ORC Week 4 | Textiles & Furniture

We’re in week four of the One Room Challenge, and I’ve made some progress on Eleanor’s global boho bedroom design. Bits have started arriving and things are moving forward, although there’s still a lot to check of the to-do list.

Catch up on other Spring 2017 ORC posts here:

BOHO BEDROOM MAKEOVER PLANS (WEEK 1)
BEFORES & DETAILS ON THE PLAN (WEEK 2)
WALLPAPER OPTIONS (WEEK 3)
TEXTILES & FURNITURE (WEEK 4)
HOW TO HANG REMOVABLE WALLPAPER (WEEK 5)
THE REVEAL (WEEK 6)
BONUS: HOW TO MAKE A DIY WALL HANGING

Desk, Wallpaper & Bulletin Board

The desk and lamps arrived on Tuesday. I’ve admired this little mid-century desk (from West Elm) for years. Five minutes after I’d put it together, my “client” adorned it with Shopkins stickers and informed me that, “I made my new desk all pretty!”

She wasn’t thrilled when we had to take them off, so I’m adding somewhere she is allowed to stick things. We’re adding build a bulletin board to the list of things to do. It’ll be a DIY using this African shibori fabric.

After mulling over wallpaper options, I picked a subtle mudcloth print. The sample is tacked up there behind the desk. I’m partnering with Spoonflower on this project. I’ve been itching to try their removable wallpaper, and my order has just shipped. They’re a US company, but they’re in Germany now too, so it’s not got far to travel to get to London. I might actually pull all this off in time!

Blinds

I talked last week about the current blinds, which I had custom-made a few months ago, before I finalised the rest of the design. They’re a gorgeous grey linen stripe, but they don’t work well with the wallpaper.

Problem solved: I’ve got some lovely white custom-made roman blinds on their way as I type too.

Lighting

One of the lamps on my mood board (the Deco lamp) isn’t going to work out, so I’m having a rethink on that. But the other one is here and it’s perfect.

The larger scale of this lamp works really well on top of the chunky chest of drawers. Once the wallpaper’s up, there will be more contrast so those simple mid-century details can shine.

Bedding

I was playing with bedding options yesterday. The blush linen is a fitted sheet, the mustard is a pillowcase. I’m thinking textured white duvet cover and probably both of these cushion covers. The Hmong one sat on E’s bed when she shared a room with her big brother. The wedding blanket one I got in Morocco last summer.

The Bed

The bed has a funny story. It’s an ottoman storage bed, and the top is on pneumatic hinges so it’s easy to lift. It also doesn’t stay closed unless it’s got weight on top of it. How did we discover this, you ask?

Well, it was delivered, wrapped in plastic, to our entryway, which is narrow. While I waited for the hubs to get home and help me shift it upstairs, I unwrapped part of it. When he walked in the door, it nudged one end of the bed. The plastic ripped, and the bed threw itself open (“Surprise!”) and wedged itself in the hallway.

This thing is impossible to shut by hand unless you use your full body weight in the middle of the frame, which obviously we couldn’t do with it wedged as it was. It took two of us an hour and a half to unwedge it, and we only managed it by eventually disassembling the hinge mechanism. Not before I also wedged my foot between the bed and the wall, and nearly the dog as well.

Once we eventually got it upstairs, the only way to put it all back together was to lie inside the bed, so I spent half an hour in there screwing in all the things. And grumbling.

Anyway, ordeal over, it’s here and in one piece and it’s good. It provides a huge amount of additional storage.

Pictured:

• 4 suitcases
• 2 duffel bags
• An inflatable mattress
• 2 sets of black-out travel curtains
• 3 duvets
• 2 pillows
• A bunch of bed sheets

The ottoman storage bed holds at least twice as much stuff as we had stored under the old, conventional bed frame.

Next Week

Next week, the wallpaper is going up, then it’s final touches and styling ready for the reveal.

You can go check out One Room Challenge week four updates from the featured designers here and the other guest participants here.

Huge thanks to my sponsor for this project: