Welcome back to my One Room Challenge makeover of our Master Bedroom- From Floor to Adoré. Below are the last 3 weeks if you would like to give those a read.
Week 1 – BEFORE | BLOG or VIDEO
Week 3 – SHOPPING | BLOG or VIDEO
and up next…
Week 5 – MORE WALLS & LAST MINUTE DIY | BLOG or VIDEO
Week 6 – THE REVEAL! | BLOG or VIDEO
The One Room Challenge! It is a bi-annual event and currently in its eighteenth season. In partnership with Better Homes & Gardens, many different design influencers participate to makeover one room or space over the course of 6 weeks and share their process.
For me this week is all about DIY’ing our walls and my BIG MESS UP! So, this is NOT a How-To…but a What-Not-to-Do.
You know the saying “if they can do it, I can too”?! This always tends to be my mentality, and can clearly get me into some hot water from time to time. Also, it may be one of the reasons we call ourselves, Curious Lees.
I want to smooth out our walls, smooth as butter. A level 5 they call it in the industry. Our walls are this atrocious orange peel with some walls orange peel knocked down and some not. It’s just awful. To add to that we have many outlets or items that have caused holes in the walls, an old security system, an old doorbell system, in the wall vacuum inlet, and needing to move all the canned lighting which will create more holes. So perfect time to smooth the walls out. Let’s go!
Step 1: Research– YouTube, Google, Pinterest everything I can, to find on how to smooth out walls and pick a way and go.
Step 2: Find a “Tester” Area– We have this small alcove right in front of our bedroom that is pointless but a small area I could easily test on.
Step 3: Buy/Collect Tools & Supplies– I luckily had the majority of all items needed. Gifts from my father as well as from a friend’s father…they definitely set me up well. I only needed to purchase the joint compound and mud pan along with primer and paint later. I did purchase the magic trowel, as well, but mostly for the master bedroom and not this small space.
Step 4: Get After It– I scrapped away massive chunks of paint, then added the joint compound as smooth as I possibly could. I found it easier and easier, after some time, learning the movements. Then let it dry, add a second coat, and finally sand to a smoooooth finish. Boy was the sanding messy! Like someone decided that walls should just bleed flour the second it’s touched with sandpaper. Hey at least I had a mask on-hand and at the ready give the current coronavirus times.
Step 5: Clean Up-…err onto step 6.
Step 6: Realize You didn’t research HOW to clean up & make a huge mistake that you will then clean for hours! Well, as I mentioned I have the majority of the tools already, including a shop vacuum. Brilliant! I bring it down, plug it in, and suck up all that “wall flower.” The mess I made, the dry wall particles wisping quickly into the vacuum tube was just so satisfying to see. Until I was done, and I turned around to shut off the machine.
It was the biggest cloud of dust I’d ever seen, and it was in my house traveling up the stairs, in the laundry room, and hopefully that was just the spread of it. I yell “no no no no no!” That’s all I could muster out of my mouth in English. I heard Michael yelling down to me “babe, what’s happening, are you okay, is there a fire?” It had even exploded into our office where Michael was working. I thought to myself, OMG, Chloe, you idiot! But how, how?!
I sucked it up into the vacuum…well turns out there was not a filter installed, so the output was simply everything that i had vacuumed, directed into a focused plume, directly up the stairs. I was covered in so much white dust I looked like a grandmother at a Cali cartel party.
Please learn from me. Clean-up IS just as important as the task at hand, and do a little research before diving in. I had to clean for a couple more hours (longer than it took to make the mess) and the plume had reached into our kitchen and part of our living room. Ugh!
Lesson learned and time to move on to the REAL deal.
First things first…I bought a dust bag to insert into the vacuum and tested it outside before using in the master bedroom. Whoot whoot, success!
From there the drywall process is the same as before except a few additions. We hire out the electrical moves and installation. We needed to move all three canned lights in the ceiling. They were off-center from bumping out the closet and I want a chandelier in the middle. We also added two wall light electrical set-ups to each side of the bed. And finally, one additional outlet on my side, we only had one on Michael’s side and so this made it much more convenient.
We split the room in half working on each half up until finished with sanding. We added two coats of mud on the walls and then sanded smooth. We then noticed areas that needed more so we added a third layer of patches. Then we moved the bed and switched to the other side. This time I added a thicker first coat and sanded after. Then the second coat was for patching. I was so exhausted and in a lot of pain in my hands/wrists at this point. I failed to film or capture pictures of the massive mess we made. The paper on the floor hardly helped. Wanting to give up but knew I had to just continue on…I cleaned up for a few hours and then it was time to paint.
Who says it never snows in San Diego!?!
After all that sanding paint is a wall in the park, really shows what a little perspective can do. We used all Benjamin Moore paint for the primer, ceiling, walls, and trim. Once we put the first coat of primer we could see even MORE imperfections. But I was NOT going to sand anymore so I decided to patch with the mud and use a slightly damp tiling sponge to smooth out the patches. It worked.
I was going to use the very popular Chantilly Lace for the wall color. I got it from Benjamin Moore as well as a color match from Home Depot. I knew our room was already on the cooler side with the lighting we have being North facing so I also looked for a warmer white, I opted to try Atrium White. Once I painted the colors in the room Chantilly Lace was all wrong. It was way too blue/grey and I wanted warmth, cozy and inviting. So Atrium White it is. It was perfect just a subtle hint of warm yellow to make it a true warm white.
- Ceiling we used Benjamin Moore Flat Ceiling paint.
- Walls we went with Benjamin Moore Scuff-X paint in matte.
- Trim we used Benjamin Moore Scuff-X paint in satin.
Join me next week as I add all the finishing touches to the space and decorate for the final reveal! If you would like to continue to follow along just hit the subscribe button at the top of my website and you will be able to sign up to receive a notification for when I post next or if you prefer to watch my YouTube video update you can subscribe HERE.
Thank you for joining me in this crazy adventure and I’ll see you next week!
Cheers!
Chloe
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