The Spring One Room Challenge has been just the motivation I need to decorate our bedroom addition! And the most important project is, of course, the bed! I love customizing furniture – remember my DIY built-in shelves or the DIY … Continue reading
I seriously love the One Room Challenge. It’s just the motivation I need to finish off projects. I’ve been puttering away preparing the gallery wall in our new bedroom, and with this week’s progress update launching, I got the energy to finish hanging everything after work today!
As a reminder, this room is bedroom addition we built last year. It’s going to be a room for our oldest, when he’s home, and also serve as a guest room or lounge! It’s a petite space, but I had big plans for this wall, and I really feel like it opens up the room!
If you are looking for tips for your own gallery wall, here are some ideas to consider:
Here’s a before-and-after look at the space:
This collection includes a DIY fabric-covered picture mat and a photo I took of Finn and printed at the local drugstore.
As I said, these walls can talk! Clockwise from left, a photograph taken from Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge, that Steve and I bought at an art fair ~25+ years ago; an LED sign with my son’s name that my sister sent from Hong Kong; a small canvas print of a photo I took, featuring spring blossoms and Victorian houses; photo of Finn I took and printed; nasturtium print by Henry Evans calendar under a DIY fabric mat. My friend Penny gifts me a Henry Evans calendar every Christmas!
More treasures: paper silhouette cut-out from the Canadian National Exhibition when I was a child; strawberry ceramic bowl I bought at an art fair with a friend ~25 years ago; Vassar College pennant for my oldest; 1924 newspaper found in the walls of our last house; replica Group of Seven Canadian landscape painting my parents got on an Air Canada flight ~30 years ago; fern print from another Henry Evans calendar.
Last of the treasures: a beautiful branch painting by my mom ❤
I’m working away on some other projects that I hope to share with you soon! In the meantime, you can see all the other fun room transformations on the One Room Challenge website!
Julie AKA “Jewels”
I seriously love the One Room Challenge. It’s just the motivation I need to finish off projects, and the community is always really positive. I love finding new accounts to follow for inspiration and encouragement! I’ll link my prior ORC projects at the end of this post.
This Spring, I’m going to be decorating a new bedroom addition we built last year. It’s going to be a room for our oldest, when he’s home, and also serve as a guest room or lounge!
I can’t take credit for the construction work, but I will take credit for the inspiration – I very literally had dreams about finding space for just one more room in our house, to accommodate our family of five, with regular visits from my dad. After turning ideas around and around in my head, I figured out that we could enclose a little unused patio and reconfigure the adjacent rooms to make a new bedroom and bathroom. Some of us lived through the months of noise and dust, but you can just enjoy the pictures!
The result is a small bedroom and bathroom that make a big change to how we live in our house. While I couldn’t give our oldest a lot of square footage, I wanted to give him a lot of style and function in this cozy space. I got design inspiration from a lot of places, but my biggest inspirations were Designer Timothy Whealon’s living room featured by New York Social Diary and the Woodlark Hotel in Portland, where we enjoyed a stay a couple of years ago.
When I find a space that really inspires me, I try to describe the key elements, like a recipe, to help me recreate it. And when I am looking at a few spaces, I try to find the common elements that I love. For this project, I was drawn to:
I’m so excited (and nervous!) to tackle this project – hope you’ll follow along!
You can see all the other fun room transformations on the One Room Challenge website!
Julie AKA “Jewels”
Modern and classic. Elegant and streamlined. This is the balance I was looking for in a dining room chandelier. I also wanted an open design, so we could make the most of our views. This week, I will show you some of my favorite options, as well as what I ended up DIYing for ~$50! Along the way, I’ll show you my favorite gold spray paint and how to add a DIY cord cover to a chandelier.
My top two choices were the West Elm Swoop Arm Chandelier (below left) and the Hammons Sputnik Modern Chandelier (below right) (a dupe for the Jonathan Adler Meurice chandelier):
I was getting ready to buy one of these beautiful lights when, at the last minute, I decided to take a quick peek on Craigslist, and I came across a chandelier with a similar shape for only $25! I’m pretty sure it is this Modern 6-Candle Chandelier shown below which is less than $100, even if you buy it new!
The light I found was a mix of black and gold, so I prepared to spray mine gold. Not all gold spray paints are the same. I happened to have the Krylon paint (left) in the garage, but it is a reddish color, more copper than gold, so I went to our neighborhood hardware store to pick up a can of my favorite gold paint, Rust-oleum, shown on the right, and it is perfect!
I added these frosted globe bulbs, which I think look more modern than the flame-shaped bulbs.
The last step was to was to add a cord cover. This is a 5″ wide strip of fabric about 1.5x the length of the cord. I ironed down a 3/8″ seam along the two long edges, and then I used hot glue to close the “seam” around the cord.
I’ll keep posting progress updates on Instagram and a weekly post here with more details! I’m looking forward to the next steps of this project, as well as enjoying the other participants’ posts. You can follow the whole event on the One Room Challenge website!
Julie AKA “Jewels”
You know how much I love faux bamboo furniture! My collection includes these Chippendale chairs and this Thomasville dresser-turned-bar cabinet. When I recently acquired an older bookcase, which I chose for its solid wood construction and low price, I noticed … Continue reading
There are a few furniture painting projects that I’ve always wanted to do, like this mid-century dresser, or this faux bamboo bar cabinet. A big Chinese-style wedding armoire has been on my list, and my chance finally came! I found … Continue reading
Making these decorative paper storage boxes makes me so happy! Like many of my other creations, it started by seeing something beautiful and wondering “how could I make that?!” In this case, it started by seeing these gorgeous Antoinette Poisson … Continue reading
A lot of people groan when they think about moving, and while I plan to stay put for many years to come, I actually love the excitement and challenge of arranging a new space. I’ve had a lot of fun … Continue reading
I am so excited for our new patio space and have already enjoyed time out here eating lunch, reading, or catching up on some work. I started looking for some lounge chairs, but I couldn’t quite find what I wanted – or more accurately, what I wanted was way too $$$. But this story has an happy ending! I found these used chairs and made them over for $ to complete our patio space!
It’s no secret that I love anything with the look of cane or faux bamboo and also that I have a weakness for Craigslist finds! I spotted this set on Craigslist for $50, and when I showed up, the woman said I could have it for free. She also let me take the chairs without the table, so my karma of giving things away when we moved last year came back to me! I also picked up the chairs near my old neighborhood hardware store, so I stopped by to get some supplies and painting tips.
Here’s how to do it:
Here are some more pictures of our “new” chairs.
I feel they came pretty close to my inspiration pics, and all with the satisfaction with saving some money and a good DIY!
Everyone loves a good before and after pic:
I look forward to many more hours enjoyed out here with friends, family, or curled up with a good book!
Julie AKA “Jewels”
I have been in love with patio string lights for so long. Unfortunately, our last house didn’t really have a respectable outdoor entertaining space, but our rental house last year and our new house both have great patio spaces! I have been waiting to do this project creating posts to hang our lights, and I am so excited that we finally did it! It’s not hard (you do need some muscles!), and I am excited to share the how-to and our results!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Here’s how to do it:
Of course, we had a warm spell last week and it’s cooled off again, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer to hang out here!
Julie AKA “Jewels”
Jewels at Home 