One Room Challenge Week One- Bedroom and Bathroom Plan

Victoria Ford

3 years ago

Prepfordwife One Room Challenge Bathroom Before

Hey girl hey! Victoria, your featured designer, here. I always wanted to say that. I am so very excited to kick off another One Room Challenge with you this time as a Featured Designer. Pinch me!

If you’re new here, I’m Victoria; strategist by day, designer by night. I tend this little corner of the world called Prepford Wife where I share all things life and lifestyle, all with my “Classic with a Wink” Perspective. This ORC, I’m excited to share our home and some tips and tricks to maximize spaces of your own. Even if you live somewhere temporary with no grand plans for a huge renovation, you can still do it in style and love where you live.

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of participating in One Room Challenge before as a guest participant, both time with a bathroom. (Fall 2019 || Spring of 2020). Each year, Linda -the ORC Creator- and the Better Homes and Gardens team, select two guests participants as Featured Designers for the next ORC event. Last fall, my little bathroom (that I only lived in for three weeks was chosen). What an honor!

So this year, we are kicking it off together for the Spring 2021 ORC. Due to COVID-19 this go round, the One Room Challenge will be eight weeks to give folks time to actually get product with long lead times in the design industry and safely complete projects for those who will use contractors.

Check out other weeks of this One Room Challenge

Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4 / Week 5 / Week 6 / Week 7 / Week 8: Guest Room Reveal / Week 8: Bathroom Reveal

Our One Room Challenge Space(s)

This One Room Challenge, we’re renovating our bedroom. Oh and that’s right another bathroom. By now you know I love a good bathroom transformation. This is our fourth one in a years’ time after all. Could I be a one trick pony with another bathroom? Sure, but give the people what they want. This go round, we are looking to create two cohesive space that provide our guest with somewhere to lay their heads and soak their butts.

Before of the Green Room

We affectionately refer to this as “The Green Room”, for obvious reasons. Honestly, we’ve been using it as the hoard room since we moved here. Every homeless item has gone in this room in the last year. I’m including more photos of the “During” so you can see what it really looks like. We can not wait to spruce it up and create a space that we love.

Before of the Bathroom

These are pictures from the day we moved into the house. The bathroom was nice and clean and sparkly still. Even on move in day, we could see that there were changes that we wanted to make.

What Problems Do We Need to Solve in this One Room Challenge?

I don’t believe in renovation for renovations sake (even with a One Room Challenge to design for) so whenever I start a space, it’s always to make it more functional. What problems are we trying to solve? What would make the space more liveable for us? And then I scheme design around that. We have a delicious list of problems we need to solve in both spaces and I am excited to tackle them.

Bedroom Problems

A place to sleep: We have been using this space as storage for the last year as we renovate other rooms. There is a antique bed from our old house that we adore and will reuse again since it’s so beautiful but it’s just lying around waiting for us to put it together.

Brighten and lighten: This room is way too dark. Even though it’s just a sleeping space, we try and keep the LRV of the paint in the room above 46. LRV stands for light reflectivity value and most paints have this number. The scale goes from 0 which mean it absorbs all the light to 100 which means it reflects all the light. As a really dark color, this green has a dark color and a low LRV. We try not to choose low LRV’s in sleep spaces. This feels counter intuitive but in our home, it just sucks all the light in and makes it feel cave like.

Lighting: Speaking of light, this space has TERRIBLE lighting. Aside from just being a dark space in general, the overhead light in here is too dim and that is a problem we need to solve post haste. We are also going to introduce lower eye level light in this space and creative solutions for the window drapery to maximize on light.

Work from home space: This may be a remnant from us living in a smaller home (~1200 sq ft) but we like our spaces to work overtime. So that means each space in our home does triple duty. With our siblings in school and us working from home, everyone who comes in our house needs a desk and working space.

Bathroom Problems

The bathroom has a completely different set of problems that need to be solved, starting with the looks.

Aesthetics: That wallpaper border. ‘Nuff said. We found this nautical ship bathroom devastatingly ironic. We would move into a bathroom that already has a preppy nautical theme when we haven’t seen a lighthouse in over a year. Aside from just not loving it, the blue in here is also wallpaper. Why oh why do people continue to paint wallpaper. So that has to go and be replaced by something we love more.

Vanity: This bathroom vanity is low. I mean low low. The average modern vanity is around 30-32″ tall and this one is 29″. Modern comfort height vanities tend to be 36″ which is definitely my preferred height. After renovating our main bathroom and having a higher sink, I can confirm that this is my range.

Storage: This bathroom has no storage at all. The sink isn’t high enough to store anything below it and the shelving is quite odd. We also don’t have a closet and this odd window alcove makes it difficult to store anything. We will have to address storage even if it’s with some simple storage solutions.

Hang space: There are no walls so there is no where to hang anything. Not a huge deal but if you look around, there are no real walls to hang a towel on. So that’s another thing we need to think through.

Tub: I don’t actually hate the tub. In fact what I love most was the towel bar in the shower. Say what?! Towel bar in the shower? Aesthetically, it’s an eye sore but it has been serving me well because it’s the perfect place to hang my ipad while I detangle my hair. (I do this with the water off so I can hear and #gogreen). I want to make sure I design a similar option in this space because the ipad has become pivotal to my self care routine.

Bedroom Inspiration

I find it deeply disconcerting that all of the inspiration I have for this space are “boy’s rooms” in Pinterest. Maybe girls just like the color blue and layered tones? Whatevs. Get into these boy’s rooms that caught my eye.

I mean how good is this boy’s room? The feel of this room is spot on for what I love. From the color palette to the very collected look above the dresser, this room hits it out of the park for me.

This space is definitely over the top but the color palette, print mixing and equestrian vibe speaks my love language. And that rug?!

No one. I repeat, NO ONE does Lake and Lodge like Bria Hammel. I fell in love with this mix of wood and textures paired with this soothing color palette. The part that I will actually pull for our space is the vintage bed and the meeting of the wallpaper and wall treatment. Such a dreamy situation.

Bathroom Inspiration

What is vanity if it’s not using your own pictures as inspo? I loved this bathroom. It was crisp, clean and coastal. And now I want to bring that into a more colonial and timeless design. I’m definitely going to pull that Kohler sink in somehow.

I fell head over hills in love with this bathroom at Post House Inn in South Carolina when Mimi and I went to go wash our hands before dinner. (Friendship is Mimi holding the door open so I could get a shot of it. But that art over the toilet? The tile? The brass fixtures? The square potty? Drool.

Here’s a better picture of it but my goodness do I love this bathroom. I’m absolutely leaning into those framed images for what little wall space I do have.

Source: Better Homes and Gardens of Jaime Costiglio’s Bathroom

Both of these sinks would be an ideal treatment. I love the furniture feel paired with porcelain of the sinks. I am definitely going to mix vintage furniture with vintage sinks.

This image is the foundation of my design. I am in love with the juxtaposition of the wood vanity and juxtaposed with the green tile. And do you see that trim?! Swoon. Pair that with the mixed metals in this space and I am off to the races. This is one of my favorite spaces on the internet.

The floor in this bathroom paired with the vintage fixtures won me over. While we won’t do something nearly as complex, we will try and pull in a great mosaic tile.

So there you have it. Those are my spaces and my general thoughts for where we’re headed. Can’t wait to show you around in Instastories and to show you a mood board next week back here on the blog!

Check out other weeks of this One Room Challenge

Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4 / Week 5 / Week 6 / Week 7 / Week 8: Guest Room Reveal

Before we wrapped this up, I want to give a huge thank you to some of the amazing brands who are sponsoring One Room Challenge and who I’ve been so fortunate to work with this go round!

Want to see some incredible spaces from some amazingly talented designers? You do!