We’re here at last: The big “ta-da” moment in our One Room Challenge® adventure! For five weeks, my husband Chris and I have been remodeling my small and quirky dressing room, and I’ve been posting weekly updates. And it’s all come down to this: The final reveal!

In case you missed them, here are links to my previous posts:

Project Recap

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The Space

My little dressing room, located on the second floor, measures roughly 70 square feet. And those square feet are very oddly shaped.

In addition to the odd shape, this room also has a sloping ceiling that follows the roofline along the east side. It has two doors: An entry door and a door leading to an unfinished attic space.

Design Goals

Our house was built in 1927 so, although we don’t want the house to look like a shrine to the 1920s, we always want new work – cabinetry, hardware, doors, and moldings – to blend seamlessly with the existing design features of the house.

I feel that the house’s original design features are easy on the eyes. They’re simple and clean – yet charming. And they’ve stood the test of time. So I would rather use those design features than a trend that will look dated in a few years anyway.

Clutter Busting

You’ll see that the little dressing room was a claustrophobic and cluttered mess. I wanted the redesign to include ample storage yet feel spacious.

Color

The room is small and has a sloped ceiling, so I decided to use one paint color on every surface, including that sloped ceiling, all the moldings, and all the cabinetry that we added.

The goal was for the room to be brighter, more elegant, more cohesive – and for that sloped ceiling to feel less oppressive. I opted for good old “Simply White” by Benjamin Moore.

Budget

Since what we were remodeling was basically a closet, we challenged ourselves to keep the budget tight. So, a challenge within a challenge! We had lots of fun with this. We sourced cabinetry pieces through Craigslist, salvage shops, and our own basement storage. We always look to repurpose items instead of buying new when we can anyway – not only to save money but also because it’s an earth-friendly alternative.

The total expenditure (outlined in detail last week) was under $900 U.S.

Let’s start the tour!

Dressing Room Tour

Won’t you come in.

The North Wall

Before the remodel, the north wall looked like this.

I’d brought in a portable garment rack because there was not enough rod space in the room to hang my clothes. A patched-together assortment of old dressers, shoe boxes, and racks made for a cluttered look that scratched away at my psyche every time I entered the room. And there was a lot of vertical wall space going to waste here.

Now I have the enclosed wardrobe space.

Plus, for longer items, the new garment rod we installed over a shoe bench.

The new garment rod, which adds a much-needed rustic touch to the room, is made of authentic industrial pipe.

We did away with the worn carpet in the room, but failed in our attempt to daylight the original fir floor, which is buried under mid century linoleum.

Instead, we covered the whole mess with a plywood underlayment, and then I painted, stenciled, and protected the plywood with a finish.

I love all the space that I have in the large wardrobe, which we purchased from a private seller on Craigslist and then refurbished. It’s a perfect width for the alcove space. Above the wardrobe, baskets will hold things I rarely use – like ski gear and travel accessories.

In the northeast corner, we added a vintage leaded glass cabinet, which we rehabbed and then put on these turned legs so that it would be tall enough to clear the baseboard and fit snugly in the corner.

Years ago, we bought two of these cabinets at a garage sale for $5 apiece. This cabinet’s mirror-image twin currently lives in our kitchen.

My vintage dolls and other little items were collecting dust in this room, and one of my goals for the remodel was to find a place where they could be displayed but protected from dust. I also wanted a better system for organizing my jewelry.

The vintage cabinet meets both needs. We added hooks to make necklaces easy to sort and find.

And all my little vintage items that used to drive me crazy have a home now.

I love how the north wall turned out. It’s fun, it has character, yet it’s calm and uncluttered – a far cry from the chaos I had going on before.

Looking at these before photos again, it’s surprising to me how much larger this wall space looks now.

We did keep the light fixture that was already in the room. It was a recent upgrade – a vintage milk glass light.

The East Wall

The ceiling slopes all along the east wall. There is a short door that leads to an attic space. It’s a cheap, hollow-core door that is not original to the house. It had a 1970s-era knob, flimsy hinges, and was framed in with tragically cheap molding. Its only redeeming quality was the beveled dressing mirror. Otherwise, it was very sad.

Since the door is a custom size, Chris decided to rehab it instead of having a new one made.

He added 1920s moldings that he’d saved from another project, and he added vintage hardware that we already had on hand – including a petite vintage glass door knob that would fit well on this petite door.

He made this cheap hollow-core door look original to our house – all without spending a cent.

On the east wall, we turn to face the south wall.

The South Wall

The south wall is a strange part of the room that is not even four feet wide. It’s a long, narrow alcove that felt even narrower because of where I had placed the tall dresser.

It was no fun trying to get anything out of these drawers. And, as you can see, this is where the carpeting stopped and an area rug took over. Pretty classy!

Here is the area now.

Southeast wall after

Since the overhead light is near the north wall, this part of the room was dark at night, so our one splurge for the room was to buy a 1920s-era sconce light, which had been professionally restored, from a salvage shop.

Up until yesterday, we were still working on this part of the room. I decided at the last minute that a chair was needed here, but it would have to be very petite.

I had this little bentwood chair kicking around in our basement. But of course it needed work, and I was still putting the final touches on my “ebonized” finish for it yesterday morning. And the faux fur seat cover arrived just in time.

At the same salvage shop where we found the sconce light, we found two narrow kitchen cabinets that, rehabbed and put together with an old dresser from our basement, would work nicely for the space around the window.

Where these kitchen cabinets once held canned goods, they now will hold sweaters – or maybe handbags.

And the old dresser, with its inset drawers, looks identical to the original built-in cabinetry in our home. For a detailed account of how we installed these built-ins, please see this post.

We added glass cabinet knobs to all the pieces to match the cabinet hardware throughout the house.

And I lined all the shelves and drawers in this south wall installation with a retro-floral shelf paper that I just love.

It was easy to reposition – unlike some other shelf papers that I would end up wadding and throwing away in frustration.

So you might be wondering if I forgot to add wall art. But actually I love this uncluttered look so much that I have no desire to hang anything on these soothing white walls. I might change my mind at some point, but right now I can almost feel my blood pressure drop when I walk into this room.

For a detailed account of how I organized this dressing room, please see this post.

Just Lucky

Seems some home improvement projects are difficult from the get-go. But with other projects, things just fall into place. With this project, I was lucky.

Lucky because the floor stencil measured out so perfectly for the room dimensions.

Lucky because we found, or already had on hand, cabinetry pieces that fit so well into the strange little spaces that we were working with.

But most of all lucky because Chris so good-naturedly embarked on this challenge with me.

Without his mad DIY skills and his honest, informed opinions, this project would never have gotten off the ground.

More To Come

After the holiday season, I’ll be sharing more about the revamp of the little bentwood chair, details about the door rehab, and how we made two kitchen cabinets and an old dresser look like built-ins.

Visit The Other Challenge Participants

This six-week challenge has been intense for both of us. But it’s also been very rewarding. Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement along the way. It made a world of difference!

I can’t wait to check out the other final reveals happening through the One Room Challenge. Participant reveals can be found here.

Sources

Icarus Tile Floor Stencil

Wardrobe: Private seller via Craigslist

Vintage Sconce Light: Second Use

Salvaged Kitchen Cabinets: Second Use

Shoe Rack: Target

Glass Cabinet Knobs: House of Antique Hardware

Yifely Retro Floral Self-Adhesive Shelf Paper

Pipe Decor Dual Flange Style Garment Rack

Legs for Leaded Glass Cabinet: BingLTD “Pauline” Sofa Legs

Junovo Premium Faux Fur Sheepskin Seat Cushion Chair Cover

The baskets above the wardrobe were a Marshall’s find, but similar covered baskets can be found here.

For more on this project, see my posts below.

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