Traditional Historic Bedroom Makeover – One Room Challenge Week One

Who am I? How did I get here? What is even happening? Somehow it is day one of the Spring One Room Challenge, and I have a plan and a mood board already. It is like I’ve participated in a few of these before, and I finally got myself together. As I was planning this post, I realized that this is my tenth One Room Challenge! Looking back, the ORC has been a source of stress and a little heartache at times too. However, nine rooms in BHH are complete because of the encouragement and support of my ORC friends. I can tell you right now that’s probably nine more than I would have completed without a group nudge. For round number ten, I’ll be doing a traditional historic bedroom makeover.

Introduction

Although I’ve been talking about this bedroom makeover for quite some time with my regular readers, you may be reading the BHH blog for the first time. Welcome! I hope you will introduce yourself in the comments. I would love to meet you.

Here is a little bit about me and Blake Hill House:

• I am a devoted old house and especially an old window lover.
• A good portion of my time is spent teaching people how to restore and repair their original wood windows vs. trashing them for replacements.
• I love old houses so much that in 2017, I started a podcast to talk about them with other people.
• BHH is over 135 years old.
• DIY is my life right now.
• I leave original features intact, and as much as possible, I preserve, rehab, and restore vs. renovate. However, this house is not a museum. We live here. We make messes here, and we accidentally break stuff sometimes too. (Side note: If you taekwondo kick an icicle, it might break a window on its way down–just saying)
• I believe in process over perfection.

The Traditional Historic Bedroom Makeover Plan

Enough about me, let’s talk about the plan. Over the past seven years, we have repaired and decorated all of the bedrooms except our main bedroom. In 2019, I completed the cozy cabin vibes bedroom for the Fall One Room Challenge, and most recently, my daughter’s room got its second makeover. The only reason why I waited to work on ours was that it was always good enough.

Before

There has never been anything overly offensive about this room, and I love the fireplace and windows. Even on the darkest, most overcast day, our bedroom is lovely and bright. As far as bones go, this room has a top-notch skeleton.

The wallpaper always reminded me of Holly Hobbie, but it was neat and clean.

There was nothing wrong with this room, which made it hard to justify spending money on it. Then, last winter, I gave our bedroom a mini-hygge makeover, and that finally sparked my interest in going all-in on a full rehab.

Over a few weekends in March, Andy steamed off all of the wallpaper, and I do not miss it.

For the last few years, Andy has been the chief wallpaper remover, and I am so grateful. I prefer to be conveniently busy when that task rolls around.

What we have today is a clean slate.

Traditional Historic Bedroom Makeover Mood Board

Once again, I am heavily inspired by Gil Schafer III.

Next week, I will get more into how I landed on the colors for the room, but until then, here’s the plan.

Sadly, some of my favorite features have already fallen victim to the B-word–you know, budget—stupid money. In case you didn’t know, lumber is the new gold. You’ve probably seen this meme already, and it could not be more true.

Although I am still trying to figure out how to get everything I want, this traditional historic bedroom makeover might have to happen in two phases instead of one.

For the day-to-day updates, be sure to follow Blake Hill House on Instagram. I’ll be doing a little bit of everything this round–plaster repair, painting, sewing, building–and a lot of that will take place in stories and on Reels. I also encourage you to subscribe to this blog via the link in the sidebar. While there will be progress posts weekly throughout the One Room Challenge, I often blog on various topics.

Many thanks to Linda from Calling it Home for starting and maintaining the One Room Challenge and to Better Homes & Gardens for being the media partner for this event. Find out more and sign up for the ORC via this link: One Room Challenge. The featured designers discuss their plans and progress on Wednesdays, and the rest of the guest participants like me link up their posts on Thursdays.

Thank you for spending your time here on the Blake Hill House blog. Let me know what you think about the plan in the comments. Are you excited that it will be light and bright, or were you hoping for dark and moody?