One Room Challenge – Week ONE!

I don’t think time leading up to today could have gone any slower. I’ve been planning, plotting, designing, and twiddling my thumbs for far too long waiting for today…the very first week of the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge! This will be my first time participating in this Challenge and I’ve been saving up the perfect room to revamp and remodel.

New to the One Room Challenge? It’s a bi-annual eight week event where participants support each other in finishing one room in their home. Hosted by Linda Weinstein from Calling It Home and partnered with Better Homes & Gardens, bloggers and designers are challenged to make over a room in a quick 8-week period (used to be 6 weeks…but COVID…), and provide weekly updates along the way.

I love this concept. I love the inspiration that comes from working on a project and being rooted on by a hundred or so others in the same boat as you. It just does something to stimulate your creativity and make you feel like a part of a team. So today is my first day on this One Room Challenge “team.” I can’t wait to take you through my space, my design goals, and every DIY project along the way.

So what am I tackling this next 8 weeks?

The LAUNDRY ROOM!

When we moved into our sweet Fixer Upper in 2017, our laundry room was right off the kitchen in a small closet. Why was it ever logical to put a laundry room right in between the garage entrance and a kitchen?! #designfail

When we remodeled our main level the following year, we removed that laundry setup and moved it to the basement in one of our storage rooms that was already plumbed for it, and majorly opened up our main level space.

Great for our kitchen and our overall flow of our main level, but now we have a laundry room in our basement…in a storage room…that also houses our HVAC systems.

Enter: Our current laundry room.

Here’s what we are working with here: unfinished walls, concrete floor, and plenty of exposed pipes.

To the right of our washer and dryer, we have a space that houses our water heater and furnace…and more unfinished space.

Our ceiling is open with a very bright fluorescent light. This has majorly paid off when we did our main level remodel as all of our contractors could so easily access drainage, electrical, water lines, etc. But now that we’ve moved on, it’s time to put in a proper ceiling, a better light, and maybe…just maybe…center that light, too. Now that you see how off-center it is, does it drive you as nuts as it drives me? 😏

And last but certainly not least, my “storage” area that houses everything from my grandmother’s china to seasonal decor that never made it to the attic to extra diaper boxes. Oh my. There’s no rhyme or reason to what gets tossed into this area, and more times than not, I’ve had to restack piles that have toppled over onto the floor. This has to change, guys. If I get only one thing done in this project, it will be THIS!

Knowing where I’m coming from, here are some of my goals for this space:

• Build a wall to separate the HVAC system from the rest of the room
• Move out storage bins to be housed in more appropriate places (i.e. attic, garage, garbage!)
• Add cabinets and drawers to hide extra cleaning supplies and laundry detergents
• Tile floor and walls with all the pretty things
• Add plumbing for a utility sink
• Design and build a cabinet to hide said utility sink
• Add a folding counter along wall
• Hang rods to hang clothes
• Add light fixture to the center of the room, replacing the off-center fluorescent light
• Finish the space with decor to brighten, to warm, and to make our laundry room a space I actually like spending hours of my life inside!

Put it all together and what do you get? My brain child. My design plan for this space, adding in all the pretty, bright features with tile and gold accent, contrasting against the moodier paint color on the cabinets and with the wood and leather touches.

This One Room Challenge is going to be such a major overhaul of this space and I can’t wait to get started! Follow along each week as I reveal my projects, my progress, and maybe a little bit of cute kid helpers along the way. Keep up daily on my Instagram stories and posts as I try things for the first time (or the 100th time) and maybe we can learn some new things together!

And check out all the amazing participants in this season’s 2021 One Room Challenge! I’m so thankful to be a part of this amazing group of innovators, creators, and brilliant DIYers. We’re going to do some great things these next 8 weeks!

xx Rachel

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