One Room Challenge Spring 2019: Week One

It’s that time again!

This will be our 4^th One Room Challenge but we completely failed to finish our spaces for #2 and #3. I’m hoping to turn things around with this one though. If you’re not familiar, the One Room Challenge is a biannual event where designers, bloggers, and Instagrammers work to finish a space in 6 weeks. It’s not a competition, but instead it promotes community. It also gives you a deadline which can work as a major motivator if you have a space you are wanting to re-do or finish.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we were already attempting to renovate our laundry room but after several setbacks, the laundry room renovation turned into a laundry room and separate pantry renovation. I’m guessing you guys think this will be our One Room Challenge space and you would be right and wrong.

The budget we started with has been cut down a good bit since I ended up needing several hotel stays, several tanks of gas, and food while traveling when my dad was in the hospital (for those that don’t know, my father was recently hospitalized for about a week and a half after suffering a major heart attack and has since passed). Because of that, I have decided to put the laundry room on hold for just a little bit while we work on the pantry. We still have a couple of things we’ll have to do in the laundry room to make our other spaces work but trying to finish the pantry and laundry room completely in 6 weeks especially when I’m not sure how the budget is going to shake out just seems like I’d be setting myself up to fail. Both projects will add function to our house but the pantry excites me more at the moment. So for now, I’m sticking with our closet-to-pantry project.

Here’s how the closet (which we used for our cats) looked a few weeks ago:

And here is where we’re at now:

Here is our pantry to-do list:

• Finish demo
• Have exposed pipes cut and capped
• Have vent moved to make room for new entrance
• Frame new entrance in dining room
• Close up old entrance in hallway
• Install lighting
• Add light switch
• Add outlet (this is a maybe right now)
• Hang/finish drywall in pantry
• Build cabinets and shelves
• Lay flooring
• Paint
• Add counter (this is a maybe depending on the cabinet/shelving configuration we decide on)
• Find antique door for entrance (fingers crossed!)

So now you’re probably thinking “You’re just doing a pantry? Really? What are you doing with the other 4 weeks?” First, keep in mind that we’re building up from the studs here and we only really get to work on our house on the weekends (and one of those during the ORC is already full meaning no work will get done). Second, since we’re adding a pantry where there used to be a closet and re-configuring the layout so that the entrance is in the dining room, I thought it might be fun to add the dining room into our ORC plans. All we’ve done to the dining room since we moved in is paint it 1.25 times and change out the ceiling fan for a light fixture (the room was marketed as a “Florida room”) so it’s probably about time to make it look decent.

Here’s a listing photo from when we first saw the house:

And here it is right now in all of its glory:

The dining room project will be pretty small but I’m hoping it will have a big impact. Eventually we’ll change out the crown molding, add a couple of windows, add built-ins, and change out the existing window for a sliding door but that’s all down the road. Here’s the initial to-do list for the One Room Challenge:

• Clean out room (move my workstation upstairs, move out furniture and random crap)
• Remove tile floors and layer of plywood underneath (already started)
• Remove baseboards (the tile was laid after so the baseboards are stuck until the tile is gone)
• Remove window trim
• Remove blinds
• Add faux board and batten
• Add garage access door
• Install new trim for window and new doors (garage and pantry)
• Lay flooring
• Install new baseboards
• Paint trim
• Paint walls
• Paint Ceiling (this is a maybe since the ceiling continues into the kitchen and down the hall into the foyer)
• New blinds
• Paint armoire (this is a maybe right now)
• Paint/replace dresser (also a maybe)
• Bring furniture back in

So, that’s the plan! I’ll be honest and say I don’t have a design plan 100% nailed down but I’ve picked up some paint samples and have an idea of what I want. I really can’t design the pantry until we’ve got the new entrance framed out and the old entrance closed in but I have a rough idea of what I want to do in there, too.

Now go check out what everyone else is up to here! There are always so many gorgeous transformations that come out of the One Room Challenge and I can’t wait to see them.