Kate Pearce Vintage Week 5 Basement Speakeasy | ORC SPRING 2021

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I am going to start off by acknowledging that this blog is being published quite late. To be specific, I am pressing publish a mere two hours before the One Room Challenge deadline for the week. And that’s all because we just did the unthinkable: we took a vacation smack in the middle of the One Room Challenge! We wrapped up our renovation progress for the week on Wednesday, and then hopped in the car first thing Thursday morning and turned off our computers, our phones, and just chilled with some family on the beach for four days.

Now that I’m back to reality, I am here to catch you up on what happened during Week 5 of the One Room Challenge. We finished wall tile, installed the wine fridge (complete with keg), installed the VIGO Industries faucet, and the LETI wall sconces. I’m going to break that all down for you right now.

THE WALL TILE

To say we are ecstatic about this incredible zellige tile from Riad Tile would be an understatement. I have been DYING to use zellige in a project for nearly two years now, and I am incredible happy that I was finally able to do exactly that. Zellige is a glazed terracotta tile that hails from Morocco, but with a history that dates back to Spain more than one thousand years. We were lucky enough to receive our green zellige from Riad Tile, who sources directly from Morocco. Zellige is incredibly distinctive, with a high shine finish and each handmade tile donning varying levels of color saturation. The effect is one that is both elegant and rustic at the same time; invoking a decidedly sophisticated feel that is still warm and inviting.

We used the 2″ x 6″ green zellige and stacked the tile vertically. This choice was made quite deliberately for two reasons. The first of which would be to create a sense of height. The speakeasy is in a basement with ceilings that fall shy of eight feet. Stacking the tile vertically creates an optical illusion of added height to the room. The other reason for a simplistic vertical stack was to be sure the tile would not fight the other patterns in the room. The exposed ceiling beams create an eye-catching pattern, followed by the inlaid pattern of the butcherblock counter. And while it isn’t installed yet, the checkerboard floor tile will also create some distinctive visual interest in the room. While the green zellige is in itself quite a statement, creating any type of bold pattern with the tile would have created too many competing patterns for the eye to land. Personally, I find pattern overload to be dizzying, and we are already walking a fine line with this bold space.

THE WINE FRIDGE

We ordered this EdgeStar wine fridge for our project after much deliberation on which fridge to choose. The EdgeStar checked all the boxes for us: 1. affordable 2. great reviews 3. correct dimensions. Most wine fridges were too tall for our relatively low ceiling height, so it was difficult to find a fridge for this space. Suffice it to say, we are incredibly happy with the EdgeStar choice, and we even have it all hooked up to the tap and ready to go. How, you ask?

Billy will be using our speakeasy space to brew his own beer, so it was important that he have a fridge to host a keg that could hook up to the taps. Billy accomplished this by drilling a hole in the side of the EdgeStar fridge and attaching the taps through the hole. He removed the lower wine racks to accommodate the keg and VOILA! We have ourselves a swanky homemade beer-to-tap setup.

THE FAUCET

I have been so excited to get this gorgeous sink and faucet installed from VIGO Industries. They reached out a few months ago to see if I would collaborate and the moment I saw this sink and faucet duo I just knew I had to feature them in this speakeasy space. The tall pulldown faucet is absolutely perfect for rinsing those huge beer-brewing vats, and the dual-tone finish is just remarkably stunning. I love how it pairs with the more traditional fluted farmhouse sink. I knew I was going to love the combo, but now that it is installed I just can’t stop staring at it!

THE SCONCES

We were also able to finally install these gorgeous Armed Retro Brass sconces from LETI. I love how they have just the right amount o funk to them, but are still traditional enough to work in a wide variety of spaces. I was tempted to go super trendy with the sconces (and LETI has so many fun options), but at the last minute I decided to show some restraint. I am playing with quite a few trends in this space, and I find when a space plays too much with trends, it risks feeling dated quickly. And I am hoping this speakeasy will stand the test of time.

This week we will most likely be updating with another weekend blog post as we only have three days to make some more progress. I was able to score some original art deco half moon pulls on Ebay that we will use as the hardware on the IKEA cabinets (pictured above). We just ordered the black and white checkerboard tile, and we are hoping to be complete with the built-in banquette for our Week 6 update. We will be tackling the channeled upholstery ourselves, so be sure to stay tuned to Instagram Stories to follow along! All of my video updates are always saved on my profile highlights under ORC 2021.

As always, be sure to also head over to the One Room Challenge blog to check out all of the incredible transformations from this week!

See yah next week!