Welcome to Week One of the Fall 2024 One Room Challenge, and welcome to the Blue Leopard Interiors Blog – I’m so glad you’re here! My name is Justine Dennen, and I’m the owner of Blue Leopard Interiors, a boutique residential interior design firm in Great Falls, VA. I’ve been transforming clients’ homes since 2017, and I’m passionate about creating extraordinary spaces full of character, color, and pattern. Check out my portfolio or Instagram for some of my favorite projects. This fall, I am super excited to be participating in my fifth One Room Challenge! In case you haven’t heard of the One Room Challenge, it’s an eight week online event which happens every spring and fall, where interior decorators and home bloggers, undertake redesigning or designing from scratch a room of their choosing, while sharing the progress along the way. It’s not a competition, as there is no winner, just a supportive group of like-minded design enthusiasts challenging themselves to complete a room in eight weeks. Huge thanks to Linda Weinstein of Calling it Home, the creator and director of the One Room Challenge!
We bought this house in July of 2022, because our former home, as beautiful as it was, just seemed too big for us as our kids were growing up and moving out. When the housing market took off in early 2022, we decided to sell, and buy something smaller that we (or I) could completely update and transform. That fall, I decided to participate in my first One Room Challenge, making over my Dining Room and Butler’s Pantry . The next spring, I transformed the formal living room of my house into a Whimsical Parlor, and in the Fall of 2023, I embarked on my most ambitious ORC to date, renovating our dull, dated, builder-grade kitchen into the French Bistro-Inspired Kitchen of my dreams. Most recently, I added color, pattern, and whole lot of style to our back deck and patio, creating an Outdoor Oasis for the Spring ’24 ORC.
But shortly thereafter, my middle daughter left for college (our oldest daughter graduated from college in 2023, and is currently living a working in Santa Cruz, California), leaving us with just our 16 year old son living at home, and I knew I needed another big project to help me through the transition. Besides all of the ORC projects mentioned above, I’ve previously designed and/or remodeled our foyer, family room, all three kids’ bedrooms, and both my daughters’ shared bathroom, and son’s bathroom. One of these days, I’ll share photos of those projects here as well! This only leaves our primary bedroom and en-suite bathroom, and the basement to be tackled. My initial plan was to renovate the entire Primary Suite, including the bathroom, but alas, time and money constraints meant choosing one or the other, so I chose the bedroom, which also includes a small sitting room.
The Primary Bedroom & Sitting Room – Before Photos
As mentioned above, this room is one of the few untouched spaces in this house, and has so much potential that I’m excited to maximize during this project. It’s a good size room, with a gas fireplace, a little sitting room, a big bay window, and a set of French Doors which lead out to a covered balcony. Although it faces west and doesn’t get morning sun, it gets plenty of light all day from the bay windows, french doors, and a smaller window in the sitting room. There’s a tray ceiling above the bed which I think will look really pretty when it’s painted the right color. The carpet was replaced by the previous owners right before we bought the house, and although it’s not what I would choose, (and it definitely needs a steam cleaning) there’s nothing offensive about it – just a lightly patterned, low-pile, cream color that sort of disappears.
That said, the room still looks just as it did when we moved in, with very dull, beige walls, and plastic horizontal blinds in all of the windows. The fireplace has a skimpy, builder-grade mantle, with a useless built-in tv cabinet above the fireplace – made for a very small, but very deep tv over 20 years ago. There are somewhat cheesy (and hopefully purely “decorative” and easy to remove) columns on either side of the opening into the sitting area. The room also has a lot of weird angles, like all the rooms in this early 2000’s house, which makes furniture placement somewhat tricky. These photos were all taken when we first toured the house, which had been staged. Let’s take a look at where we’re starting :
Inspiration for a Romantic Retreat
So now that you understand where we’re starting, let’s talk about where I want to GO. For those of you familiar with my work and especially my personal style, it may come as no surprise that I love COLOR, PATTERN, and WHIMSY. And those are three words I would not use to describe our current bedroom! Here are some images of bedrooms I’ve been saving for awhile as inspiration:
The Plans to turn our Beige and Boring Bedroom into a Romantic Retreat
It’s not that surprising that I’ve waited more than two years after moving into this house to finally upgrade our bedroom. After all, I find this to be a common scenario when working with clients as well – most people start designing their most public rooms, like living and dining rooms, first – then move on the the utilitarian rooms like kitchens and bathrooms, and kids’ bedrooms. The primary bedroom is usually one of the last to get attention since people feel like no one will ever see it. But with the amount of time most people spend in their bedrooms, it’s a shame not to be in a space that relaxes and inspires you. When we’re in our newly designed Romantic Retreat, I want to feel like I’m always looking at pretty things – whether they’re outside my windows or inside the room. And I want everything to function exactly as we need. If I want to stay up late reading, I want a cozy chair and the perfect reading lamp to do so. If my husband gets up early to make coffee (yes, we always make coffee in our bedroom!), I want the coffee bar to contain all of the essentials needed to make our daily brew. And lastly, let’s face it, after 27 years of marriage, we need all the romance we can get! And to me that means beautiful colors, wistful art, and luxurious, sensual furniture. So, here are my plans to transform this blah beige bedroom into an idyllic haven:
- Redesign the fireplace surround, hearth and mantel, and remove the TV cabinet above
- Remove columns between bedroom and sitting area if possible
- Design all new window treatments with curtains and sheers in the bedroom, and relaxed Roman Shades in the sitting room – plastic horizontal blinds be gone!
- New lighting – find and install interesting sconces in bedroom and above mantel, and get rid of the four recessed lights in sitting room and replace with a chandelier in the center. Add ceiling medallions above ceiling fan in bedroom, and new chandelier in sitting room
- Paint all walls, trim, and ceilings
- Install wallpaper mural
- Buy new or vintage nightstands, maybe a longer bench at the end of the bed, and find a new or vintage coffee bar, a modern swivel chair for reading, and possibly a bookcase for the sitting room
- Hang some of our favorite art (which has been sitting in a corner since we moved in!), and add a mini gallery wall with unique, romantic art and DIY some fun frames
- Buy new bedding, including a duvet/comforter and pillow shams
- Style the rooms with a combination of our existing accessories, some vintage, and some new pieces
- Steam clean carpets and possibly lay down antique silk rug we already own
What do you think? Is this list doable in just eight weeks? Can I really make over this currently boring, uninspiring, and somewhat awkward and dated space into a beautiful, romantic retreat? Follow along here on the blag, and on my Instagram to find out! And while you’re at it, be sure to follow all of the other One Room Challenge participants here!
Cheers to Fab Interiors,
Justine
Here is my ORC progress
Week 1 || Week 2 || Week 3 || Week 4 || Week 5 || Week 6 || Week 7 || Week 8
