Fall ’22 One Room Challenge: The Height of Modern Cottage | Week 1
Week 1: My Fall 2022 One Room Challenge “Height of Modern Cottage” Design is About to Take Flight!
Welcome to My Fall ’22 One Room Challenge Featuring Bold Design Choices in a Modern Cottage Style
Hi! I’m Keely Hersh, owner and designer of Right at Home Interiors in El Dorado Hills, California – an interior design company and drapery workroom. I’m so excited to be participating in my first ever One Room Challenge! I’ve been saving, thinking, and planning for 18 months to transform my living room, entryway, and hallway. Now the moment is finally here to make my dream a reality!
I’m just so over the moon about participating in this 10th anniversary year of the One Room Challenge!
I look forward to sharing every step with you as the 8-week challenge goes on. Thank you ORC for hosting this wonderful event and I’m excited to cheer on all the other participants as we all take on this design challenge! (Psst…after you’re done reading my story, head over to the ORC Blog Page to read about the other guest participants’ designs.)
If you haven’t already, be sure to follow me on Instagram to stay up-to-date with everything I’m doing for my Fall 2022 One Room Challenge.
How I Got Inspired for my Height of Modern Cottage Living Room, Entryway, and Hallway Design
The Inspiration Photo that Started it All!
My mood board is full of inspiration – the biggest of which came from this breathtaking photo in Architectural Digest I found a couple years ago. Inspiration photos are a great way to clarify what you’re after in your design. Designers love inspiration photos and Social Media pictures and I’m no different! I found this photo of these dramatic wall panels in a classic white paint and I thought, “I love this.” Then I thought, “but how am I going to do this in my house?”
It’s amazing, I really thought I would never be able to have something like this in my own cottage home but then one day I looked at my walls with a fresh perspective and I had an epiphany! I thought, “you know, I can do this! I can absolutely reinterpret this design into something that gives the same gorgeous results in a way that works for my rooms.”
Fabric, Fabric, Fabric!
I’m a fabric-first designer most of the time. I just love being inspired by the colors and patterns of gorgeous fabrics like these courtesy of Thibaut and Danika Herrick. Once I’ve got the fabric, I have so much to pull from in terms of color, pattern, style, and more!
A Smorgasbord of Inspiration!
Here’s my kitchen table with all of my design ideas spread out planning. So much inspiration and so many ideas all jumbled up together! But, believe it or not by the time we get to the big reveal in week 8 all these ideas will come together!
The Mood Board: Fabric and Hardware and Artwork…Oh My!
There are six chapters in my overall design story. Each week, I’m going to break down in detail one of these six. For this first week, I want to talk all about my mood board. As dynamic as this mood board is, it only contains a little teaser of the different topics I’ll be talking about in each of the next six blog posts which all lead up to week 8’s big reveal of my dream living room!
Oh my gosh I can’t believe in 8 weeks I’ll finally reveal my full redesign! I’m so excited for the moment when we all get to share in the finished design together! Woohoo!
The Six Chapters of My Height of Modern Cottage Design Story
Wall Panels and Custom Moulding
Upholstery
Entryway, Front Door, and Hallway
Everything Fabric
Furniture
Artwork, Lighting, and Accessories
Wall Panels and Custom Moulding
We are literally and figuratively raising the roof! Stay tuned to see how! I’ve designed a combination of mouldings that will raise my 8-foot ceiling to a 9-foot ceiling. These meticulously constructed mouldings will be a crowning detail of my new room’s glossy white recessed panel walls like my inspiration photo.
Entryway, Front Door, and Hallway
One of the star features of the entryway is my new built-in bench that is loaded with architectural detail in and of itself. It’s sure to dazzle with both beauty and functionality!
In the hallway, expect to see wall panels soaring up to 13 feet high. I’m going to highlight the grandeur of my hallway’s height here even more! I’m so excited to install my nostalgic black and white doorknobs courtesy of Emtek on my newly encased doors.
Furniture
Extravagant, custom furniture pieces are key players in my Height of Modern Cottage theme. I hired master carpenter, Bill Mott to work with me to create five accent tables and a to-die-for clock tower entertainment center, which will anchor the focal wall. Each accent table is totally unlike the next. This eclectic grouping of fun, custom tables will help bring my modern cottage style together.
Upholstery
I’m going to use European-style fabrics to transform my chairs and ottomans. It’s amazing how selecting the perfect fabrics give you a whole new piece of furniture. I’m reupholstering some of the pieces myself and working with Allied Upholstery for two of the chairs – team work is key for a design of this magnitude!
Everything Fabric
Working with fabric is my design passion! I have so many magnificent fabrics and trims to use for this design, courtesy of Thibaut Fabrics. Thibaut’s fabrics are so good for modern cottage design. Can you believe they make a true white fabric – so hard to find!
All the fabrics, from florals to geometrics are going to pop against the glossy white of the walls. The best days are going to be when I’m in my drapery workroom creating my custom drapes, roman shade, cushions, pillows and more.
Artwork, Lighting, and Accessories
I’m thrilled to share with you the custom artwork I’m having created by Bridgette Thornton (Paint & Petals) a fabulous artist from my own state of California. I’ll also include beautiful artful prints courtesy of Artfully Walls. Beyond that, think picture-perfect antiques, a variety of giclée prints, and lighting choices that will give my modern cottage style a certain “je ne sais quoi.”
Featured Sponsors
Each week I’ll highlight one of my amazing sponsors here. But this week I’m celebrating all of them!
Many, many thanks to the following companies who helped make this ORC possible:
Thibaut
Ballard Designs
Bridgette Thornton/Paint & Petals
Spoonflower/Danika Herrick
Artfully Walls
Hanes Fabric
Emtek
My All-Star Team
I couldn’t possibly pull of a design of this size and ambition all on my own in 8 weeks! I want to introduce you to the whole team, so you can see everyone who’s going to bring this design to life! (Shhh…don’t tell, but we’re all in our sixties!)
Steve Hersh
My electrician, custom metal worker, and my overall handy guy (oh, yeah, and he’s my husband)! It’s great to have my husband on board supporting me and helping me make this design happen!
Bill Mott
Master carpenter in charge of building…well, everything! I’ve worked with Bill for years. He’s so skilled and passionate about what he does and always goes above and beyond. Just wait till you see the videos of Bill in action! You’ll be amazed at the work he’ll produce just like I am every time I work with him.
Martin Beebee
My incredible photographer! Martin has been instrumental for me when it comes to taking gorgeous, magazine-worthy pictures of my designs. He’s going to work with me throughout the challenge to take in-progress and completed design photos and I know he’s going to help show off every part of my design in the best light possible.
Keely Hersh (that’s me!)
Homeowner, painter, drapery fabricator, re-upholsterer, room stager, finishing detail work…the list goes on! (Oh, yeah, and I’m my own designer this time! What a treat to put my skills to work for myself!)
Stay tuned for week two…
Get ready because we’re about to go from mood board to real life! The total room redesign is about to get underway. Next week it’s all about architectural splendor – a major feature of this design.
From working with my master carpenter to raise the ceiling height to building, installing, and painting (and painting and painting!!) all my gorgeous woodwork for the soon-to-be-paneled walls…I’ll sure have my work cut out for me!
Stay tuned for chapter two of my design story next week!