Two hours of pushing with no medications, not so much as a tylenol: that’s how my firstborn came into the world. He looked like a grumpy old man with pointy elf ears, and dang if I didn’t want another one almost immediately after. I forgot the puking-with-every-contraction part of labor, and felt myself romanced and whisked away by the tightly-curled baby fists and milk-drunk baby sleep faces.

Room makeovers are basically the same thing. Except at no point should you be pushing eight pounds of anything out of your ladyparts.

But still: you forget the hard work, because the end result is delightful.

Right about this time last year, a few friends and I went in on a surprise makeover for a mutual friend. We had one week and about $200 to pull it off, and you can see the before-and-after here.

It was exhausting and addicting, and when Erin asked me if I wanted to do it again, I said yes so hard and so fast. We weren’t planning on making over a room: this one just happened.

This is our mutual friend Jill and her (gorgeous) family.

They live in the house where her hubby grew up, but they’re renting it from his mom, so they haven’t wanted to invest the time or energy in really making it their own. They’re a busy family – probably just like yours – and the thought of tackling their living room felt a little overwhelming, plus they weren’t sure how long they’d be in this house, so they just… lived with it.

Jill talked all the time about the changes she would make if they had the time or budget… and Erin and I just steepled our fingers in a Finger Pyramid of Evil Contemplation and said “Eeeexcellent,” taking notes of all her preferences so we could surprise her with a makeover while they were out of town.

This is their living room:

These are the things Jill never loved about it:
1. It’s DARK. Like, really, really dark. There’s just that one tiny window and a door with a small window for natural light. All the trim is grolive (a word Erin and I invented for gray-olive) and the dark orange-wood bookcases and stone wall just contributed to the cave-like quality.

2. The layout is TOUGH. Right now there’s just the one sofa, with a distant recliner in the far corner. It looks like this:

The room is long and skinny with a million doors and pass-throughs. Total head-scratcher for Erin and me on how to lay it out better! As it was, if they had company coming over, one person sat on the sofa, one person sat on the recliner in the far corner, one person sat on the fireplace hearth and one person sat on the floor. Basically impossible to have a real conversation.

Ready for our devilish scheme?

The challenge:

Completely make over this room with new furniture and new everything, for under $500, in one week, without Jill suspecting a thing.

We originally thought we had about a month to plan before Jill’s family was going out of town for a few days. But then at the last minute, we realized they were leaving for a different trip and would be gone for a week, so we’d have more time to execute the plan. However, they were leaving the next day. And we’d have one week to do everything: the shopping, the painting, the projects, everything.

*Nervous gulp.*

The process:

1. Analyze Jill’s style.
Obviously we wanted to make a room that Jill would love, so it’s not about Erin’s style or mine. You can see how we analyzed Carrie’s style – and how you can do this for yourself – in this post.

Jill’s pinterest boards were a big help. Her style skews pretty traditional/transitional, and she loves blues and neutrals. Here are a few rooms she had pinned:

Favorite Paint Colors blog
Atlanta Homes Mag

BHG
That’s just a small sample, but the girl is consistent: soft blues, neutrals, traditional furniture. Makes it easy for us!

2. Find a better layout
We’ll talk about this in the next post, but we just couldn’t leave the room this way: it didn’t function for them. I don’t care how pretty a room is if it doesn’t work for the people who live there. Finding a more functional layout was a major priority for us.

3. Create a design plan
Did I mention we had one tiny week and $500 itty, bitty dollars? We had to use what we could find on a rush, in a week. So here’s the design plan.

The plan

The lead fabric
Remember in this post when we talked about the major mistake to avoid when you’re redoing a room, and how starting with a lead fabric will solve all your problems, fix your life and help you lose ten pounds? Meet our lead fabric:

Erin found several yards of that at a yard sale. For $3. MAJOR score. It looks just like the bird fabric in Jill’s inspiration photo above, and it has all the blue/grays and neutrals that she loves, with a nice transitional bent. (I have no idea what that fabric is called or who makes it! Anyone know?) (UPDATE: Thanks, Liz! It’s Heritage House Windsong fabric, which runs $30/yard. Win!)

We also liked that the birds are a little more saturated in color, so to keep everything feeling updated and fresh, we decided to bring in some graphic blacks and whites with teals and that beautiful rust color.

Here was our rough working plan:

Jill’s husband and her mother-in-law (who owns the house) were privy to the plan, so we knew we had carte blanche permission to change anything, including painting the bookshelves. The only restraint? One week and $500.

Did I mention we only had a week?

And $500?

And needed all new furniture?

NO PROBLEM! *nervous laughter.* *runs and hides in a hole.*

Stay tuned for all the details! What do you think — could you do a whole room in a week? It seems easier when it’s someone else’s house for some reason. Said the girl who’s on Year Six of making over our house.