My First One Room Challenge!

For those who aren’t familiar, The One Room Challenge is a bi-annual event where “20 chosen designers go head-to-head in transforming one room over the course of 6 weeks” while providing updates on progress on a weekly basis. There is also an option to participate as a guest, which is what I will be doing.
I choose to participate because it sounds like a blast! As a new blogger, I also think the rules of the challenge, which include posting every week for 6 weeks, will help me create a structure, accountability, and a habit of posting weekly!
The room I chose to transform is a room I have nicknamed “The Poker Room”. It’s not hard to figure out where the nickname comes from when you look at the before photos:
The Poker Room in all it’s [soon to be] former glory!
While that poker green carpet is plush and comfy, it definitely has to go!
While I also despise the drop ceiling, it does serve a functional purpose; the house is a duplex and the ceiling helps reduce the sound from the tenants upstairs. My plan is to work some magic on that duck ugly ceiling by transforming it with a SUPER budget-friendly faux tin ceiling. More on that in the weeks to come 😉
In case you didn’t catch it, that dark wood on the right side of the photo above is a POCKET DOOR. You guys…both the upstairs and downstairs units have one and they are BEAUTIFUL, well-made, masterpieces! They simply do not make homes with character like this anymore!
The Poker Room is a small room coming in right around 100 square feet. While the previous tenants used it as a bedroom, I’ll be transforming the space into Duck Ugly headquarters! I do the majority of my (non-Duck Ugly) full-time work remotely and am in desperate need of a home office for that and, of course, my Duck Ugly work!
My plan includes:
- Updating the drop-ceiling to give it a faux tin ceiling look
- Replacing the light-fixture
- Painting the walls a bright white (it’s hard to tell, but the current white has a lavender undertone)
- Doing a dark blue accent wall with a custom built-in bookcases / Murphy bed combo so that the room can double as a guest bedroom
- Ripping up the carpet
- New window treatments
- Restoring a vintage Steelcase desk
Here are some of my inspiration photos:
And here is a photo of the vintage Steelcase desk I’ll be restoring:

I absolutely cannot wait to get started! Thanks so much for following along! Quack on folks!
Fa
How exciting!!!
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Thank you!!! I appreciate your support 🙂
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Maybe I am not looking correctly, but I can’t see the pocket doors in any of your photos. What will you be doing to the dark wood trim? This looks exciting. Good luck!!
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Hi Pearl, I didn’t do a very good job capturing the pocket door in these pictures so I took better ones for my week II update here https://duckuglydesign.com/2019/04/14/one-room-challenge-update/ 🙂 The wood trim stays! I just can’t bring myself to paint it!
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