One Room Challenge Fall 2019: Week 3 - Dancing Ceilings and White Walls

It's week three of the  One Room Challenge and the pressure is on like donkey Kong! The half-way mark for the ORC, like most renovation projects, is a strange one because it's where you're waiting on deliveries and custom work to be done so progress can seem as slow as molasses. To get a refresher on what we have planned, you can read all the details here and here. 

But hooray for some more progress. We installed this Minted mural by Ashleigh Ninos  on our new office/dining lounge ceiling and lord, oh lord, if it didn't feel like Christmas in October. 

The prep work is key for installing wallpaper and murals. I also always leave this to the professionals. Nothing worse than trying to install these and ending up with glue all over yourself and ruining the paper. So my rule of thumb, get a professional installer if ya can. 

Thanks so much to the team at The Wallpaper Station for getting this done!

We have some  fun stuff planned for the walls and ceiling and had to decide on a stain finish. Many agonizing hours later, and plenty of rolling eye emojis from our installer, we have a winner. 

Okay, we kept you in the dark about our paint choice all week so drum roll please......we decided to go with all white walls since we will have pops of color everywhere including a hella orange sofa. I chose ultra pure white by our official paint sponsor Behr Marquee because it is truly a pure white. No shades of anything else and that was my goal. 

We might be close to the home stretch but it's not over until the last pillow is chopped so we still finalizing items like a stunning tray from Jill Rosenwald, Emtek door handles for our custom built-in, Legrand Adorne wall outlets and switches, and we just had to get more of this stunning tile from The Tile Shop  That's all folks. Of course you can always follow us on Instagram for behind the scenes details and click this image in our highlights. 

Now go check how all the other designers/bloggers are doing. 

At Charlotte’s House | Design Addict Mom | Erika Ward Interiors | Erin Kestenbaum | Girl & Grey

Gray Malin | Hommeboys | I Spy DIY | Jewel Marlowe | The Learner Observer | Making it Lovely

 Nicole White Designs | Old Brand New | Oscar Bravo Home | Place of My Taste | The Rath Project

Room for Tuesday | SG Style | Undecorated Home | Veronica Solomon | Media BH&G | TM by ORC

Tall Ceilings? What Do I Do?

One of the biggest design dilemmas I hear from clients is how to deal with insanely tall ceilings. 
Since many newer homes in South Florida come with this added feature, I hear this complaint often. Some clients feel a tad intimidated, some are even downright petrified. Guess what? Those ceilings don't bite. In fact, there are many people in the world who would kill to have them, so here are some tricks I've used to remove the fear of those dreaded ceilings. 

• Embrace them. They really ain't going nowhere, unless of course you plan to sell your home, and that may not be such a good idea at the moment. 
• Once you've accepted that, set a budget in mind to decide how much you can afford to spend to bring some major wow to the windows.
• If you can splurge, then fully customized curtains are the way to go. In the panels below, we used a silk dupioni, fully lined with a Greek Key trim along the edges. Notice that the drapes frame the arched windows when open therefore still letting in maximum light, and will completely cover them and the regular window when closed for complete privacy.

 

• If you're not worried much about privacy, then you can save a lot on those custom drapes by making them just decorative panels vs ones that can open and close all the way. The latter option requires a lot more fabric.  
• You can also customize store bought panels. I love these Ikea panels because they are 118" in length. This means you can buy panels in two different colors, add one at the bottom to create a banded panel for a look that is custom but inexpensively so. I'd also add rings to these panels for an even more custom look. 

• Another trick? Grouped art. Use those tall walls to show off over-sized pieces of art or family portraits as shown here. The Flamingo piece by itself was relatively small, but as a grouping of four, it added a dramatic element to the wall and draws your eye upward. 

 

The black and white pieces used here are from Ikea and they are massive. They have quite a collection that size and are just $50, which is a steal for framed art. 
There you have it. I hope this helps to calm some of your fear of those dreaded ceilings. What have you done to embrace those ceilings? I'd love to hear some your own secrets. Holla.