One Room Challenge: Small Swanky Sitting Room Week 1 of 6

Oct 1, 20143 min read

Oh yes! It’s that time again, the Fall installment of the One Room Challenge (ORC) hosted by Linda over at Calling It Home Blog!!

What is the ORC you ask? This is where a group of 20 Bloggers and Designers are invited to complete a room in their home or a client’s home over the next six weeks and blog about the progress each week. Each Thursday, hundreds of other Designers and Bloggers like myself are invited to join the ORC linking party, showing off the progress of a room that we are also completing during these six weeks!

Sounds like fun, right? It is! But it is also a lot of work. The great thing is, at the end you will have a gorgeous finished space, and one less to decorate in your home!

Maybe you remember the room I completed in the Spring for the ORC? Here is a look back.

Having moved into a new home last year, as well as a new design studio, I have more than my fair share of empty rooms in need of makeovers, so it was really hard to decide. The choice was between:

The formal dining room in my home.
My 12 year old son’s bedroom (his 13th birthday present)
The kitchen in my design studio
The “classroom” at my design studio

Which did I choose? Drum roll please………….. 🙂

I chose none of the above! 🙂 🙂

Well technically I chose the formal dining room, but because we never use a formal dining room, I decided to make it into a small sitting room that doubles as a library.

The room is very small at ony 10’x12′ and is right off the entry. Here’s is the floorplan with furniture layout

Furniture Layout For Swanky Small Sitting Room – Casa Vilora Interiors.com

Can you see how open and weird this room is? And really, really small. Here is the BEFORE of the room

BEFORE

The room has a few great things going for it:

The beautiful wood floors I had installed during construction
The wood shutters that I added right after I moved in
The existing furniture pieces that I own (all pretty high-end)
The gorgeous area rug that is the inspiration for the room. I will share pictures of all the existing pieces next Thursday.

The negatives of the room:

The low 8′ ceiling
The small size of the room
The ugly light fixture that came with the home
The room doesn’t get a lot of natural light
The opening to the room is somewhat awkward, but it was better than putting in a wall (which was standard with the dining room option)

The Plan of attack

Painting the room in a light gray and marry gold tones with the gray/blue tones that will be present throughout the rest of the house
Bring in small scale, very tailored seating
Change light fixture to a chandelier with some great texture
Add custom drapery and pillows to add the swankiness to the room
Accessorize and add art and greenery.

The color scheme and inspiration

The color scheme is influenced by the existing area rug. A beautiful silk blend rug in golds and dark grays. I love that it has a slight traditional feel with the rug’s pattern but still has a contemporary look. The room will mirror this feeling of dressed up but livable.

The Area Rug and Inspiration For The Room

The fabrics will definitely take the room to the swanky level. Most of the fabrics are by the late great Charles Faudree, whose work I love and admire, and I really wanted to bring in a few from his collection.

The Fabrics

The two pillows to the left are existing, the yummy leopard silk fabric by Charles Faudree will be the custom drapery. The floral and striped fabrics, also by Charles Faudree will be made into pillows. Currently there is no stock on the leopard fabric, so I’m a bit nervous. Fingers……and toes crossed!

Benjamin Moore Pelican Gray

The paint is actually a bit darker than it appears in this photograph. It will be a nice neutral backdrop for the room. I am playing with the idea of doing large scale horizontal stripes on all the walls. I also have been thinking about doing wainscoting, but that may break the budget, so we will see.

So next week I will share the existing furniture pieces with you and any progress that I have made to the room. Hope you come back and join me for this awesome adventure! 🙂

You can check out the main participants listed below

Thanks for hanging out with me today! I hope you follow along each Thursday as I create a Swanky Small Sitting Room. Check out the link party by clicking here.

Wishing you Beauty and Inspiration!