One Room Challenge - Week One

Follow this One Room Challenge from its launch on April 2, 2014 to the reveal on May 7, 2014, as I transform our former family room into a Chinoiserie Man Cave. Click on the links for each post, updated weekly, and thanks for stopping by.

One Room Challenge - Week One
One Room Challenge - Week Two
One Room Challenge - Week Three
One Room Challenge - Week Four
The Beni Ourain and The Man Cave
One Room Challenge - Week Five
One Room Challenge - Sneak Peek
One Room Challenge - Week Six - The Chinoiserie Man Cave Reveal
Fabulous Friday Finds - Special One Room Challenge Edition
A Passion for Detail: The Chinoiserie Man Cave

Chinoiserie Man Cave Mentions -
blue i style
The Portuguese Prepster
Suburban Bitches
Marquin Designs

Welcome everyone and thanks so much for visiting here today for the launch of this edition of the One Room Challenge.

For those of you new to the One Room Challenge, it was the brainchild of the lovely and talented Linda of Calling It Home. In this semi-annual event that has become the rage of the blogosphere, Linda chooses twenty interior designers and interior design bloggers to remake a room in 6 weeks. Here are the participants. Quite a great group, as you can see. Thanks so much Linda for inviting me.

A big thank you also to the incredibly talented Jennifer of The Pink Pagoda for the graphics such as the banner and buttons she creates for the ORC. Speaking of buttons, if you are new to my blog or to this event, the ORC buttons in my sidebar have links to my previous One Room Challenge rooms - my laundry room, powder room, and kitchen. This week my new button will be added for this One Room Challenge.

The Chinoiserie Man Cave

As you have figured out from my inspiration board, I have chosen to do a Chinoiserie Man Cave for my husband. The room is now a frumpy and forgotten family room. Since my daughter has her own apartment and this room is now used exclusively by my husband to watch TV and read, I decided this would be a great choice for a remake. A masculine room for him with no pink!

Here is the room as it looks today. Not horrible, but sort of drab and dull.

In reading up on the Man Cave, I found a couple of quotes I had to share with you -

From the Urban Dictionary -

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interuption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interferance from any female influence.

Reread this - I kid you not - this "dictionary" has "interruption" and "interference" misspelled.

And from Wikipedia -

While a wife may have substantial authority over a whole house in terms of design and decoration, she generally has no say about what gets "mounted on the walls" of a man's personal space.[8] Since it may be accepted that a woman has input on the decoration of the rest of the house, a man cave or man space is in some sense a reaction to feminine domestic power.[8]

Man caves have multiple purposes: they are a place to be alone, to be away from women and from female sensibilities, to indulge in hobbies, and to hang out with male friends. It is, loosely, a male-only space to retreat to watch sports matches,[9] or play video games.[10][6] According to psychiatrist and author Scott Haltzman, it is important for a man to have a place to call his own, referring to a male area to which to retreat. Some psychologists claim that a man cave can provide refuge from stressful surroundings and be beneficial to marriage.[1] Rules are relaxed; it is a place where other people's sensibilities about standards of cleanliness are not necessarily observed; as one man said, "You spill a beer there or leave a hamburger overnight, who cares?"[2]

Who writes this total garbage?

At any rate, my husband will not be decorating this himself, nor spilling beer, nor leaving hamburgers overnight.

But he will be getting an elegant masculine space that is functional and user friendly where he can relax and do his own thing within civilized limits. ;-)

His Must Haves -

1. A flat screen TV
2. A bar
3. Comfortable seating
4. Exercise equipment
5. Books
6. A large coffee table
7. Good lighting

My Ideas on Cool Things for the Room -
1. A Beni Ourain rug
2. Modern art
3. A gallery wall
4. A sputnik chandelier
5. Vintage pieces
6. African influence
7. Greek key
8. Masculine Chinoiserie

My goal for this week is to choose my color palette and especially my paint color. This room will be quite a departure for me as I am leaning towards a very masculine color scheme with none of my go-to colors. But this will be a great opportunity to show how well Chinoiserie mixes with modern, mid century, and a more masculine look.

Here are some photos I have collected for inspiration for the man cave. Please excuse the lack of attribution on some mystery ones from my files -

House and Home - Christine Ralph

House Beautiful - Kate and Andy Spade

House Beautiful - Mark D. Sikes

Shelterness

Albert Hadley

via La Dolce Vita

Fine Little Day

Lonny

Lonny

Lonny

Now please go check out what my fellow One Room Challengers have in store -

Abby M. Interiors 

Because it’s Awesome 

Bijou & Boheme 

Calling It Home 

Chez V 

Chinoiserie Chic - that's me

Copy Cat Chic 

The Decorista 

Design Crisis 

Design Indulgence 

Design Manifest 

The English Room

The Glam Pad 

Little Black Door 

Mimosa Lane 

My Notting Hill 

The Pink Pagoda 

Simple Details 

My Sweet Savannah 

Verandah House