The One Room Challenge- What I Learned

If you are following our blog because you are family or friends, you may not be familiar with the One Room Challenge.  The One Room Challenge is an online design event, sponsored by House Beautiful, where bloggers tackle one room for 6 weeks and blog about it's progress.  I signed up as a guest participant to renovate our master bedroom with visions of a cozy, warm, relaxing oasis for Jeff and I to retreat to at the end of the day.  Well, life got in the way, so even though we were slowly renovating our master, we were not blogging about it.  Even though the event is over, we made some serious progress.  I thought our fans would like to see the midway progress, even though it isn't a finished product.  I'm also including some lessons we learned along the way...stay tuned.

Let's start at the beginning.  Just like in our Ferndale house, we did not have a vision for our master. We knew how we wanted it to feel, but we didn't have any inspiration.  When we moved in, it was already painted a light blue color, so we just moved in our furniture and worked on the rest of our house.  When the One Room Challenge came around, I knew it was the perfect event to get our butts in gear to design the room.

Jeff and I agreed that we wanted the color to be dark to give the room a cozy feel.  We ended up choosing HGTV Sherwin-Williams Blue Mystery, a moody dark blue.  We also knew that we wanted to have some sort of "wow" factor in our room, but we couldn't decide what that would be.  We played around with the ideas of bead board, a picture rail, or a unique paint pattern.  Ultimately, we decided that the area under the window, which houses a vanity that is never used, should become a window seat.  It would be great for a reading nook, extra storage, or a cozy place for our dogs to sleep.

Before we could start anything, we had an ancient water leak in the ceiling that needed to be scraped, mudded, and sanded.  After listening to the entire podcast of S-town (seriously, if you haven't listened to it yet, what are you waiting for?) the ceiling was complete, along with the paint.

If you follow us on Instagram (@renovatingmaplesonmanor) you may have seen our progress on the bench seat.  Jeff built the braces and had to move an electrical outlet that would have been covered up by the bench.  Next, we cut the plywood for the front and top of the seat.  After much hemming and hawing, we decided that the bench should open, so we added hinges.  After some moldings, primer, and paint, the bench was complete!

Although the room is not complete, here is a quick tour of our "after."

Our to-do's to finish the room include:

1. Find a rug that has a pop of color (maybe a hot pink accent??)
2. Buy a light fixture 
3. Find some fun prints to hang in the window seat area
4. Buy a plant for the left corner of the room
5. Strip the paint off the door and return it to the natural wood tone

Although we missed the deadline and did not blog throughout the One Room Challenge, I'm still really proud of the progress we made over the past few weeks.  Our room feels cozy and luxurious, and it feels more like a retreat, rather than a to-do list.  

I did realize a few things while renovating this room, though.  The idea of a 6-week challenge to motivate people to commit to updating/ renovating/ designing a room is just what I needed to get moving.  I've learned that designing on a deadline for myself is not for me. Because our budget is tight, every piece of decor had to be considered before purchasing it.  I really wanted a tall plant (I'm looking at you Fiddle Leaf Fig) for the left side of the room.  Paying over $100 for a plant just wasn't in our budget.  Maybe down the line we can find a deal, but it's just not in the cards right now.  We also realized that we should have pulled the trigger on the light fixture we wanted when it was on sale.  Even though it's only $30 difference...it's still a $30 difference.  That's a lot on a teacher salary.  

Ultimately, Jeff and I have never had a "finished" master bedroom, and this makeover really makes relaxing at the end of the day feel like we have our own little sanctuary.  Now, to find a new book to read on the window seat!

Inexpensive fireplace makeover

One of the reasons we fell in love with our home was because of the fireplace. There is nothing cozier than drinking hot chocolate (let's be real...wine) next to a fire on a chilly winter night.  Unfortunately, our fireplace needed a serious makeover.  We didn't have a ton of money for the makeover, so we knew this project had to be more of a "freshening up."

The color of the brick needed a fresh coat of paint, which was painted with Sherwin Williams Pure White. Then, I pried up the tiles.  I thought this would take forever, but lucky for me, the previous owners did a lousy job of installing the tile.  They used some sort of construction glue, so the tiles popped right up.

Now for the fun part...tile!  I felt pretty confident with my tiling abilities, having tiled multiple backsplashes, and a floor to ceiling shower, so I wanted to try something new. After looking at multiple inspiration photos, I decided to go with a marble herringbone pattern. I know what you're thinking...marble?? That's so expensive! Since the hearth was such a small area, the tile was inexpensive, only $5.98 a box. Here is the tile we used.

Using inspiration from Young House Love's fireplace makeover, I laid out the tile to find the pattern I liked.  I decided I wanted to have a border of the marble tile around the hearth, then have the herringbone design on the inside.  This led to many, many, many cuts with the wet saw.  We had to purchase a special tile saw that was specially designed for natural stone.  With HGTV playing in the background, it took several hours to set the tile. Once the thinset set, it was time to grout.  

Tile mid-grout

The hearth remained like this for a few months.  Again, we get about 90% of a project done, then move onto something else.  Fast forward a few months, Jeff added some white moldings around the tile, I ran a bead of caulk between the tile and the moldings, painted...and voila! The hearth is complete!

One last time, let's see the before: 

Aaaaaaannnd after: 

Overall, the only costs for this update were the tile, grout, moldings, and new blade.  We had the grout, paint, and thinset.  I think overall, we spent under $100 on this project.  Isn't it cozy? 

Farmhouse style guest room refresh

Although our guest room was painted almost a year ago, it was only recently "finished" this week.  When we first bought our home, the room was a delightful lime green. It reminded me of Ecto-Cooler Hi-C drinks from the 80's.

We didn't have the time to do any crazy remodel to this room; but to be honest, it didn't really need anything.  All we wanted to do was paint and move in furniture.  After a weekend visit from mom and my favorite sister, the room was painted Sherwin-Williams Mindful Gray.  We wanted the room to feel peaceful and relaxing to our guests, and this color did the trick.

After a couple of new purchases and a few accessories stolen from other rooms, the cozy guest room is finished!

Who's ready to visit!?!

Final Kitchen Reveal!

It's only been 10 months since our last update on the kitchen, but that's what happens when you procrastinate actually finishing a project 100%.  In last update on our kitchen remodel, our kitchen still needed a back splash and the doorway moldings finished.

While we were at it, we decided that the little nook that used to have a booth needed to be demoed and turned into a mudroom, complete with new drywall, lighting, a door, and a deck.  Nothing too strenuous.

Good-bye nook!

I was able to crank out the backsplash in a few hours on a cold, Michigan weekend.  The dark gray subway tile added some much needed color to our stark white kitchen.  It also tied into the dark gray flecks in the granite countertops.

On the other hand, the mudroom needed a lot of work, some of which we couldn't do ourselves.  The old area used to have a window that looked out into the yard.  We wanted to install a door there for easier access to the backyard, shed, and driveway.  Neither Jeff nor I knew how to install an exterior door, so we hired out a local contractor, who also happens to be our friend, to install the door.  With his expertise, he installed the door in less than a day and we had a door...to nowhere.  I don't have any pictures showing the process, whoops.

We had planned to attach a deck to our house for entertaining, grilling, and chilling.  This was also out of our wheelhouse, so we hired a local deck guy to build our deck for us.

Now we have a back door and extra space to entertain in the summer!

Looking into the new mudroom.

Walking into the mudroom from outside.

With some artwork, a bench, and a few found treasures,  our kitchen is now complete.

Look at these cute prints we found to rep our hometowns...so cute!

Now for the gallery of photos!

Just for fun, here's the before and after:

If you are interested in seeing the first part of this process, check it out here.  Happy Monday!

An ugly duckling bathroom renovation reveal!

There has been much progress at Mapleson Manor the past few months!  Although we LOVE starting a project, unfortunately, Jeff and I are not so motivated to finish what we started.  I call it project ADD. Since we haven't updated our readers in awhile, we thought we'd reveal our half-bathroom renovation...even though it is not complete.

Just like our last house, we have a half-bathroom in our kitchen.  It's a little weird, because, well...cooking...next to a bathroom.  Kinda gross.  Luckily, we don't mind at all! So, here is the ugly duckling when we first took a look at her:

I don't know where to start.  The lovely hunter green moldings?  The striped wallpaper? Or the wooden toilet seat?  It all had to go.  Immediately. 

Jeff took out the sink, toilet, and the floor. Which left us with this:

There was no way we were keeping that wallpaper, so I researched a bunch of different ways to remove wallpaper.  We ended up buying a scoring tool that makes small cuts into the wallpaper, and the wallpaper remover gel that helps release the glue. 

The spray worked well, but we ran out.  We ended up just filling up the bottle with hot water and spraying that on the walls, which also worked.  

Our next step was to fix up the floor.  I originally wanted to keep the original hardwoods that were underneath the tile, but they were so warped, and it was so tricky to get the floor sander in that tiny space, that we decided to go with a vinyl tile instead.  

Since the floor was so misshapen, we put down a plywood under-layment to make the floor smooth and ready for tiling.  

We chose a great neutral gray vinyl tile by Stainmaster- and it's groutable.  This was key, because we wanted the tiles to look like real ceramic tile.  The tiles are self-adhesive, so all we had to do was peel and stick.  The backing on the tiles has arrows, so you know how to line up the tile. We used spacers to set the tiles, but since the tiles are glued, we just used them to set the tile in the right spot.  

Side note, there was some painting done before we laid down the tile.  The bead board received a few coats of Pure White by Sherwin-Williams and the walls were painted Dutch Licorice by Valspar.

Now, the directions said that we were supposed to use a heavy weighted roller of over 100 pounds to roll and smooth the tiles so they stick correctly.  I am no expert, but Jeff and I just walked all over the tiles after they were set since we weigh over 100 pounds.  Saved us a few dollars, and 5 months later, the tiles still haven't moved.  

We then grouted the tile with some pre-mixed vinyl tile grout by Blue Hawk in Saddle Gray, and capped it off with some white shoe moldings.  

Jeff installed the toilet (with a new seat!) and a new sink from IKEA, and the bathroom was almost complete!  

After a few trips to Hobby Lobby for a mirror, anchor, and hooks, our bathroom is complete!

We still have a few shoe moldings to finish up, as well as buying and installing a bigger floor transition, but overall, the ugly ducking bathroom has become a swan!  This bathroom was actually pretty inexpensive to renovate.  The priciest thing was the IKEA sink, which was less than $200.  The vinyl tile were affordable at $1.28 per tile.  The most time consuming part of the whole makeover was removing the wallpaper, something I hope to never have to do again.

Let's see the before and after to truly appreciate the transformation:

So...what do you think?