Photo credit: Sian Richards; Chatelaine

A few months later I was bumbling around the internet and I found the image above. While the foyer is stunning (so bright and open!) it was the rug that drew my eye first. I loved the thick stipes in the vibrant hues. A bit of digging led me to the rug maker - Oliver Yaphe. The hand knotted construction of the rugs made them way too thick to fit under my front door (and the price was way too much for my wallet), but the image gave me a better idea of what I was looking for in terms of pattern and colour for my foyer.

Why do I always decide to start projects late at night?? Why can't I start them on a weekend like a normal person? #nightowl #heregoesnothing #hopethisideaworks #testpotsofpaintarecheap #untilyouhavetobuysixofthem

A post shared by Michelle (@eamonnandjack) on Nov 23, 2016 at 7:17pm PST

And here it is now:
The walls were repaired and painted and then last week I had the Thibaut Etosha wallpaper installed on the wall behind the headboard. In all honesty I was a bit scared before the paper went up given the pattern is so bold, but now that it’s installed I absolutely love it.


If you remember my inspiration board from week one I was inspired for the room by the Neo Toile fabric in navy from Tonic Living. I used it for a pillow on the bed along with a couple of fabrics from Designer Fabrics here in Toronto. They were my first ever attempt at sewing pillows with piping and a zipper (I used this tutorial) – there were some minor goofs, but overall I’m pleased with the result of my late night sewing adventures.

The wall that was bulging and cracked has been repaired and I don’t think anyone would know that a few short weeks ago there was a massive hole between where my dresser and where the Zoe Pawlak print I won now hangs. For a novice drywaller and plasterer I think I did a great job. That said I really don’t want to ever have to do it again.
In addition to the Zoe Pawlak piece I’ve hung the antique Hearth and Home magazine which I had professionally framed, and a print by Mara Minuzzo on either side of the room.

I recovered my headboard in navy velvet, which unfortunately isn’t coming across well in the pictures given the lack of natural light (stupid daylight savings). I also applied brass nailhead detail around the edge to balance the brass of the pulls on the bedside tables.


There you have it – challenge completed, and I’m thrilled with the result. What do you think?


As a member of the Para Blog Crew I was provided paint for this project.

I’m writing this at 2:30 on Thursday morning as I literally wait for paint to dry so I can do another coat. This is a pretty good indication of how my week has gone. I left off last week feeling hopeful that I’d get this room finished on time – I had major plans for last weekend – I was going to paint and then work on my headboard, my bedside tables, and then maybe sew a pillow of two. Seven days later and I’m still painting. The other stuff on my list? Ha – they didn’t happen.

On Friday night I painted my walls and was pretty pleased, but the next morning I started to have doubts – was it too yellow? My apartment is tricky – it doesn’t get a whole lot of natural light, and what it does get is late in the afternoon. I thought that perhaps it was trick of the light, so I decided to revisit it later that day. Several hours later and the changing light hadn’t changed my opinion.

Saturday night found me frantically looking through my paint deck trying to find another off-white that wasn’t too yellow, or too blue, or too pink. I honestly didn’t realise how hard it was to pick an off-white - they're all so similar yet so different. On Sunday morning I made the hour long trek via transit to Lowes for some tester pots of paint. After the trip back home to test them out I made a decision and had to take myself back to Lowes to buy a gallon. If you’ve been keeping track that’s 4 hours on the bus for a gallon of paint. Fun times.

My options: (all paints Para) P5211-14 - Shape Shifter, P5213-14 - Posture & Poise, P5215-14 - French Manicure, and P5219-14 - Every Girls Dream

Anyways, a coat of the new colour went up late Sunday night and I was much happier with it. I was apparently overly enthusiastic though when I tried to do a second coat the next evening because I broke the roller. Who knew that was even possible? Anyways, after purchasing a new roller the next day on my lunch break I was able to finally get the second coat up, and tonight I’m taking care of the trim.
Why the late night painting session? I’ve got the wallpaperer coming today (Thursday) and all the painting has to be finished before he can get started. I’m really hoping that after the paper is installed I’ll feel a little less stressed out about getting this room completed.
That said, with only one week left I think it’s time for a to-do list:

• Install wallpaper
• re-upholster headboard
• Bedside tables
• Sew pretty pillows
• Move my furniture back into my bedroom
• Figure out what to do for bedside lamps (What I was going to go is failing miserably so I need a second option)
• Pick up my vintage magazine from the framers, and decide where to hang it.
• Iron and rehang my curtains
• Find accessories and prettiness to dress the bedside tables
• Pull everything together
• Take photos

Yikes! There’s still so much to do. I honestly don’t know if I can do it – keep our fingers crossed for me.

Want some more One Room Challenge inspiration and craziness? Make sure you check out the 20 bloggers doing the one room challenge, and the other One Room Challenge Linking Participants.

After I installed the drywall came many, many layers of drywall compound

This is (again) a bad nighttime picture, but I promise the wall looks really good in person

After the wall was finished I did two coats of primer, and I’ve started the actual painting part of this project. Sadly I thought I might be able to get away with just one coat on the ceiling, but given I was painting at night with what turned out to be inadequate lighting I will need to do a second coat (there’s nothing more disappointing than lying in bed looking at your freshly painted ceiling and realizing you did a crap job). Once that’s done though I think the most difficult part will be over until it’s time to paint the radiator – I hate painting rads.

A copy of Hearth & Home magazine from Mach 1929

I’ve also started to work on my bedside tables. I’ve had them for a while, but they were stacked in the corner of my room while I decided what to do with them.

That said, one of the first things I did when I returned last evening was put yet another coat of plaster on my wall. That's right - the hole still isn't fixed. It is looking a lot better, but my attempts to repair it are being hindered a bit by the lack of heat in my building. Mud that should only take 8 hours or so to dry is taking over 24 which is massively slowing my repair progress, and I can't really do anything else in the room until I have the wall fully repaired. Here's hoping I have a bit of luck over the weekend.

{Sorry for the cellphone pics - taking photos with no daylight is a skill I haven't yet mastered}

The fabric was soured from Designer Fabrics on Queen street which means there will likely be a few more contenders found when I return this selection. Oh well - I'm still not entirely positive my sewing skills will extend to sewing decorative pillows so perhaps indecision is a good thing? Then again I need something to occupy my time while I'm waiting for plaster to dry and sewing pillows might be just the thing! Any thoughts on what I should choose? Have any other suggestions?

Walls made of fiberboard with no structural support, and a patch of drywall that a previous owner had made

Problem #1 – the wall (at east in that section) is not made of lathe and plaster like I thought, but plaster over what I can only describe as fiberboard.

Two pieces of drywall are pretty heavy, especially when you're also carrying drywall saw, screws, work gloves, duct tape, a plastic sheet and various other DIY supplies

Eventually, with a lot of effort, a huge amount of mess, and a lot of noise (sorry neighbours) I accomplished this:

Hello there bathroom. If I got Ryan Reynolds to move in I think this could be called a feature wall - don't you think?

And eventually this:

Drywall installed. You can see my earlier patch on the left

It wasn’t all dust and noise this week. I did a little sourcing for fabric for pillows and lamps (and ran into Vanessa of Décor Happy at HomeSense). No decisions made there yet, but I did pick up some fabric for my headboard at Designer Fabrics – did you know they have a whole section of off-cut velvet for $7/yd? I wasn’t going to miss that deal. And on Tuesday I found myself back in class for the first time in a couple of months.
Hopefully next week I’ll be able to report that my bedroom is looking much better. I still have a long way to go, but I’m a little more confident now than I was this past weekend that I can get the room completed by the end of the challenge. Fingers crossed.

My Bedroom (sorry for the awful picture)

And here’s the tentative plan:

Wallpaper, Lamp, Bedside table, Headboard, Pillows: 1, 2, 3

You may recall I won the Thibaut Etosha wallpaper from Meredith Heron a number of months ago – I chose the grey. I’ll only be doing an accent wall behind the bed (which incidentally I don’t think Meredith would approve of, but it’s a really bold pattern, and I don’t yet have the designer guts that she does to do a whole room).

The before

When I first saw the cabinet I had visions I stripping and refinishing it just like its mate – however I was soon thwarted by something that I didn't notice until I tipped the cabinet over to start working on it. I knew that the cabinet hadn’t been treated too kindly and was filthy, however there was one small detail I hadn’t noticed when I bought it - one of the feet (for lack of a better word) was irreversibly damaged - the wood base was missing a rather large chunk. This immediately took the wind out of my ‘woo-hoo, new project! ‘ sails, and left me completely stumped on how I was going to fix it. I could strip the veneer easily enough, but as the missing chunk was at the front corner of the base, even if I could repair the structural wood underneath I would have to re-veneer two sides. While I repaired the veneer on the base of my console, the repair there was on the side and isn’t easily seen. The front of the cabinet would always be on display, and I wasn’t confident that I’d be able to do a good enough job with the veneer replacement. Compounding the issue, I didn’t have the tools, space or skills for any woodworking, so repairing the base myself was impossible.
Needless to say I was completely stumped as to what to do so the project came to a screeching halt. Eventually I got tired of the cabinet sitting there empty and ugly and I decided to just Google local woodworkers and email them asking if they might be able to replicate the entire base of my cabinet. Eventually I found one who was willing to work on such a small project and I schlepped the damaged base cross town on public transit so he could copy it. Skilled trades aren’t cheap, and his expert work cost me nearly 3 times what the cabinet did.

My china cabinet was quite dirty when I got it - the hardware before and after a prolonged polish

Once my cabinet had a sturdy base it was time to turn my attention to its beautification. The new base was natural wood and I could have attempted to veneer it, but I opted for paint instead. I’m normally firmly in the ‘wood should not be painted' camp but the veneer on the entire piece was in really rough shape, cracking and splitting, so painting it was the only option. After using wood filler to fix the worst of the blemishes I primed it, and then did two coats of colour.
I debated painting the interior of the cabinet a fun hue, but in the end I decided that I wanted the items I displayed behind the glass to be the focus so I chose a warm white – Coconut Sugar (PF 60). For the exterior I wanted something that would highlight the brass hardware I spent so long polishing, but I didn’t want anything too dark. I chose Fort Beauséjour (P2144-02) which is a lovely blue-grey. Both colours are from Para Paints.
I think my china cabinet is a million times better than when I got it and, in the end, I’m glad I persevered.

I’ve been in LOVE with this tray forever, and if it had been the right size I may have been tempted to buy it for my foyer (but only if it also went on sale). Since the original wasn’t to be I decided to make my own version using my thrift store tray and spray paint I already had on hand.

(Apologies for the bad cell phone picture)

After spraying the tray white I set out to mark off the pattern on the top of the tray using masking tape. I eyeballed the pattern and used a small piece of tape to help with the spacing between the lines.  I did have painters tape on hand, but it was too wide for the scale of my tray so I ended up using the regular masking tape (I use it in class to tape my drawings to the drafting table).
Once the pattern was complete I sprayed the tray top and bottom with gold spray paint, and when it was dry I peeled off the tape and voilà – a gold stripe tray.
There was some bleeding under the tape that more than likely wouldn't have occurred if I’d used painters tape, but I’m honestly not too concerned.
Not bad for $2 right?