THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY IKEA STOUGHTON, BUT ALL IDEAS & OPINIONS ARE ENTIRELY MY OWN.

Omg omg omg, I am SO excited to participate in the One Room Challenge makeover series for the first time, and with my friends at IKEA Stoughton at my back, no less! This is gonna be sooooo good and I can’t wait to share every detail of my modern bedroom makeover with you. And I hope this series will inspire you to work on a room of your own!

In case you haven’t heard of it before, ORC is a six-week design series hosted by Calling it Home, with 20 official featured designers, and over 100 guest participants, each making over one space in their homes. So it’s basically a design lovers’ dream linkup party. Seriously, you can get lost for hours clicking through all the makeovers, it’s heaven.

You can check out the other participants right here!

For my first ever ORC room, I’m tackling the new bedroom I just moved into. The bedroom is the room in my (previous) home that was never finished, and definitely never felt like a sanctuary. Now that I’m newly single, it’s critical to me that my bedroom feel like a haven. A place that I am happy to go home to at the end of the day, that’s peaceful, inviting, and practical.

Plus, I’m now living in a shared apartment with roommates, so it’s the only room I CAN make over, and this design freak has to get her fix somehow. 😉

Of course I can’t start this makeover without all the “before” photos, so here we go! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before I moved in all my crap, but I think you’ll get the idea. 

The room is not large, 11’6″ square, so smart storage is a huge necessity (all the more reason I’m delighted to partner with IKEA). Remember, I came from an apartment, and while I downsized a lot, I didn’t want to get rid of all of my things. I like my things!

Thankfully there are two large East-facing windows with deep window sills. Jax has already loved perching in them to survey his new neighborhood (which is actually just around the corner from my old neighborhood). The room gets bright light for most of the day, so happy plants, yay!

The colors aren’t as obvious in these photos, but the trim is a gross yellowish cream color, and the walls are sage green. I love sage green, but it isn’t what I’m going for in this room.

There are lovely non-working French doors on one side, which used to lead to the living room. As I began preparing them to be painted, I happened upon a delightful surprise under the chipping paint—copper hardware! Who paints over copper hardware?! Look at this lunacy:

Painted hardware and fixtures are probably my biggest pet peeve about old buildings. Anyways, a bit of scraping and polishing them up with steel wool took care of it in no time. Clearly this was my very first priority when I moved in. Forget unpacking my clothes, no copper will remain adulterated as long as I’m breathing.

Ahhh, so much better. Don’t you think those handles will look stunning against a moody blue?? It’s like this room was made for me.

If you have a sharp eye, you may have noticed…there’s no closet! It’s out in the hallway, don’t worry, I do have place for my clothes. And I’m lucky the hall one is mine, I would really hate to crowd a giant wardrobe into here.

That’s the room, now this is the plan:

Bedroom Makeover To-Do

• Scrape flaking paint from doors and trim
• Prime and paint ceiling, walls, and trim
• Prime and paint baseboard radiators
• Install hanging desk from my old workspace
• Hang curtains and blackout blinds (I prefer minimal window coverings, but I have to be prepared for migraine days!)
• Figure out some sort of shelving storage solution
• Order furniture
• Assemble furniture
• Choose art and accessories
• Unpack all my crap
• Decorate!

Oh yeah, and that ceiling fan has got to go—yikes.

As you’ve surmised by the first image above and my moody blue bedrooms post from yesterday, I’m taking this room in a different direction from the bright white rooms of my last apartment. It’s a little scary but my friend Amy from Delineate Your Dwelling encouraged me to take the plunge.

These rooms are my absolute favorite for inspiration:

My Scandinavian Home | Suvi Melender-Lågland for Coco Lapine Design | Coco Lapine Design

And that’s a wrap for Week 1! Don’t forget to come back next Thursday for the next episode of this little journey, in which I’ll be sharing the room moodboard and shopping list. There are some beeeaaaauuuutiful products coming your way.

If you just can’t wait a whole week (calm down, you), follow along on Facebook and Instagram, I’ll be sharing updates there throughout the week!

So I’d love to hear from you: do you just HAVE to redo your living space too? And do you have a spot in your home that feels like a sanctuary?

 

THIS SERIES WAS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY IKEA STOUGHTON, BUT ALL OPINIONS ARE REALLY, TRULY MY OWN! THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE BRANDS THAT ALLOW ME TO KEEP CREATING FRESH AND FREE CONTENT FOR YOU!