ORC Spring ’24: Week 1 & 2- Boys Bedroom Makeover

I just realized it has been almost 2 years since I last participated in the One Room Challenge® when I made over our guest bath. My 12 year old son has been wanting to give his room a more “big boy” look and feel since last summer. Since I knew I wouldn’t have his room pulled together by fall, I promised him I would make it happen for the Spring ’24 One Room Challenge®.

So here we are at the end of week 2 and I am just now updating you! The ADHD struggle is real (IYKYK). Go check out all the participants and the amazing transformations happening over at One Room Challenge®. Let me explain how I came up with my design choices and why we’re making them.

Micah’s current room is absolutely still one of my fave rooms in the house. He feels it could be a bit more grown up and showcase more of his personality as he has grown. Over the last couple of seasons my husband has introduced our boys to hunting and Micah absolutely loves it. When he decided he wanted a change in his room he usually doesn’t have a clear cut idea so he turned to me. I asked him questions and he threw out things he likes, colors, etc and I went from there.

We ultimately decided on: Vintage English style room with some hunting vibes. That is what we are calling it. I asked how he felt about green and he said yep! And so we began…

Let’s recap on where we started and then I will take you through week 1 and where we are heading into the end of week 2. As always, stay up to date on Instagram for all the fun and day to day progress!

Mood board & ideas

My goal for this project–especially since we are going with a vintage style–is to acquire all the furniture from Facebook Marketplace, thrift stores or antique stores for less. Used is perfectly fine with us, plus it really means it is vintage!

I decided to keep the bed just because it is a) a great bed; b) if I can’t sell this one soon I don’t really have a place to store it; c) I think it will mesh vintage and modern beautifully in the room. That being said, I sold his dresser, bookshelves, lamp, desk, planet mobile and nightstand all on FBMP in less than a week! I am still going to list some art and his little globe star light and a few odds and ends, but overall a great success on that front! As for finding the pieces to replace them all, I found his dresser in December so I snatched it up because it was $45!! I mean look at her. SWOON.

Here is a mood board of all the items I purchased online aside from the vintage things I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. The art is from etsy and the deer mount is on amazon, although we will actually have the one from Micah’s last hunt so it will be special to him. I am still undecided on whether I will keep the curtains or just leave his roman shades up, but the roman shades are white and I’m afraid they might be too stark with the other colors in the room. What do youth think? Click on the mood board for links to all the products.

Week 1 & 2 progress

Week 1 officially started April 7th, so I am behind on posting although I am not behind on the room! YAY ME! The green we chose is Behr Dynasty’s Royal Orchard. If you think their Dynasty line is a splurge you aren’t willing to make, think again! (not an ad!) I decided to use it for the first time because the guy at Home Depot explained to me that it is guaranteed to cover in one coat (up to 400 sq ft). I was painting over NAVY, remember? So I said the heck with it and went for it. My room ended up being 462 sq ft because we are color drenching so I used it on the ceiling and all the trim and window sills too. But cover in one coat it DID! I highly recommend it because it saves time and money in the long run IMHO.

Getting paint off the door hinges almost started a fire

The painters who painted this house before we owned it painted over every single door hinge in the this home. Don’t get me started. So as I have been making over rooms I am taking them off and getting the paint off to restore them to their original brass. Some are nickel and I just painted those gold with Rub n Buf. The easiest way to get the paint off is to boil them. In a crockpot. But…I didn’t know that part until about 3 hours too late today.

So I added water to a pot and put it on the stove to boil. I set a timer on Alexa and went downstairs to finish up some trim paint. Andy comes running in about 35 minutes later and says: Hey! I’m on the phone with a client and the fire alarm and Alexa are going off! How did I not hear that!!??? It is beyond me. But…alas, my hinges are a bit crispy and discolored. I think I’ll brush a little gold Rub n Buf on them and call them “vintage”. Take it from me, use a crockpot next time.

So basically to keep the boring stuff at bay, week 1 & 2 consisted of painting the entire room and pulling everything out and selling all that needed to go. We even took a ton of books to Half Price Books and made a little cheddar. The exciting things included burning brass door hinges. I’ll leave you with a pic of it in green and here is what you have to look forward to going in to week 3: