One Room Challenge Week 4 | Walls + Progress

We have WALLS!! Getting this drywall up has been one issue after the other. The walls are not square (typical in most houses) but they are also not plumb which created issues we didn’t realize. If we knew what we were doing we would have furred out the walls to correct this but turns out we’re just amateur DIY’ers who wing it more than they probably should. It’s fine though. Because the walls are kinda wavy, we will have to put a slight texture on the wall to trick the eye into not seeing it when the light shines in. Not crazy about that but you take things as they come and you can’t ALWAYS get what you want. The mudding isn’t quite finished yet, but it will be by tomorrow!

This post is partly sponsored by Ryobi and may contain affiliate links for your convenience. Full disclosure here. #ad

As I’ve mentioned before, Ryobi has a brushless drywall screw gun they sent to me and it made this job so much easier! It automatically countersinks your drywall screws with the perfect dimple for mudding easily later. You can also switch it to automatic so you don’t have to pull the trigger every time you screw. As soon as you put pressure on the bit it starts screwing. It was a huge help and if you have a lot of drywall to do, I highly suggest having one of these on hand! When you’re home alone and you need a picture with your new favorite tool, ha!

This week I decided on a different tile than the one that was on my mood board. I was originally going to tile around our brass Victorian face/insert but decided not to do that. I will only be tiling the hearth and the other tile was pretty spendy! I loved the design on those big hex tiles but with just doing the hearth it wouldn’t be super noticeable. Not worth it to me so I started looking for another tile that would add more natural elements to the room and landed on this in-stock marble hex at Home Depot.

It’s pretty affordable for the small amount we need and is absolutely gorgeous! As for the rest of the fireplace facade, I decided to make it look like concrete with a feather finish. I wanted a really clean lined look so this week we built out the fireplace bump out so it extends to the left and right and lines up with the rest of the face that extends vertically up to the ceiling. We just used scrap 2×4’s, leftover plywood and lath pieces we had in the garage. This bumped out portion will get covered in cement board cement per my friend Tasha’s tutorial over at Designer Trapped. Then the entire thing, top to bottom will get skim coated with feather finish. I have a little trick I’m going to try in order to make this a lot easier, so I’ll let you guys know alllll about it if it works out.

I am SO excited about this concrete feather finish decision. It’s a cheap and fairly easy DIY but it will add a lot of texture and warmth to an otherwise white room. My vision for this space is all about reverence for light (hence allll the white), natural elements and trying to merge modern design with Victorian. Here are a few fireplace inspo pics that sealed the deal for me!

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I will also be creating built-ins on either side of the fireplace. They will be semi-DIY because I bought these Nordli drawers from IKEA but will be building a base, a top and next to them will be 2 wood boxes that will hold firewood. They will be flush with the fireplace bump out to keep in line with those clean lines I’m loving! Yay! We are pretty inexperienced in this build department so we will see how it goes. We usually are successful it just takes us a little longer to get there LOL! We will basically build it all with 1/2 inch plywood then paint it to match everything else in the room.

It seems like everything in this room has been difficult. We wanted to save the baseboards that were behind the built in shelves that were in this room when we started but when we went to remove them they just splinter into a hundred pieces. So now we are trying to find ones that match, without having to wait on an order. Don’t know if that will happen, there are a lot of unknowns at this point. We also have to travel a bit to get some rough sawn lumber, that I will then have to stain to match the ceiling. Then we will cut the lumber to fit in between each joist at the top of the ceiling. This is to create a finished look that hopefully matches the 120+ year old wood joists that we exposed. I don’t regret the decision, but it is costly and might not get finished by ORC deadline. Old houses are tough, and they always come with some unexpected curve balls. We’re just going to do our absolute best to finish, and if we don’t – that’s really okay.

Some lessons I’ve learned:

1. 1. Maybe don’t be so quick to pull down the plaster and lath. If the plaster can’t be saved, at least try to leave the lath….this will make hanging drywall significantly easier.
   2. Realize if you want to RESTORE you will have to pay more for things and likely ORDER those things which takes time.
   3. I am only human, and can only do so much with my own two hands. I appreciate my husband and son so much for working hard with me on this space.

Are you ready for the LIST? Here is what we’ve accomplished:

remove drop ceiling
remove light fixture
remove mirrors
remove mantel and tile
demo plaster + lathe on ceiling and mirror wall
remove wallpaper
Re-run electrical for ceiling fixture/light switch
Sand Floor to prep for paint
remove plaster and lathe on 2nd wall, unexpectedly
hang drywall
tape + mud + sand drywall
skimcoat + sand Plaster Wall (did this but turns out probably wasn’t necessary now that we have to texture
build out fireplace
cover with cement board

One Room Challenge Week 4 GOALS:

tape seams  + skim coat Henry’s feather finish on the fireplace
polish brass insert on fireplace
clean every square inch of this room
paint the floor (2-3 days dry time for light foot traffic and 7 days to totally cure so this HAS to be done ASAP)
prime walls and all wood window trim

Thanks for following along and bearing with me through this challenge! It has been fun to challenge myself and give myself a deadline. Stressful, but fun! Here’s to week 4 being super productive!! And as always, thanks A MILLION to my sponsors for this project!

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS // OSBORNE WOOD // RYOBI POWER TOOLS

DON’T FORGET YOU CAN SEE ALL OF THE OTHER PARTICIPANTS’ ROOM PROGRESS BY CLICKING THE ORC IMAGE BELOW!

And just a reminder of my ultimate vision for this space! Like I said above, a few things have changed or not worked out, but overall this is what I’m going for.