So this is about the time that I start freaking out. It is the very last week of the One Room Challenge, and I had been feeling fairly in control until about three days ago, when I realized the “few little things” I had left were clearly going to take much longer than I expected. Of course, I should have expected this, otherwise, why did I put them off until the last minute, you might ask? This is a good question, and one I could ask myself about many things in the past few weeks — since Karly is my name and procrastination is my game, as I mentioned last week. However, this is a conversation better left to a professional, so let’s stick to the task at hand, the ORC. So in case you forgot, the One Room Challenge is a six week event where design bloggers/enthusiasts renovate a room. They update their progress on a weekly basis, (give or take;)), and have a big grand finale reveal at the end. If you’d like to read how calm and level-headed I was feeling during the previous four weeks, here are those updates
Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4
So the first challenge we encountered recently, is that the tile we had been deciding between wasn’t in stock and available when I went to pick it up. I actually had time to order it and still have it ready for pick up by last Tuesday, but I put off pulling the trigger because I didn’t feel that excited about either option. Below is the poll I put to Instagram a little over a week ago, and options “2” and “3” were the top contenders, both by us and those that voted in my stories.
My husband and I actually do this quite a lot, if we aren’t really excited about doing/buying something, we put it off. Usually until a deadline passes and then we are scrambling to figure out a new solution. Some people call that procrastinating, but we prefer to lovingly call it “waffling.” And as bad as it might sound, it actually often works out in the end, because usually the reason we didn’t make a decision sooner is because we weren’t truly excited about the options, and needed more time to find just the right choice. A perfect example is the tile below. It is similar in color to the glossy one above, but has a beautiful matte finish and linear texture that gives it so much more character. Again, waffling pays off.
The next thing that has caused a kink in the timeline is this darn door. We were so excited to find a vintage option (especially sine it was only $10!!), but we have put more hours than I care to admit removing all of the paint/stain from one side, and all of the paint from the other (I just couldn’t spend any more time in getting the stain off of side number two), and we were so excited about at least getting to stain the one side since the wood tones were really pretty and we thought a coat of “chestnut” would even and neutralize the two-tone look a little while still letting the wood tones shine through. But, we were wrong. This is a pine door, which is apparently notoriously hard to stain and ended up looking like a bengal tiger. Super orange and stripy.
The other side didn’t go much better, we had given stain a quick go, wondering if a darker color might take well over both the raw and previously stained wood, but we were incorrect again and ended up just priming and painting it. However, the paint ended up much more on the “baby blue” side than we were hoping, so we are going to see how it all looks in the light of day tomorrow and make a decision on next steps then. If necessary we have our brand new Home Depot door ready to go, which would probably make me cry after all the hours I spent on this one, but as my accountant husband would say, “sunk costs, sweetie, sunk costs.”
The last thing that took a little more time than expected was that I decided this wallpaper was just too good not to use on the doorway wall. So I spent some time this morning putting it up. It really wasn’t much of a “delay” though, considering I would have needed to paint that wall anyway, and we already had the wallpapering materials on hand, so it was a prettier and less expensive option than paint anyway. Love when the pretty factor and the cost factor marry up to make a positive decision on both fronts.
Here is a glimpse of that doorway wall, in the far left-hand side of picture below. And also shown are some initial attempts at styling!! Even though we don’t have all of our finishing pieces in place, it was fun to start playing with the accessories and thinking about how we are going to get everything in place for the photo shoot on Tuesday. We aren’t scheduled with a photographer or anything, we just aren’t expected to see the sun on Monday or Wednesday, so Tuesday is it! Love Wisconsin in the Spring time!!
Well, you’ve probably been reading along the past few weeks and know the drill, but in case not, go check out the other guest participants at the One Room Challenge blog. And of course, the featured designers below are a must see as well!!
At Home With Ashley | Casey Keasler | Dorsey Designs | The Farmhouse Project | Home Made by Carmona | House of Funk | House of Jade Interiors | House Seven Design | House That Lars Built | Inspired by Charm | Jana Bek | Jessica Brigham | Kelly Golightly | Murphy Deesign | The Pink Pagoda | Sarah Gunn | Sherry Hart Designs | Sugar & Cloth | Veronica Solomon | Vintage Revivals | Media BH&G | TM by ORC
