One Room Challenge Week 1 | The Room, The Befores and The Plan

The One Room Challenge starts TODAY! I’m excited to join in as a guest participant for the first time this fall and super excited to see that Better Homes & Gardens is the new media partner. If you aren’t familiar with One Room Challenge you can read all about it and follow along with other participants here. In short, a lot of bloggers/Instagrammers are challenged to makeover one room in their home in 6 weeks. We all post once a week and you get to see the process and we get a finished room. Win Win! Are you ready for One Room Challenge Week 1 | The Room, The Befores and The Plan?

If you’ve been following along on this adventure, you already know we bought a 3,000 square foot historic Queen Anne Victorian house . That said, we weren’t lacking rooms to choose from for this challenge, ha! Joel (the hubs) and I decided on our living room for this challenge! There was a lot of back and forth about doing our main floor bathroom and possibly making this living room a dining room. In the end we decided to keep it simple for now and we can make big changes later on when we start the kitchen renovation. Our living room is dark, dingy and UGLY. Needs a ton of work (like most of the house) but we are ready to take it on!!

Okay so let’s take a walk through the space as it was back in the summer when we first moved in and still is today. These BEFORE photos are kinda scary huh? Be sure to check our INSTAGRAM where you can see videos and LIVE action stories from the work we’re doing in this space along the way. That’s a super fun way to stay connected and get some behind the scenes action that doesn’t come through well on a blog post.

WOOF, right?

There are hideous mirrors on one entire wall, the floors are painted brown (Why? Ew.), the tile around the fireplace is AWFUL. The mantel itself doesn’t fit the time period of the house and the builtins on either side aren’t very useful. The pocket doors lead to our library, that’s weird to say. We have a library. We like books. A lot. The drop ceiling is well, gross and ugly and pointless. The chandelier is actually really pretty but doesn’t fit my vision for the space so it is definitely coming down.

The positives are: The room is a good size and the ceilings are over 10 ft tall, that’s always good, right?! The original metal fireplace is AMAZING. It needs to be cleaned up but wowwwweeee it’s gonna be a stunner. She has the tall ceilings going for her and a sexy radiator. I mean, radiators are sexy right? they always make me think of London. Can I just pretend I’m in London during this entire challenge?

So you’ve seen the befores, ready for the PLAN? Here’s my moodboard and vision for this space. Ahhhhh. So FREAKING excited!

Chandelier // Sofa // Rug // Side Table // Wall Trim // Black Tile // Ceiling Medallion

The Plan

Modern Victorian is where I’m leaning with a touch of rustic Scandinavian and a little vintage thrown in for good measure. Huh? My design vibe for this room and this whole house can’t really be described in a two word style. I’m just gonna keep it weird, hope you enjoy it! We’re leaving the ceiling joists exposed, adding beautiful wall panel trim, painting the floors white, hanging an AMAZING chandelier and doing something GORGEOUS to the fireplace and the little shelves on each side of it. It’s gonna be a DIY Extravaganza up in here, wahoooo!!! We are totally pumped and can’t wait to bring you along for the ride. We hope you’re INSPIRED and entertained because about 85% of the time we don’t know what the heck we’re doing. We just go for it!

And because I’m a little bit OCD and Type A, here’s a to-do list for JUST the next week! Do you make lists to keep your sanity too? We’ve started a lot of demo but still have a bit today before we can start putting the room back together. See ya next week peeps!!

One Room Challenge TO-DO List (holy. crap. that’s a LONG list!!)

Week 1:

remove drop ceiling
remove light fixture
remove mirrors
remove mantel and tile
demo plaster + lathe on ceiling and mirror wall
remove wallpaper
hang sheetrock on wall and ceiling

At some point after week one:

Mud + Sand Sheetrock
Skimcoat + Sand plaster walls
Build out Fireplace and storage on each side
Tile + Grout Fireplace
Hang Wall Panel Trim
Prime + Paint EVERYTHING (including walls, trim, floors, fireplace surround, and radiator)
Style the Room!