One Room Challenge: Week 1 -The Plan
Hello, and welcome to the blog!
This is my first post as a guest participant in the Fall 2021 One Room Challenge. What is the One Room Challenge, you ask? It is an event that is held twice a year that challenges designers and DIYers to focus on transforming one room in their home in 8 weeks. I’ve enjoyed watching some of my favorite creators participate in this challenge over the last few years, and I’m VERY excited to be along for the ride this time. This event is an opportunity to discover new faces to follow, gain inspiration, and grow a community. So, here’s how it works. Every Thursday for 8 weeks, I will be posting about the progress on the room I will be making over . . . the dining room! I hope that you will follow along and check out some of the other participants of this challenge as well! Now, let’s go over the “before” and the plan for this space.
The main living area of our house is open concept, so some of the choices that I make in the dining room will be continued into our living room and kitchen as well (eventually). Currently, the main living area has a chair rail throughout with two-toned grey walls. If you saw my last blog post, the small hallway makeover, I removed the chair rail and repaired the wall. I plan on continuing that in the dining room so I can say GOODBYE to the two-toned walls. I want the walls to be a neutral medium grey tone (actual paint color TBD). I am choosing to stick with grey as our wall color because I want the room to stand the test of time, and I KNOW that I could never handle living in a house with all-white walls.
The plan is for the dining room to have two statement pieces; a new light fixture over the dining table and a large shelving unit I’m building for the wall. The light fixture we have now is a small DIY light fixture that I “made” a few years ago; it was nice for a time but, the space deserves something better. I chose the Artika Carter 8-Light Black Chandelier as our new light fixture. Right now, I’m trying to decide if I should leave the light fixture as is or if I should paint the whole thing black. Help me decide; let me know in the comments below what you would do. The inspiration for the shelving unit is from Fixer Upper: Welcome Home Episode 1 (I love that show!). When I saw these shelves, I knew I needed them somewhere in my house. I love how they fill up a large wall without seeming like too much. There are a few changes I will be making to the shelf design so it will work in my space. I’m going to make the shelves narrower, build them to be mounted on the wall directly into studs without any hardware, and will likely stain the shelves a darker color than pictured. I’m hoping that the overall vibe is the same as the shelves from my inspo, but we will see!
I will be keeping the dining table and chairs that we currently have, but I will be painting/staining the chairs black. I’m not sure how well the chairs will take stain, if that doesn’t work I will paint them. The red tile grout in the dining room will get a new look with Mapei Grout Refresh in the color Iron, this makes a HUGE difference, and it’s so easy. The ceiling needs a fresh coat of paint, which should be fun to do with the vaulted ceilings! Finally, the room will be pulled together with some decorative elements.
I’m excited to share this ORC journey with all of you and hope that you enjoy a more detailed look into what I can accomplish each week (while working a full-time job). If you’re not already following me on Instagram, head on over there to see how the project is going in real-time. Thanks for reading! See you next week for the Week 2 update!