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Today is a big day! It’s the start of the ever fabulous One Room Challenge!
If you’re not familiar with the One Room Challenge – it’s basically a bunch of silly bloggers (like myself) thinking they can complete the redesign of a room in 6 weeks – and we do (for the most part)! Sounds crazy, I know. But it’s fun, and addicting, and stressful all at the same time. Oh, and there’s tons and tons of pretty at the end of the 6 weeks, I promise you…you won’t be disappointed with the results of this challenge in any way. You can learn more about the ORC and Linda, our gracious host of this challenge, over on her blog Calling it Home. But first, let me dive into all the juicy detail on the space I’m planning on tackling for this challenge!
If you’ve been here before, or have been roaming around the blog a bit before landing on this post, you might already know that I participated in my first One Room Challenge back in the fall. I had planed prior to the last Challenge to rework our family room space, so it worked out swimmingly to jump on in and join all the fun. In the months since that reveal, I’ve really had a hard time deciding on which room to tackle for this spring ORC session. I desperately wanted to redo our mudroom and joining back hall area. I had visions of adding closet organizers, modern lighting, benches, and cute wallpaper to make an otherwise utilitarian space into a show stopper. But..in my heart of hearts, I knew there was a project waiting that has needed my attention for a long time. So I switched gears (just within the last month, eek!) and started making plans to redecorate my oldest son, Jackson’s, room. Here is the concept board:
Jackson will turn 10 in June, and his room really hasn’t been touched much décor wise since he was about 2 years old. I’v been making plans in my head for a while for his space, but have never pulled the trigger on getting it done. This is partly due to my own indecision on how to reconfigure and design his room, and partly due to Jackson’s lack of enthusiasm for the big “C” word – CHANGE. He a comfort zone kind of kid, and our bedrooms really are the ultimate comfort zone, right?!
While all of this change might be hard for him, I also think it’s important for a few reasons. First, he really needs a more grown up space that he can spend time in as he enters his “pre-teen” years. A space where he can escape from Mom, Dad, and Little Bro for awhile. Secondly, I think learnign to adjust to change is an important life skill. I hope this change helps him to understand how change can be a good thing, and even if it’s not what we want at that moment that we need to learn to be resilient and adapt in the face of change. The only constant is in life is change, so we need to learn to accept it and not let it run you over.
Anyway, enough of the psychology lesson, let’s get to the good stuff. So this is the current state of Jackson’s room today.
Now, before you go bananas about it being a super clean and tidy boys room, I promise you, this is not this room’s “normal state.” I painted the room a few weeks ago (cheating, I know), because we are getting new carpet installed throughout our house TOMORROW (hooray, happy day)! So, in my rush to get it all painted prior to install day, I neglected to take before pictures. But believe me, I spared you the horror of what it looked like before. I promise you, it was nowhere near this clean and tidy prior to painting and packing things up for the installers!
You’ll also notice the scoreboard and some baseballs painted on the walls throughout the room. These were painted before Jackson was even born for his vintage baseball nursery theme. He was not really super keen on me painting the room for fear of loosing these, so we compromised and I painted around them. While I did agree not to paint over, I do have a plan in mind to cover these up (I agreed to not paint over them, but not to covering them up pictures). Now, before you go thinking I’m the worst Mom in the world, remember I working on him accepting change – so this will be a good way “remove” the paintings, while still having still keeping them safe. I think he just might be a-ok with that. Here’s hoping.
So, here is the breakdown of how the room is going to come together by section to give you a better understanding of what will change in the space:
One of the biggest changes to this part of the room will be changing from a twin bed to a double bed. Sure a twin bed is fine for a 10 year old, but I like the idea of having a little more space for him to sleep our lounge on his bed. So he’ll get a double bed on a new modern black metal bed frame. The bedding will be a soft grey and white striped duvet, with some fun pillows thrown in to still keep it a whimsical for him. Above his bed area, I plan to have two armed sconces for reading lights, and an art gallery wall. To be honest, I really don’t love gallery walls in general (am I the only one?) but I need to do this in order to cover up the scoreboard painted in this area. I’m thinking a large blueprint of a baseball stadium might make him be cool with covering the scoreboard? I’m hoping for the best. We’ll see how it goes.
To create a better flow in the room, I decided the desk needed a different location, and frankly a new desk would’t hurt either. While there’s nothing really wrong with his current desk that I picked up at a thrift store and refinished, I decided I wanted to incorporate something more modern and that coordinated better with the overall feel of the room, so he get an upgrade. The desk area will relocate to the wall opposite the door, and I’ll add storage/display shelving above it. The matching cubby/bookshelf from this Target set is the perfect addition for even more storage, and will get bins to hold this and that (never enough storage).
The one thing I need to add to this room more than anything is storage and shelving. My kids (or ALL kids) have so much stuff! There are sports trophies, and mementos, and art class sculptures, and lego models that have taken over every surface of the room. So we are more suface to clutter up by adding display shelving that can be used for all the things!
In addition to the shelving in this corner, I wanted to add a small sitting area that can be used for reading or hanging out. I found this amazing Acapolco Chair at Hobby Lobby for only $70 (that is spot on for a similar chair at 3x the price in spring CB2 catalog that I was drooling over) that works perfectly. A few other items, will round out the space to make it a perfect pre-teen place to chill out.
Not much is really happening with this wall, but I thought it was important to show regardless for an overall vision for the space. I debated with doing sort of a “feature wall” on this side of the room with perhaps some wallpaper, or a modern wood slat style wall treatment, but ultimately decided that it didn’t need it. While I like these style concepts, I personally prefer things in my home to remain fairly simple. So I decided to leave it “untreated.”
It is getting a few changes though. A new ceiling fan (not on the wall, but this was the best place to incorporate this detail!) will replace the current one that is on its last legs. My husband and I unsuccessfully tried to change the light bulb in it about a year ago (and my husband isn’t even blond – ba-dum-tshh) and somehow screwed up the light and the balance of the fan. New drapery rods and curtains will replace the white rods that were removed when I painted. I’m also planning on adding a extra-large bulletin board in-between the windows to serve as another storage/display option.
So that’s everything! I hope you will keep stopping back over these next 6 weeks to join me in this One Room Challenge process, especially on May 11th for the big reveal! Don’t forget to go and check out what room all the other wonderful One Room Challenge participants are transforming too!
