One Room Challenge REVEAL: Modernizing an Old Living Room
One small, awkward living room located in a historic Chicago row home . One young single professional in desperate need of design help. Eight weeks of non-stop work which has lead to me being one tired chick. Renovating (even lightly) an old home is no easy task.
But it’s FINALY here, week 8 of the One Room Challenge. An 8-week, self-imposed challenge to makeover any space of your choice in 8 weeks or less. If you’re just joining me, you can find all the details on the space I’m transforming below:
Week 1: Small Living Room Makeover: The Challenges // Week 2: Mood Board and Floor Plan // Week 3: Lighting Design Plan // Week 4: Wall moldings // Week 5: DiY Fireplace plans // Week 6: Ceiling Decoration // Week 7: Awkward Alcove Dilemma // Week 8: Small Living Room Makeover REVEAL (you are here)
How I Added Modern Charm to an Old Quirky Living Room
Embracing Unique Architectural Features
The first thing I noticed when I entered this space for the was the glorious curved ceiling! “I hate it said the homeowner.” OH the irreverence, LOL!
Almost immediately I knew I wanted to add a mural to give it a proper introduction. After all, a mural seemed like something that might exist when the home was built back in 1906. You can imagine my surprise then when I reached out to an architect and learned that this ceiling was originally domed. Apparently there are 1-2 more feet of space above newer (lower) ceiling. Even with the drop the ceilings are still at least 12ft high.
“SURPRISE #1
I learned from a local architect that the ceiling in this 1906 living room was originally domed”
The lovely mural you see below was gifted by Photowall. Yes, it took us 6 hours to apply it to the ceiling. Yes, my body hurt for 2 days afterwards. But isn’t it GORGE?! I can’t say enough about the printed quality of this paper. It has a “meaty” texture to it and the ink does not run—at all.
If you’ve been thinking of adding a high quality mural to your interiors, here’s a little encouragement to get started. For a limited time, you can use my discount code: jadoreledecor25 to receive 25% OFF your purchase off any mural by Photowall.
The walls of this old room had more curves than Beyoncé. To try to deflect attention from that flaw, I added high quality wall molding strips by Metrie. I prefer wall moulding that doesn’t shout at you when you walk into the room. It looks a lot more in-the-now. With that in mind, I chose trim pieces from Metrie’s Fashion Forward Scene II line for the walls, and French curves Scene I for the picture rails.
Check out the before and after below. What a difference a little bit of trim makes! Wow!
More Lighting Please!
Chicago row houses are often sandwiched in between other row homes. This causes the interior rooms to be dark and shadowy even during the brightest times of the day. More lighting was a must.
This 6-light chandelier from Crystorama helped me take this makeover to the next level.
Beating An Awkward Feature into Submission
This area of the room (seen below) provoked a few sleepless nights and worrisome days. Who on earth did the previous owners think they were fooling when they blocked up this door and made a new opening to the left of it?
It’s painfully clear that this was the original main entry into the space. They didn’t even bother to neatly conceal the old doorway and casings. Nor did they add casings to the new opening. Ugh. Who does that?
To my angst, every plan that I came up with to resolve this issue was rejected by the homeowner. I don’t pat myself on the back very often, but I’m actually amazed by how many ideas I thought of. Still, with less than 3 weeks to go in the challenge, the homeowner was undecided on any of them. .
I took matters into my own hands, called up my friends over at Velvet Finishes who kindly rushed me a package of their Minimalist white paint with just one week left in the Challenge. After a couple of Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp purchases, I came up with (and built out) the plan below. If you’re wondering, YES, the client freaked out when I showed her my plan.
“SUPRISE #2
Who knew that a couple of second hand purchases, some leftover trim by Metrie, and a bottle of silky Velvet Finishes paint could produce THIS?!”
It took me a full 2 weeks, with my novice carpentry skills, to build this out. A HUGE shout out to all my carpentry trades who were too busy to take on this job themselves, but who kindly advised me on what to do via video and phone calls. Both the client and I are completely stunned by how this turned out!
I used a few leftover pieces from the Metrie molding to beef up the inside casings and hide the location of the old door hinges and voila! There’s now storage underneath, above and drawers in the center.
Next it was on to surprise #3.
Installing Modern Touches
For an elegant contemporary touch, my friends over at Lamps Plus gifted my client with these modern striped glass wall sconces. And my local Tile Shop donated beautiful Lombardia porcelain tile that was used to top off a faux fireplace.
Speaking of the faux fireplace…When cutting the hole in the back of the fireplace wall to install an electrical outlet, we discovered another surprise. There’s an original fireplace behind the wall where the faux fireplace was installed! What are the chances of that?
“SURPRISE #3
When installing the electrical outlet for the fireplace insert, it was discovered that there’s an ORIGINAL fireplace hidden inside the wall!”
Working in this space for the past eight weeks has helped me imagine more vividly what this room may have looked like way back in 1906. How amazing the craftsmanship must have been back then! I can only hope that I gave this badly chopped up space a glimpse of its former glory.
Thank you to Better Homes and Gardens, and to Linda Weinstein for hosting the One Room Challenge. And most of all, thank you to ALL of you who have kept up with my progress throughout the Challenge.
