ORC-Whew! Its done!

As always, many thanks to Linda of Calling it Home for dreaming this baby up.

Are you all exhausted too?
If you need to catchup here are the previous weeks.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
 Week 5

Let's take a look at my plan for my 17 year-old daughter's room and the results.

I had the bed, curtains and loveseat beforehand.
The girl likes chevron so I indulged.

I ordered a Lucite chair (from a company I won't recommend) and the blue and white chevron rug was a last minute Homegoods find.

The accessories in the room were the most fun for me. We both love elephants and the brass one was a thrifting score.

I found this vintage magazine rack at a local thrift and hit it with some gold spray paint to tie it in with some other accessories and hold all of my old her records.

I actually had the table in my basement. It was a side-of-the-road broken find that I repaired and lovingly refinished years ago. I took a deep breath and just started painting it white before I could reconsider.

I use my children's rooms as art hanging spots for my paintings until they sell so we can enjoy the paintings for a while.

That painting is from my new series and my daughter likes things to be color coordinated  and I think this works with her color scheme without totally matching.

The lamp on her nightstand was thrifted and I wrapped nearly all of the books in fun wrapping paper.

The pillows and throw on the loveseat make me want to steal them.

I found these blue and white porcelain balls at a discount store and I may have to buy some for myself.

 I hung her watercolors that are for sale in her Etsy shop with bulldog clips and they serve as inspiration as she works.

A print from The Pink Pagoda and a small abstract of mine work nicely together.

The rainbow was painted by her little sister and hangs with my favorite of all of her elephant paintings. I might just have to snap that up myself.

I learned a lot from this ORC. The main thing is that I never want to redo a a room with a resident slob. Every photo you have seen involved me moving clutter and clothes out of my way and putting things back to the way they were just a few hours earlier.
 We love the Parsons desk and ghost chair andI am really happy with the John Robshaw pillowcover I ordered and my recovered storage cubes.

Are going to spend the next few hours perusing all of the other fabulous ORC linker's rooms, like me?

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ORC-week four-Etsy score!

Linda at Calling it Home has created this fabulous One Room Challenge on Wednesdays and its crazy lil' sister the ORC linking event on Thursdays. Check 'em out!

This is week 4, aka "holy shit!" week. The week where participants say to their significant other in a shrill tone, "You HAVE TO help me_________ NOW!"  The week of no dinners and perhaps a bit more wine than is good.

If you missed them here are my  week one, week two and week three.

Actually, I learned from the last time to tell ask Mr. Designdumonde to attend to a few things early on and they have been accomplished. So no screaming over here.

 But! Shipping folks don't care about my ORC problems, therefore, the DIY

I was going to show you ain't happening right now because FedEX and a certain store have delayed and delayed the ship date of the item to be DIYed. 

Drat! (I actually said something much worse)
So here is the plan once again.

So I will show you my how my Etsy cart and a local store helped me in this room refresh.
 She already has the yellow chevron curtains and some blue and white porcelain that I scored at a local consignment store so my job was to find more blue and yellow items to complete the look.

I saw these darlings on Etsy and it took me about a tenth of a second to start checkout. Yay team yellow!

This pillow in John Robshaw fabric came from the Etsy shop Sierra Pillows

This one is from Festive Home Decor on Etsy. 2 points for team blue!
Blue is kind of winning because I bought 2 of these also but who cares because its blue, right?

Pillow from Royal Furnish

My favorite piece was not found on Etsy at all but in another local consignment store. I just couldn't wait any longer to show you.

 Could you die!!? Well, this dummy looked at it and walked out of the store thinking, "I don't need a mirror" and didn't go back for like 5 days! One night lying in bed I started to think about the mirror, which was only $50 BTW, and thought to myself, "You are crazy stupid, Kerry. You can't get a good mirror at a big box store for that price!" The next day I crossed fingers and headed back, sure it was gone. In a matter of minutes it was mine. Yay!!

The idea was to mix preppy, boho, and modern while accommodating her fickle ways and and budding art business and I think I am getting there with the mix of accessories I have so far.

 I would not spill all of my secrets on week 4 so stop by next week to see more of my plan unfold.

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ORC- Gallery wall and a curtain trick

This is such a fun party, Linda! If you aren't sure what I mean check out Calling it Home to see the past two week's One Room Challenge on Wednesday and the linking party on Thursdays.
You can also recap my week one and week two.
Be sure to check out all of the great work going on in other people's houses.
I am trying to visit them all!

First I have to show you the curtain trick. I think I have a sign on my back that only drapery workrooms can see and it says "Make the rod pocket whatever $#%%^& size you want. She won't send it back"

Mr. Designdumonde came up with this trick after I spent $1000 on curtains in the family room and the rod pockets were too big. You'd think I would stop using an out of state workroom. Nope, it happened in my daughter's room too. Here is the fix.

 Start with a zip tie.

Loop it around the rod. Slide the curtain back to the position you want the panel and tighten the zip tie. Cut off all but 1/2 inch.

You absolutely can't see this when its done and your curtains don't flop down the rod.

That man is a genius.

My daughter had several strings hung on her wall like clothes line and she use clothes pins to hang her artwork. This was over about five nail holes from things I had hung and she removed. I was really sick of the weekly change on the walls so I bought something designed to change often.

This hanging system from Stas was only $65 for all of the components. Its ala carte so you can really customize it for your needs. I chose the lightweight clear cords because that was all that was needed. There are heavy duty cords and hooks available too.

The idea was to hang framed items that she wants to keep ( I use the term "keep" loosely because it could disappear at her whim) coupled with her Etsy shop artwork hung with bulldog clips.

This isn't the final gallery wall setup. Its going to require a bit of trial and error to get everything how I  how she wants it.

Make sure to stop by next Thursday. I hope to have a cool DIY for week four, plus its Spring break so I am pretty sure week five is going to be tricky pull something out of my hat to show you.

 

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ORC linking party-Teen room refresh

I am sure you know this event well, but if not it is hosted by the lovely Linda from Calling it Home.

Yesterday the official One Room Challenge began and today the rest of us get to throw our hats in.

I will be doing my 16 year-old daughter's room, although she will turn 17 before its over provided she relinquishes control to me.

I hemmed and hawed about doing her room because a.) she has opinions b.) she did not get the design gene and c.) she is fickle. So fickle that sunburst mirrors hung at the right height have been replaced by paintings dangling far too high from the floor among other bizarre changes.

It goes like this, I find a solution for her room, she approves, I purchase and a week later it is in the closet in favor some goofy mock-up. All of this does not sit so well with me, so call me mean but, going forward she will be consulted minorly and forbidden to change things.

We need a desk and chair situation here and for goodness sakes less crap everywhere!

These desks are my inspiration.

I need a storage solution here. Ugh!

I am not entirely awful as I am planning a gallery wall that includes some framed "permanent" pieces and and some that are easy to change out on a whim.

Right now she hangs her own watercolors from her Etsy shop along with sweet little pictures made by her little sister in this spot.

Her color scheme so far has been gray, yellow black, greige and red. Yup, I said red so you can see why an intervention of the strongest sort is in order.

Here is the plan:

• Desk and chair situation resolved
• Implement new color scheme
• Find storage for records
• Find storage for cosmetics
• Create gallery wall
• Accessorize within new color scheme

Head on over to Calling it Home to see what the other participants are up to and come back next week to see my progress.

Room of the week-ORC Now linking party

My "Room of the week " feature is taking a detour this week to the ORC Now linking party.

You may have seen my room in the ORC linking party last year. If not, here's the idea, I wanted to create a room that would be comfortable enough for guests and also work for my son who is in college and away most of the time.

My son, Mr. Death Metal Maniac, is a music business major so I had to make it conducive to guitar playing while at home. He did not see the room until after the ORC reveal. Thank you for that timing, Linda.

Don't hate me for this, but it is exactly the same as the last time you saw it except when Mr. DMM is home. Then it looks like 5 laundry hampers exploded and need an air freshener. I don't have That picture.. maybe next week for Spring Break.

Check out everyone else's changes HERE

and the winner is...

The winner of my art giveaway is Kristen Alcorta of Pursuing Vintage!

Yay, Kristen!

Today my son, aka Mr. Death Metal Maniac, is returning for Thanksgiving break. I am really excited. I have never been apart from him this long. He will get his first real-life look at his room that was part of the ORC link up.

ALSO!

I am hosting another giveaway for $100 gift certificate starting Monday. So make sure to stop by.

Have a fantastic weekend.

ORC linking participant-art day

Thanks again to Linda of Calling it Home, for lighting a really big fire under me and about 70 more people.

If you missed my progress on this guest bedroom/ college son's room, here are the previous weeks

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

You may remember one of my inspirations for this room included a gallery of portraits.

Well I thought I had it covered, the wall that is. I took my photos on Tuesday afternoon and got around to uploading them around 10 pm. Panic city! I had not noticed until I looked at photos that the wall looked half dressed, a waist up situation. Where the heck was I going to get more portraits in time? The answer was in my studio. I was up until 3 am creating.

I generally don't paint people but this was an emergency.

I worked from photos and this guy was loosely based on the statue of David.

This was just a random man with glasses.

It was late and I still needed one more so I did a simple gestural self portrait from a blurry reflection. I had it on Instagram and someone commented on my beard. Funny, very funny.

These are linocut prints by my grandmother and the portrait of the gentleman in blue is a painting she did of her father. There is also a portrait of my great-great grandfather too.

Under the baby portrait is a linocut of a man playing guitar and I found it particularly apt since my son (Mr. Death Metal Maniac) plays guitar.

Earlier this week, I posted about this commissioned portrait of my son as a baby. The very talented Sam Kimura painted it. 

"Mettle" oil on canvas by Kerry Steele

I painted this 36 x 36, titled "Mettle", specifically for the room.

I found a spot for one more of my paintings above this bookshelf and tucked a small landscape by Sally Kelly in too. Our house is a revolving gallery. Things move from room to room, get sold, I paint something new and it starts all over. Don't be surprised if you see one of these in my shop in the future.

My to do list is looking pretty good. Its funny how things get tacked on as you go, like painting three portraits in an all night frenzy.

To Do List

 1. Throw away box of Mike's Hard Lemonade empties in the closet and scrub everything including carpet.
2.Paint walls
3. Source vintage furniture and accessories
4. Move Queen bed in
5. Install new light fixture
6. Trick out the bed with cool pillows
7. Hang curtains
8. Hang art including 2 custom paintings, wait let's make that 5
9. Final zhush

Come back next week for the whole enchilada and all of my sources!

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