Let’s Begin!!
Today is Day 1 of the One Room Challenge and I couldn’t be more excited! What’s the One Room Challenge (ORC), you ask? ORC is a design event created by design blogger Linda Weinstein of Calling It Home, where 20 designers and other guest designers are challenged to renovate one room in their home. Traditionally designers have 6 weeks to complete this transformation, including design, furniture selections and ordering, and install. However with covid-19, designers now have 8 weeks to complete the challenge. Each week designers share their progress via blog posts and social media and we get to follow along to see the transformations unfold. Better Homes and Gardens magazine is the primary media sponsor and this year I’ve joined as a guest designer. I look forward to sharing this journey with you all!
I am excited to participate for the first time! I’ve been making plans and working on a few different spaces in our home. Just prior to ORC, I completed my home office renovation – in just 3 weeks! We turned an Eagles’ football green man-cave into a bright, neutral and elegant office space and it is a magical! Also, after ORC we’re going to finish transforming our unfinished attic space into our dream master bedroom walk-in closet. So with those two rooms accounted, which room did I choose?
Drumroll please…
For this challenge, I’ve chosen to tackle my Living Room and… Dining Room! I know… I know… it’s called One Room Challenge but my living room and dining room are open to one another and I couldn’t update one without the other. Why the living room (and dining room). Well I never really “designed” our living space. Over the years we’ve accumulated different furniture pieces and there wasn’t much cohesion in the space. We had our sofa and loveseat that was 12 years old, mixed in with a few side chairs that we picked up on sale a few years back and a set of glam/modern side tables, etc… So, while preparing for the challenge I realized that want to create a space with intention… a space that would incorporate who we are as a family, our design style and function as a space to both entertain and hangout as a family!
Here is a current photo of our living space. It’s totally fine, but it’s certainly time for a change.
Before
To execute this challenge effectively, I have decided that I had to become my own design client. With that, I will be using the Gray Space, five step process that we share with our design clients.
Step 1: Consultation
Step 2: Design Development
Step 3: Procurement
Step 4: Construction & Project Management
Step 5: Installation
For Step 1 the consultation… I had to actually take the time to sit down with myself and complete our design questionnaire. That was nice. As it helped me to better understand my design needs and wants. In completing the questionnaire I first discovered that expressing my personal style and creating better function were my top priorities. I also discovered that I truly love neutrals. And not just neutrals but neutrals with texture and with nods to nature. The combination of neutrals and nature feels both familiar and calming to me. A feeling that I wanted to transfer to my home as soon as you walked through the door. I also discovered through our quiz, that my design style is contemporary. I’d like to add to that, in addition to contemporary and nature inspired, i like to mix in elements of culture and timeless elegance. So now that I have identified my design style, priorities and even budget using the questionnaire, I was now ready to embark on Step 2… Design Development! This is where the magic happens and I can’t wait to share with you guys what travel destination has inspired the design for our new space. Stay tuned for more!
Be sure to check out our progress on Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #grayspaceORC and other designers’ progress with #oneroomchallenge or on the ORC blog page: http://www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog !
Let’s make our homes beautiful together!
~ Rasheeda