, took a break to do some administrative work to check on the statuses of my clients' projects, order tracking for this room, and conduct phone consultations for new prospective projects. After doing so, I began painting the ceiling. Painting the ceiling was tough, all of my muscles were being worked overtime and I began to ache. I got through half of the ceiling, and when I looked at my clock, it was 7:30 pm. So, at that time, after utter exhaustion from the day, I decided that it's no way I can do this all by myself...finish painting the walls and ceiling... and keep on schedule to finish the room by the 8th week mark. Therefore, I decided to contact a handyman to finish the job. He was readily available. He came by the next day, which was Tuesday, and finished everything for me. Praise God. This help, much needed help, did however, further made me go above my budget constraints by $500... but it had to be done, I am not a superwoman, and gave the painting my very best.
After the room was painted, it was time for me to begin the custom print on the accent wall. This was definitely not easy. I spent 8 hours working on the wall, and still have not finished the entire design. The orange portion of the custom print is the second layer, after the wall color, of this design. I still have one more layer to go, and I have to get this done before this Sunday, June 13. On Sunday, is when I will be having my electrician install my light fixture and hang my television for me. And then, on the upcoming Monday, is when I will begin furniture installation. Most excitingly, he will install my Egg Chair. This chair is going to be my slice of heaven in this guest room design.
The custom print of the accent wall is beginning to take form, and I am excited to see the finished design. For this print, I used a large-format stencil that was custom made by Stencil Stop. Stenciling takes a very long time because each time that you mount on the wall and paint the stencil on the wall, you have to allow ample time for the paint to dry before removing the stencil. Removing the stencil prematurely makes the paint run and disturbs the stencil design on the wall. And once you remove the stencil from the wall, you have to clean the back of the stencil because the accumulated paint will mess up the next application of the stencil. That my dear, takes lots of time. Needless to say, this is cumbersome task. But, I really do want this custom accent wall print to give my room some movement and decor other than the paintings and accessories that will be going in the room.
Besides painting, I am still tracking orders and dealing with furniture items being on backordered. The coffee table, which on last's week post, I discussed, was on backorder. However, surprisingly so, the coffee table arrived on Tuesday of this week. Yay!!!!!! Praise God. But, this week, I received an email stating that the mirror was on backorder. I am praying to God, Jesus, Angels, Saints, Mother Mary, Guardian Angel, All The Archangels, and everybody who would listen and pray for me, that the mirror comes in before photo shoot day. Today, Thursday, June 10, the custom window treatment arrived, which is perfect and on time, because I can get my electrician to install it, along with the light fixture.
That's it for this week. We are trekking along, and I am eager to see it all come together. Right now, it might look like hodge podge... but remember, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
So, come back right here, next week, and check out our progress of the room and see how we are building on the completed foundational tasks of this week.
Hope you are enjoying our journey to the design of this room for ORC Spring 2021. ORC is so exciting and the community support of the other designers have been valuable and synergic. Don’t forget to look to see how all the designers, especially the featured designers, are progressing along with #oneroomchallenge hashtag or click the links below to follow their respective blogs or visit the ORC official blog at http://www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog.
Until next time....
Un abrazo grande y muchas bendiciones (huge hug and much blessings)
--- Keesha
Sachi Lord | Susan Hill Interior Design | This Is Simplicite | Tiffany DeLangie | Victoria Lee Jones
