Master Bedroom Progress: One Room Challenge – Week 4

Hello, hello! It’s week four of the One Room Challenge and we’re moving right along with the master bedroom.

Last week I was having some trouble with my nightstands. I refinished two of the drawers and decided it just wasn’t right in the room. I had too much wood on wood happening.

And then it snowed (again).

Thankfully the snow didn’t last long. It all melted fairly quick and the weather now is GORGEOUS. So in honor of this wonderful weather we’re having I have completely taken over the garage with my projects. Everything that needs painting is now ready to be transformed!

I’m trying my best to focus and finish the One Room Challenge first. But I’ve been so tempted to work on 100 other projects at the same time.

Back to the nightstands…

I asked everyone last week on Instagram what I should do with the nightstands. And the majority of the responses were something like this:

1. Go with your gut
2. Paint them!

So, as I often do, I took the internet’s advice. I decided to paint them black!

My normal go-to paint for furniture is Sherwin Williams ProClassic. But why not switch it up every once in awhile? This time I decided to try General Finishes Milk Paint in Lamp Black. Did you guys know they’re a Wisconsin company?! Their YouTube channel is actually very helpful and I watched a ton of videos to make sure I knew what I was doing before painting my nightstands. Along the way I found this gem. The Spotted Cow is a really nice touch (oh so Wisconsin).

I also thought this painting project would be a good excuse to buy the Critter spray gun I’ve been eyeing for awhile now.

We have a larger spray gun that we’ve been using for big projects (the deck, cabinet doors, etc). And the finish you get when you spray is really nice. It beats hand painting by a mile. But the large sprayer is such a pain to clean! And kind of overkill for small projects like furniture pieces.

But I have to say, this little Critter sprayer did not disappoint. It’s super easy to clean and really manageable for smaller projects. I’m so happy with it.

To paint these nightstands I diluted the milk paint about 10% with water in the mason jar, hooked everything up to my air compressor, and just went for it. In total I ended up doing about three light coats and was able to finish the painting within a day.

Then I decided to do a little bit of distressing. I literally have never wanted to distress anything before. I have always planted myself firmly in the “modern” camp and have always tried to finish furniture pieces as smooth and close to perfect as possible. So taking a sanding pad to the freshly painted nightstands was super odd for me. Who am I?

I moved the nightstands back into the room today and attached the hardware to make sure I liked them. And I’m thinking they’re pretty good now. But I may want to do a little more distressing. I’ll give it another week to decide for sure and then I may (or may not) seal them.

Alright, so that’s enough blabbing about some nightstands.

I’ve also been busying myself with collecting art and vintage frames for a gallery wall in the room. Well actually, I’ve been collecting (err… hoarding) different art pieces for years now. And I’m planning to use a lot of art I already had in this room. But I’ve also had a fun time hunting online and I found these nice ladies on Ebay.

I’ve also been hitting up thrift stores and antique shops looking for vintage frames that have some character to them. I’ve decided I don’t want anything to look too perfect and like how these are worn.

One of these particular frames came without glass so I had to cut some to put inside. And then I matted the art and framed it. Lots of older frames originally used nails or glazier points to keep the art in place. And that’s so tedious to try and do. So I found a tool with a very specific purpose to help me with this one particular thing (very practical, I know).

This Logan dual driver tool is very similar to a staple gun except it pushes tabs through the wood frame to secure the art and backer board in place.

You can even buy flexible tabs so that you can bend them back and switch out the art. I decided to use all flexible tabs on my frames because, well, I always end up eventually changing my mind.

I’m having a lot of fun getting creative with the framing. And I’m pretty happy with the art I’ve found so far. But I think I still need to hunt for a few more pieces to mix in. Right now it’s not looking like I have enough for a full wall.

And so far that’s where I’m at! Lots of DIY projects happening around here. 

Next week I’m hoping to find a different shade for the room (possibly bamboo?!) and then start pulling things together. There’s really not that much more time left.

Thanks for following along on my first One Room Challenge journey. If you want to see all my One Room Challenge posts for this room click here! And please make sure to check out all of the featured designers as well as the guest participants of the One Room Challenge!

Bedroom, Home, ORC Spring 2018