One Room Challenge Week Four – Living room

Another week bites the dust on this Fall’s One Room Challenge, but guess what. I’ve just received news that the six week deadline has been extended to seven week . Since there have been so many natural disasters in so many states leading up to, and during the ORC, many participants have had to endure unusual circumstances. Product shipments, supplies, and previously scheduled work have all been compromised so in an effort to allow all the participants to cross the finish line as a united team the deadline has been extended. The new  reveal date will now be Thursday, November 16th.

For those of you who are new to this the One Room Challenge is a twice yearly event hosted by Linda of Calling It Home. During this event twenty design bloggers take on the challenge to transform one space in just six weeks (or in this case seven weeks.) Every Wednesday, the designers document their progress while sharing their sources and professional advice. In addition to following along, everyone with a blog, (that’s me!) is welcome to join the fun as a guest participant by linking their own room transformations to Calling It Home.

I’m tackling my living room this go round. If you missed my previous post you can keep track here:

Week One – Week Two – Week Three

Now in week four I’m tackling a furniture makeover to house my electronics for the TV and of course my cozy up blankets and my magazines for relaxing on the sofa.

Photo via Elle Decoration

You may remember my original idea for this area was to do a floating cabinet under the TV. Well, plans change since I’m a girl who can change plans on a whim if the price is right. The floating cabinet was going to cost me about $250 to make and a fair amount of labor so when I ran across this nice mid-century piece for just $200 I thought it just might work instead.

I moved it into the space to have a try but I was concerned that the color was very close to the color of the sofa and I was really wanting to bring some color into the space.

After inspecting the finish, I found there were a few deep gouges and some veneer damage to the top which gave me a few reasons to rationalize painting it a more appealing color. Also, one if the hard to replace pulls was broken off so that meant a hardware change would be required since the screw spacing was not a regular size. I’m usually not one for painting these type of pieces but on some occasions paint is a good way to salvage a damage piece.

After filling in the damaged spots and hardware holes with wood filler I gave the whole piece a good sand and it was ready for paint with my Wagner paint sprayer (affiliate link.) I love Vaslpars Furniture Paint (here in Sapphire Earrings) for these kinds of projects because it has the adhesion of chalk paint without the chalkie finish.

After painting I drilled new holes for some fabulous hardware.

That’s right I said fabulous and I meant it! These glass pulls I snagged at Hobby Lobby or only $7 each (I/2 price hardware that day) are stealing the show.

Drum roll please for the after…..Slick and slightly glossy with some Hollywood flare.

Then it was time to tackle the rat’s nest of wires that is technology. I blame this mess on the cable and security company who didn’t even bother to clean up the saw dust from drilling holes in the floor much less untangle the wires, Every time I look at it or try to plug something in it makes me mad.

To do this I had to cut a few hole. The security company had already cut one in the wall to run their wired so I added another behind the TV directly above theirs so I could run the power and HDMI cable from the TV down through the wall. I also cut a hole in the back side of the dresser and the back of the bottom drawer to allow me to hide all the equipment inside and run the cables through without them being seen.

Now everything is tucked away neatly inside.

No wires dangling and a clean floor below. I can’ tell you how happy that makes me!

Want to see more of the progress going on this week?  Pop over to Calling it Home and check out the featured designers along with the hundreds of guest participant  who are tackling the challenge.