A Luxe Makeover Transforms This Builder-Grade Spare Room into a Swanky Lounge
If you have a hobby or passion, chances are, your home might reflect that. Love to knit? Optimize your yarn setup with colorful spools and maximum organization. Love spin class? Why not create your own spin class setup in your home?
Interior designer Traycie Loving’s (@lovingdesigninteriors) husband, a musician, used this spare room above the garage as a “makeshift music room,” Traycie explains. The space, somewhat far away from the other bedrooms in the house, became a spot for composing and playing music, but it always felt like just a spare room.
“My husband wanted a dedicated space with a lounge feel,” Traycie says. The Spring 2024 One Room Challenge “was the perfect time to create it for him,” she adds.
Dark paint makes the room cozy.
Before, the room had “builder-grade white paint and builder-grade lighting,” Traycie says, and she swapped that for an enveloping dark paint and a modern Sputnik semi-flush mount light fixture.
The paint color is Sherwin-Williams’ Urbane Bronze, a gray-brown shade, but it looks almost black on the walls due to the lack of natural light in the space, Traycie says.
The hardest part of the whole project was actually painting the walls because of the different angles and texture. It took days and seemed to go on forever, Traycie says. “I had to use smaller paint brushes for the angles and although I used a paint with primer, I had to apply several coats of paint to the wall to not have white paint showing through,” she says.
Her best painting advice is to “make sure you get an idea of how the paint will look in the room by painting an area and seeing it at different times of the day.”
A slat wall adds texture.
To give the room some depth and dimension, as well as being a great way to manage the acoustics in the room, Traycie installed a DIY slat wall — a first for her. “I didn’t want to glue it to the wall, so I decided to just screw it into the wall. It was a challenge screwing it to the wall while trying to hold it straight, she says. Her dad, Sam, helped with the install.
Traycie also painted a pop of yellow (Sherwin-Williams’ Butterscotch) to the left of the slats.
The window seat got an upgrade.
Before, Traycie and her husband used a futon cushion in the window seat area, but now that corner has a custom-sized leather cushion meant just for the space. It “makes for a great space for naps,” Traycie says. Two of her favorite details in the room are the microphone wall sconces flanking the window seat.
The chairs in the lounge area also feature plush leather, and the desk setup adds a spot for her husband to work. “My husband can entertain in the space or compose music,” Traycie says of the room’s versatility. “The chairs can also easily be moved for jam sessions.”
Colorful artwork completes the room.
To add some personalization to the space — and save some money at the same time — Traycie framed old album covers and used them as artwork on the wall. She cut out pictures in a magazine and framed them using frames she already had.
In total the project cost about $5,500. Much of that cost came early on, when Traycie had an exhaust fan added to provide the space with ventilation. In the end, the setup was the perfect surprise for her husband (she showed him the final product on the final day of the One Room Challenge), and it was a great learning experience for Traycie, too.
“The biggest takeaway for me was that I could do anything that I put my mind to,” she says. “I love being in this room knowing that I did the majority of the work by myself.”
This project was completed for the Spring 2024 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.