Healthy Bedroom Makeover, One Room Challenge Week 2
Are you catching this out of order. Start with WEEK 1 here.
"California Dreamin" Healthy Master Bedroom Makeover, The Plan
We are fortunate to live in Warm and Sunny, Southern California. To be specific we live in Orange County, California. Both my husband and I are transplants we both grew up in cold climates. At least in the winter time. Que up "California Dreamin" by the Mamas and the Papas. I'm originally from N.J and my husband is from Minnesota. We both enjoy all that California has to offer. We can visit the beach, dessert and the mountains all in one day! Each of these beautiful landscapes will be the backdrop for our Healthy Master Bedroom Makeover.Californians are also known to be health conscious. With that in mind, I will be incorporating some healthy material choices to use. Our master bedroom is the best place to start. A sanctuary with the intention to rejuvenate, regenerate, and recharge. When making selections I will be mindful of selecting furniture and building materials that do not contain harmful chemicals. Such as Formaldehyde, Acetone, Flame Retardants, Antimicrobials, Fluorinated stain treatments, and PVC. Whew, that was a lot! Sadly there are more then what I have listed. Since the 70's there has been 80,000.00 chemicals that have been invented. 15,000.00 chemicals are in high use one way or another. Some of which are harmful to humans. O.K enough of the scare tactic. This is a light-hearted design challenge that I'm thrilled to be a part of. I'm ready to create a killer room without the killer chemicals.
"California Dreamin" Steps to take our room from a cold winters night to a warm and sunny day.
Like all design projects, a plan needs to be set. Otherwise, chaos WILL occur. Or worse the design will look like a hot mess and not a California Oasis.
Space Plan
Color Story or Mood board
Selections
STEP1: MASTER BEDROOM MAKEOVER, SPACE PLAN
When interviewing Steve "The Hubby" he mentioned liking our current furniture layout. Our space is not all that big and the way it is currently set up, I'm happy with. First thing first, measure the space. Thankfully I use Home Designer Pro by Chief Architect to create all of my space plans. I drew up the shape in the program and hand wrote all of the dimensions. Then plugged in the correct measurements into the program. Not only is this a great tool to get the scale of the furniture accurately. It's a tool to use to add elements I'd like to try. Such as paint color, wallpaper, size and location of art, etc. Now I have a working plan to review with my client prior to purchasing anything. It helps to convey my thoughts to my client.Although I would love to go BIG on changing the room, we all have budgets. To help with keeping cost down we decided to keep some of our existing pieces and features. Going forward, for now, we will be keeping our current dresser, mirror/storage piece, and lighting fixture. Knowing this is apart of the plan I need to build these items into the space plan. The 2 pieces were bought over 14 years ago and both are made of solid wood. When purchasing furniture it's best to purchase pieces that are made of solid wood. If the piece is made of MDF (medium-density fibreboard) or engineered wood the chances are HIGH that it contains formaldehyde. Most furniture pieces do contain MDF or engineered wood. These materials are being used today for several reasons. The most common reason is to keep the cost down. As well as creating the integrity and a sound structure of the piece where needed. Furniture manufacturers need to be price competitive especially when goods are coming from China. In the name of creating a healthy bedroom makeover, I need to keep all of these factors into consideration. I am confident in keeping these pieces knowing both are made of solid wood and most likely if any formaldehyde was in the process of making the pieces it has now off-gassed after 14 years. These pieces are no longer affecting the air quality.
STEP 2: MASTER BEDROOM MAKEOVER, COLOR STORY OR MOOD BOARD
Color first, then all else falls into place. A question I ask my client is what colors do you like? Steve my better half is my current client. Answered by telling me he likes cool colors in green and blue tones. This gives me a solid color direction. Blue and green happen to be my favorite color pairing. They are both ideal colors for a cool "California Dreamin" vibe! When it comes to color I tend to like deep rich colors but in this case, the goal is to lighten up the room. Both my husband and I agree that the room is too dark. Dark no more! White will be an addition and will give the spark this room needs to liven it up. To offer some warmth I plan to mix in wood tones. From our existing pieces and the addition of two new nightstands. I Love mixing wood tones! This way the room isn't too matchy-matchy and looks and feels like the space was collected over time.
Step 3: Master bedroom makeover, furniture, and wallpaper Selections
Wallpaper: Heading into this challenge I knew I wanted to create an accent wall. I'm a sucker for accent walls and for wallpaper. The wallpaper will add some needed color to the room. Both my husband and I love art so the wallpaper will help reflect that. Keeping in line with my additional challenge for our healthy bedroom makeover. I knew I needed to stay FAR AWAY from any type of Vinyl. Vinyl is essentially plastic and contains phthalates. This is something you NEVER want to bring into your home. Phthalates are considered an SVOC (Semi-volatile organic compounds) it's an airborne chemical and part of those chemicals are adsorbed on indoor surfaces and onto microscopic airborne particles. Which can be absorbed through inhaling, touching, and ingesting.Now for the fun part! Looking for the perfect paper. I visited my local showroom DRC located close to me and instantly found the paper! It was installed in one of their vignettes. How easy was that! Usually, I'm flipping through piles of books until I find the right paper. You can see exactly what I walked into below. I instantly went to Eddie my wallpaper expert and inquired about it. She gave me a sample, cost, stock. That helped set the tone of the room and off to a great start.Speaking into the eco-part of my challenge the paper is made of grasscloth and linen which is a renewable material and non-toxic. Although I would love to say the paper in its entirety is non-toxic, I cannot claim that at this time. There is a process the paper goes through to prepare to print and the inks used to print. I will need to look into this at a later date. In the meantime, this paper does speak to the eco-friendly part of my challenge. Typically the inks used are not chemicals that need to be 100% out of our environment. The key here is to use a water based glue that is non-toxic to install the paper. If not the standard chemical found is Formaldehyde. Which is a BIG NO, NO!Furniture selection:Going into this challenge I knew exactly where I wanted to purchase my nightstands. The marriage of non-toxic materials and style can be tricky to find in one place. Fortunately, I found Studio Ziggy that answered both of those needs. I've spoken to Emily at Studio Ziggy extensively and she has provided transparency on every level. She shared the good and the not so good. BUT the not so good is something that can be addressed. I have some tricks up my sleeve. More on that later. The not so good as they do use MDF for some of their pieces BUT it's GREEN MDF meaning it only contains a trace amount of formaldehyde found in the material. ONLY A TRACE amount so it passes multiple 3rd party certifications such as Greenguard. Green Guard only certifies products that are safe for indoor air quality. So I have the comfort knowing they are doing their due diligence. See below what I have ordered and is in the process of being made. I've asked Emily to send me progress shots. I plan to post those shots next week.Fortunately what I did pick is made of plywood. Yes, above, I did mention not using plywood or engineered wood BUT it's 100% formaldehyde free! And BONUS the wood is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. That is now speaking into the eco-friendly story and the non-toxic story. What a great story this is becoming!Now for the bed, I knew LONG ago I wanted to go with an upholstered bed. Not the best thing for my environment since I have asthma and bad allergies but I'm OVER hitting my shin on the corner of the bed. I have a permanent scar from all the times I've hit the corner. IT HURTS! Our new upholstered bed will be much more kind to my shins. I've selected my fabric for the bed and it's from one of my favorite vendors Revolution Fabrics. They are amazing! The fabric is 100% recycled bottles made in the U.S, stain resistant without the harmful Fluorinated stain treatments. Added bonus they are Green Guard certified! They are definitely my go-to fabric for families with kiddos and or dogs. Check out their video and see how easy it is to clean. Even permanent marker stains are cleanable! Their fabric meets both my eco story and my non-toxic story. Once again another win! Did I mention the selections are off the charts amazing? If not they are off the charts amazing! So many prints and textures to feed all of my desires. Since I wanted to bring more light into the space I decided to go with Bopper Natural. I LOVE the texture! The bed will look and feel luxurious. Don’t you think?I spoke about the shell of the upholstered bed now I need to address the inside of the bed which is just as important if not the MOST important. The horrible material used inside an upholstered bed or a sofa for that matter is a petroleum-based foam. Yes petroleum, we all know how petroleum, if caught on fire, WILL engulf your room in a matter of minutes. 3.4 minutes to be exact. In the 70's the foam industry had to add a flame retardant on the foam to help it from going up in flames that easily and quickly. Yes we've heard the NEW standard doesn't have those nasty chemicals any more but I have a hard time believing it. Swapping out one chemical for another is a common practice and those new chemicals are typically NOT tested for human health. Instead, I'm going with 100% GOLS (Global Organic Latex Standards) certified latex. GOLS is the pinnacle of standards for the latex industry. The material is tested from the raw ingredients all the way through the processing and to the final product. This is a standard I can stand behind, 100%. The wood used for the frame will be made from a solid hardwood as well. It's not FSC certified but I know the material is 100% toxic free. I will definitely sleep well at night knowing my bed is not harmful to me or my husband.Window Coverings:When working with windows I prefer a layered look using both romans and drapes. For this project, I want to keep it simple using solid colors. Solid color doesn’t mean boring. NO Boring hear to see. Both materials have an incredible look and hand. Filled with an amazing texture! Have I told you I am MADLY in love with texture?For the drapes, I picked Constituent color Slate from another one of my favorite go-to fabric vendor Fabricut. It's a washed Cotton/Linen blend that is an oxford yarn dye weave. It comes across as a solid but in reality, it's 2 colors woven in to create a cross weave texture. See below, it's ahhhmazing!The romans that I have in the process is made of 100% natural bamboo. It's not your standard slatted looking reeds either. It's a woven material made of bamboo. It's incredible what these fabric mills can do with fiber. I can geek out on all of this stuff all day LONG. Visiting factories to see the whole process is fascinating to me. O.K., sorry I didn't mean to geek out and bore you. All you need to do is just see the texture and you will be won over.
ART, ART, ART: We LOVE art in this household! Well, the kiddos maybe not just yet but one day they will.
Between myself and my hubby, I really thought this one was going to be a tough one to decide on. It wasn’t! It was like our first date super easy and fun. At first, we were both on the tip of choosing an ocean scene of some sort. But it didn't sit well with me. You see we live a block away from the beach and most projects I work on for my clients all want a coastal look. So, of course, I wanted to stretch this. My go to art is usually abstract but this time I wanted something easy going and light feeling. We narrowed it down to a photography piece and off I went searching and found a cactus print called Joshua. There's our desert! Our "California Dreamin" is all falling into place! Love when a plan falls into place so effortlessly. Now ladies and gentlemen sit back, relax, and feel the California Vibes.
I can't believe I've designed a room in a week!
Now that we have our space plan, color story, and selectionscompleted. It's time to place all the orders and call all of my trades to set up a day and time to get the work going. The devil lies in the plans. The plan requires to order everything, gauge shipping, and receiving dates. Then coordinate with everyone that is involved. I'm not a DIYer, I leave that up to the pros in each of their perspective jobs. This way I know it's getting done properly. Plus I just don't have the TIME!
Head over to the One Room Challengeto check what the Featured Designers and Guest Participants are up to for Week 2 of the ORC challenge.
Did I mention that Better Homes and Gardens is the official media partner for the ORC? How cool is that!
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