One Room Challenge – Bedroom Week 3: Furniture and Ikea Hack

It’s week 3 of the One Room Challenge bedroom makeover and I’m happy to say, at this point, things are moving along well. My nightstands arrived, only had a small incident with them at 4 in the morning, and I’ve been doing some fun DIY projects, including the ultimate High-Low IKEA hack. Let’s look at some progress pictures, shall we? I’ll tell you all about it….

These are the nightstands that have arrived from Danish brand Hübsch Interior, ordered through Car-Moebel. There is now one on each side of the bed. Held up by slanting poles, they are sleek squares of oak with a roomy drawer and shelf. It’s typical Scandinavian design: simple, functional, neutral. The dark floral wallpaper that will dominate the room is quite feminine so these pieces contrast it nicely. I wanted a nice balance of masculine and feminine in the space. It’s nice to have that ying and yang harmony in a master bedroom.

The funny thing about these nightstands is that there is no way to attach them to the wall; it’s just supposed to balance against it. They came with anti-slip stickers to put on the bottom of the legs on the floor and the top of the poles against the wall. That seemed to work. But the first night we slept with the nightstands in our bedroom, the one on my husband’s side slid down and crashed on the floor at 4 o’çlock in the morning, scaring the bejesus out of me. Thank God the one on his side of the bed fell and not mine. There were just a couple of books on his, whereas mine had a full glass of water and a lamp, which would have resulted in a much bigger mess to clean up. Fortunately it slid down the wall, not fell over, so was just fine. We have since attached them to the wall. (When I say “we” I actually mean my husband, Sebastian ;-))

He drilled two metal brackets into the wall for each nightstand in order to support it and keep it from slipping down. The advantage to using this method is that we didn’t have to drill into the furniture. The nightstands seem very secure now.

I really need to sing my husband’s praises in this post because he has been incredibly helpful. The major job he did was to sand down our large wooden rack from India. If you have been following along, this was one piece that I wasn’t sure if it would stay in the room. It’s a really interesting piece, but it’s dark colonial wood  was outdated. It was bought many years ago for another home. I love the idea of it, I just didn’t know if I could make it work for my dark and dramatic bedroom.

I’m very happy to say that it looks like it’s going to fit right in! We simply sanded it down, removing all the dark wood varnish and revealing a rustic natural wood underneath. I feel like it went from “dark out-dated colonial” to “Scandi Rustic” in just about an hour. I really meant to do this job myself (seriously!), but my husband got out the electric sander for me and tested it out. Pretty soon he was all into the job, mask and goggles on, and finished the whole thing up. Can’t honestly say I was disappointed. It only took him about an hour, but he did say it was tough and I probably wouldn’t have made it through the whole thing. He was sore the next day. Thanks Sebastian!

Once the wallpaper goes up, I will get to do my favourite part of this makeover: styling! Look out for cozy blankets on the bottom rung and most likely hanging plants on the top.

 

The fun project I just finished up is the IKEA Dresser hack. I bought this Malm dresser a couple years ago and always wanted to hack it into something unique.

I became obsessed with wallpaper as I was choosing what to put on the wall in my bedroom. I decided on the Ellie Cashman Twisting Tulips to go on the wall behind this dresser.

In addition to looking at huge, dramatic prints, I also fell in love with a few small-patterned, textural papers. This one from Zoffany, below, is one I just couldn’t stop looking at.  I loved the way it played with the Ellie Cashman wallpaper and I suddenly had the idea to put it on the drawers of the dressers.

An immediate search of You Tube and Pinterest for “How to Wallpaper an Ikea Dresser” began and I came up with enough info to see that it was not only possible, but relatively easy. Most of the examples I found were from people taking left-over wallpaper or using remnants that you can find at wallpaper stores. Ha! No scraps for my bedroom makeover, thank you very much! I’m using a roll of designer Zoffany wallpaper and I feel lit’s worth every cent. It’s called Weathered Stone and it is textural and organic while at the same time quite glamorous. The best of both worlds, in my book.

 

I’m going to do a separate How-to post on this IKEA hack, but I’ll explain it briefly here. It was a relatively easy process. Fortunately all the drawers are the same size, so I just traced one drawer six times onto the wallpaper. Then I cut out the pieces and, after removing all drawers, I used a spray adhesive to attach the wallpaper. It really was that simple.

I’m really happy with the look so far and I can’t wait to see it in front of the Ellie Cashman wallpaper once it’s installed.

The one piece of furniture that is not in place yet is a chair.  My plan is to place one in the corner to create a reading nook. Here is a look to see what types of chairs I have been considering:

Grey | Cognac | White | Rattan

All quite different, right? The white chair with gold legs is the one I thought would be perfect, but of course seeing a photo of something and then seeing it for real in the space are two different things. The legs were rose gold and didn’t match the other brass elements in the room. And it just wasn’t comfortable. It was sent back and the search continues!

Stay tuned and next week I’ll be talking about bedding and how to style a European bed.

Be sure to check out all the fun projects happening on this season’s One Room Challenge!  You’ll find the guest participants HERE. And, you won’t want to miss the 20 featured designers HERE. 

 

xx

Nicole