WEEK EIGHT: REVEAL DAY!

I’m excited and relieved that I completed my second One Room Challenge this year. My daughter is a huge Taylor Swift fan, and I wanted to create a space that showed off her Swiftie style. After many weeks of changing the design (three times—to be exact), we eventually settled on a design, and I left out some final decisions as surprises for her to discover along the way. When I executed the design, I got a big thank you and a hug. And she’s been in her dream room all weekend so I'm counting this design as a success. Photos Courtesy of Touch Life Studio.

How it Started

There were three reasons I made a change to my daughter’s room. First, it was no longer functional. The two closet doors couldn’t fully open due to the furniture being too large for the space. Her room also had two closets that were being underutilized. One was filled with toys she had outgrown, like her Barbies and American Girl Doll toys, and the other was crammed with clothes she had outgrown. Secondly, the ceiling needed repair. After looking at lots of DIY options, it made sense to just invest in the space properly and get it repaired by a professional. Lastly, the room didn’t reflect my daughter anymore. She was a middle schooler and die-hard Swiftie. I wanted to give her a new bedroom that reflected her style and was cool enough to grow up with her during her teenage years.

How It Ended

The transformation is so different from the design I envisioned at the beginning of the eight-week challenge. It feels like a boutique hotel to me when I walk in there. It feels so fancy, and no one would believe how affordable the pieces were in the design. I’m most proud of the wallpaper from Tempaper and the Clare paint combination.

This is also the first time in my home I painted the trim, doors, and ceiling a different color, and it came out amazing due to the skilled handiwork of my painter Jen Yanko. I’m also happy that the room doesn’t feel cramped anymore. My daughter can lounge around, and all of her closet doors open, and there are opportunities to add more storage under her bed or below the bookcase so nothing gets in the way too much.

Maybe Next Time

Similar to my spring ORC, I ran out of time to update the closet and the hanging chair I wanted to hang in the window nook of her room didn’t work because there wasn’t a stud in the sloped part of the ceiling. This project was definitely challenging to tackle in my spare time in between work and collaborating with a tween with a lot of opinions.  But seeing how happy she is in her new room and knowing I accomplished it all in two months feels amazing.  

The One Room Challenge is something everyone should do to stretch themselves design-wise and see how much they can accomplish.  Once you transform one room, you inevitably want to start digging into another eyesore in your home in no time.   Here’s to brainstorming another room to makeover in 2024. 

WEEK SEVEN: ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

Well, there is only one week left for my ORC challenge design, and I am feeling the pressure this time. I might have bitten off a little more than I can chew this time between my full-time job and getting my entire wishlist for the tween makeover done in just eight weeks. So, let me give you a recap of the top three things that we’ve accomplished this week.

First and foremost, the hideous ceiling that has been irking me since we moved in finally got repaired. And—it was NO small feat. The repair took an entire week, and it's actually finished tomorrow. It involved removing old plaster, repairing a poorly done tape repair on a large crack, and then three coats of skim coating. In the final week, the ceiling can get re-painted, and a new light fixture can go up.

Next, the furniture was delivered for the room, including sponsored pieces from RugsUSA and Wovenbyrd. I was relieved to order so many products from Amazon Home, and I used money from the furniture items I sold to reduce the costs. So, the final week is all about assembling everything together in time for the photo shoot at the end of the week.

Lastly, I installed the peel-and-stick wallpaper (most of it) this weekend with my husband, my design partner Cojo, and my daughter. To say that I’m sore after the install would be an understatement. But boy, does the wallpaper make the space feel totally brand new.

For week eight, it’s all hands on deck to make this design come together in time for the photo shoot on Friday. I’m definitely cutting it close this time around.

WEEK FIVE: FALL ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

It’s officially past the midway point for The One Room Challenge, and the design is starting to take shape. The sponsored wallpaper by Tempaper arrived this weekend, and my paint from the Black-owned business Clare comes tomorrow. I'll continue to try to push sales on the furniture pieces that won't fit in the room with the new design. Plus, work on an affordable solution to repair the ceiling so the paint and wallpaper can go up, which will give a drastic change to the room.

Every week, the wallpaper has changed in my mood board due to a very opinionated client—but I can officially declare that the Pastel Palm Peel And Stick Wallpaper from Tempaper is the final decision for the room. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not it should be one wall or all of three, and I decided with this design, I want to push my boundaries, so the wallpaper is going to go on all the walls.  I also have been doing some design consults this year where clients want to paint the baseboards, doors, and ceilings a different color besides the traditional white. I decided to take this design up a notch with Clare’s wink paint color. It’s a dusty purple, and I think it’ll make the room feel totally different paired with the wall-to-wallpaper. The last thing I wanted to add is a bold paint color on the radiator. My daughter has been begging for teal in the design, and I feel like Clare’s Keep it teal paint can make an unexpected statement on the custom radiator cover from Fichman Furniture. 

The custom closet design remains unknown if I can get it within budget and my 8-week time frame—so I’m just going to hold tight until I get more info from California Closets on whether or not we can make a miracle happen. So this week, I’ll begin to blue tape the wall and get a repair painter in here ASAP to fix the ceiling so I can paint it and begin to put up everything else.

WEEK FOUR: FALL ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

This week, I wanted to quit The One Room Challenge. I started to get quotes for all the different areas of the room that I want and need repair, and the custom closet design is over budget and not guaranteed to make it in time for the 8-week challenge. So, I’m stuck on whether it is worth breaking my bottom line or looking at other ideas. Secondly, I’ve had to deal with the emotional toll of designing a room for a family member. My daughter has a lot of opinions, and as a designer, I'm juggling functionality, budget, and a lot of ideas that change daily. Lastly, I'm starting a new project with a client, and with the holidays around the corner and all of the Halloween festivities—I’m asking myself if the fall ORC was such a good idea—ugh.

So, now that I've got all of that out of my system, let's get back to the fun stuff, some design talk. An area of the room that I want to talk about today is the music nook. My daughter loves to play multiple instruments in this tiny space, and I’m wondering how I can make it more functional and fun at the same time. She really wants a hanging chair to go in this space so she can relax sometimes and then play music other times. So, I pulled together a mood board with some concepts for this space and would love your thoughts on it.

On an amazingly positive note, Tempaper & Co. will sponsor wallpaper for the space, and I cannot wait to share which design I landed on for the room. I’ve finally started to sell furniture items that don’t fit in my daughter’s room so I can make room for the new ones. I emptied a closet and had four bins worth of items to donate. My daughter and I fell in love with some cute accessories from H&M Home. So—it’s not all bad over here. Next week, the focus will be on securing all of the products for the room and beginning to implement some of the design.

WEEK THREE: FALL ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

This week, I juggled a lot with work and pushing forward on the One Room Challenge design. I started doing probably the most stressful and necessary part of getting ready for transformational change. My daughter and I purged items, cleaned and removed furniture to sell, and stacked bins to donate this weekend. This process is always a headache—especially when your client is a family, and there are a lot of sentimental pieces from her childhood that we let go of. We said goodbye to Barbies, brat dolls, and countless American Girl doll stuff she hadn’t played with in years. It hit me how this makeover is a bit emotional for me—she’s getting rid of her childhood, too. Now, when we discuss what goes in her new room, she wants twinkle lights, a 3D floor mat, a vanity for makeup, and a spot for all her earrings.

The biggest thing happening now is a walk-through with a design consultant from California Closets. I'm lucky to have a California Closet showroom in my town, and updating the closets is a crucial part of my design. The ceilings in the closets are sloped, and I need a custom design to maximize the space. However, custom closets have a 4-6 week lead time, so it'll be down to the wire with my 8-week timeline. But to fit in a daybed, I need to free up floor space, and I can only do this by removing the nightstand and dresser.

So this week, I would love your help on what you would add to a custom closet design and your dream custom closet style. Thank you so much for your wallpaper votes on IG—I’ll confirm the winner this week. Week four will be about finishing the floor plan, donating and purging more items, and selling old furniture.

WEEK TWO: FALL ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

For week two of the One Room Challenge, a lot of my progress has been reaching out to potential sponsors to help bring my tween room makeover to life. Plus, measuring the room to begin the floor plan for the new layout. It’s also been a lot of conversations with my client, um hmm—daughter, about how the new room needs to be laid out, which requires her to sell or donate pieces to make room for the new. There are two areas in the room that really need some creative TLC, and I would love your feedback and thoughts on these two ideas.

My first is her room has two closet doors, which are great for storage, but they swing open and eat up floor space. I’m debating if I should keep them or remove them altogether. I love this idea from interior designer Emma Gurner and how it looks like a theatre curtain. What do you think?

Secondly, the ceiling needs a lot of TLC. It has an uneven surface, and even if I put in a new light fixture and add wallpaper, it’s still an eyesore. I was considering tin ceiling tiles since they fit the baroque style I’m going for in the room, and it’ll be a subtle pattern on the ceiling.

Let me know your thoughts and votes. Next week, I’ll have the new floor plan done for the room, and my daughter reluctantly will have to purge items to make room for the new.

WEEK ONE: FALL ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

I have officially been bitten by The One Room Challenge after taking my first shot at this collaborative endeavor last spring. This time around, I will tackle my daughter’s room, and it’s honestly the last room in our home to update without doing a gut renovation. So once it’s finished, it’ll feel like my next round of work is all heavy lifting from here on out.

I have been designing my daughter’s room since she was born, and each makeover has been in publications like LONNY, HGTV, IKEA, and more. And now that my daughter is officially entering her tween years, her design aspirations need to be within budget and my eight-week timeline, which will be tough for someone like her who likes to hold onto everything and just keep squeezing in more new stuff.

The Vision

The vision for my daughter’s room is two-fold. The room should be a creative hub for all her aspirations, and be hyper-organized. In addition, there are three obstacles I need to address in her room.

Layout

The current footprint of her room doesn’t work. She has a lot of furniture pieces that we moved from our old apartment into our new home, and they’re oversized in the space due to a wall radiator and two closet doors that swing open into the room. To fix this, I want to remove a dresser from the room, swap out her full-size bed for a daybed, and scale down the size of her desk.

CeilinG

My daughter's overhead ceiling, similar to my son’s room, has a lot of cracks and uneven marks since we live in a home built in the late 1930s. I need to repair the ceiling and, if my budget allows—wallpaper it. Something needs to go up there to add a visual element of surprise.

Closet AND ROOM Organization

The biggest thing to address is storage options everywhere in the room. Since the room has the luxury of two closets, I want to maximize the floor space by maximizing the interiors of these reach-in closets. I also want to find organization for jewelry, hair accessories, and desk supplies so everything has a home when she’s done with it.

I’ll have plenty more to share as the weeks go on and input and videos from my daughter and me tackling this room together this fall. I’m excited for you to join me again for another One Room Challenge. And I may need a lot more coffee this time to manage my tween partner.

Week Eight: REVEAL DAY!

I’m excited and relieved that I completed my first One Room Challenge. My goal for this project was to makeover our office space into a toddler bedroom. I wanted to design a light and bright space that was kid-friendly and brought a city vibe to the suburbs. And based on the reaction from my son, I feel like I nailed it!

The Accomplishments

Courtesy of David Land and Better Homes & Gardens Magazine

The room was originally my husband’s office, and I had three goals. First, I wanted to make the space feel warm and cozy by insulating it better. My son’s room is the coldest place in our home, and I needed an affordable solution to add warmth to the room without a gut renovation of ripping down walls and adding more insulation. Instead, I hired a Durant Paint Company to repair the ceiling and remove all the cracks. Then I installed a wall-to-wall carpet from Home Depot and got the installation for free due to a store wide promotion for May.

Secondly, I wanted to make the space light and bright. I had a mural by Photowall installed by Durant Painting, a local wallpaper and paint installer in my town. Then my husband and I re-painted the rest of the room with Clare paint’s grayish color.

Lastly, I wanted to make it FUN!!! I added artwork with cars from Society6 (something my son loves), clear toy bins so he could easily access his toys, and a new play area. I wanted to designate a space in his room for him to build blocks, draw, and then hang up his art pieces when he’s finished.

Honorable Mentions

Photos Courtesy of Touch Life Studio | Playkit from Lalo

Photos Courtesy of Touch Life Studio

Photos Courtesy of Touch Life Studio | Wovenbyrd Chair and Ottoman

The space is only 150 square feet, but the new paint color brightens it and makes it feel kid-friendly. The updated footprint of the room is SO much better. I love our reading nook—we have a very comfortable leather chair and ottoman from Wovenbyrd to sit in and read every night. The play area is my son’s favorite spot in the room, and with a carpet, I don’t have to worry about him hurting himself when he falls.

Maybe Next Time

Unfortunately, I ran out of time to update the closet and the changing table nook in eight weeks. The wallpaper and acoustic tiles I ordered for this part of the room didn’t arrive on time, so I’ll have to show those upgrades in a few more weeks.

This project was also a lot of fun to tackle in my spare time in between work and family responsibilities. Seeing the response from my son at the end of the project and how happy he is in the room lets me know I nailed it! The One Room Challenge is something everyone should do to stretch themselves design-wise and see how much they can accomplish. Once you transform one room, you inevitably want to start digging into another eyesore in your home in no time.

Week Six: Spring One Room Challenge

Hey everyone, we are quickly approaching the finish line of The One Room Challenge. A lot of progress was made in the past week. Packages are piling up in my living room, and two more sponsors added to my toddler room design, Lalo and Clare Paint. So let’s dig into the progress report and loose ends that need to get resolved ASAP, or they need to be eliminated from the design if I want to complete this room in 8 weeks. 

Progress Report

I received my mural from Photowall, and it’s the jumping-off point for my entire design. When I initially started daydreaming about this space, I fell in love with this mural as a former New Yorker. I wanted my son’s room to have a taste of city life in the suburbs. I also was enticed by the color palette with shades of brown, cream, green, and blue that I could use for other design elements in the room. This mural gets installed next week, and I’ll share some sneak peeks.

The estimates to install a ship lap on the ceiling of this tiny room have come back, and they’re all out of my budget. And time wise, I’m not sure I can pull off the DIY ship lap ceiling and complete everything else. So, just in case, I’m getting the ceiling repaired and re-painted, so regardless of the timeline, it’ll look pulled together.

I ordered a wall-to-wall carpet from Home Depot, and now I’m just double-crossing my fingers it’ll be installed before the end of the month. Lastly, Clare paint should arrive any day now, and I can begin to paint the entire room, which will make a HUGE impact on the design.

LOOSE ENDS

II still have not confirmed a vendor for a closet system, and the space is just shy of four feet, so it limits my design options of what will fit and look good too. So my focus this week is to button this part of the design up and then begin to focus on the best part—accessories, and styling.

Next Week

I’m going all in with set-up to finish strong for The Room Challenge and will most likely be pulling in friends and family to finish it all up. I also foresee a last-minute trip to Home Goods and/or IKEA because something is always missing or needs just one more finishing touch. So stay tuned!