Wallpaper going up!  I am loving this paper so much!

So, here we are at the half way point of the One Room Challenge!  – if you have found your way here and are not familiar with the Challenge, it is a (now large) community of bloggers and designers who are taking up the task of doing over a room in 6 weeks and showing you the process of the journey from drab to fab!

The ORC is the brainchild of Linda from Calling it Home and is now in its 10th season!!  There are the Featured Designers that post on Wednesdays, and I am one of the Guest Participants.…we post on Thursdays.  If you would like to catch up on my room(s), you can read about it all at Week 1, and Week 2.  But I hope that you check out all the other interesting projects that are happening…there is a wide range of styles and rooms being transformed!!

Testing the Laundry room paper and a glimpse of the wall treatment that I am working out. I am LOVING the color!  All that stained trim is going away – big changes!

Before I decided to participate, (last Fall-2015, was my first effort), I had followed along and enjoyed seeing the process….who doesn’t love a “Behind the Scenes” feature?  I really didn’t pay much attention to the fact that each designer spoke about one week that had been a particular challenge, or had nerves about if they were actually going to finish all they had planned in 6 weeks…I zipped right by that detail!!

I will say that at the half way point, I start to get tense about everything that needs to be done before the photos can get taken and I can show you the result….Yikes! 2 more work weeks to do everything else….?  I know that I was ambitious, but I still think that I am going to squeak by under the wire….but don’t think that I am joking when I say it is going to take burning the midnight oil, and copious glasses of wine!!

 Wall “paneling” detail in Powder room

This week I have been planning and starting the process of some of the faux paneling that I have planned for the Laundry Room and Power Room.  I had seen other designers and DIY-ers create some great room transformations by adding faux paneling or wainscotting and I thought I would try a similar technique.  My Family room had great paneling and wainscotting created when the house was built and it is one of the nicer features of the house to have that architectural feature.  It adds such a nice finish and layer of texture to a room.

Both the Laundry room and Powder room are quite small and plain, more utilitarian rooms and I wanted to dress them up a little, so I thought this would be a good option.  Added bonus, not very costly….so I thought ” big bang for my buck”. Check!  I did not want the rooms to have the same style detail as they are going in quite different directions.  So I came up with 2 different layouts for the 2 rooms, as well as the different color and paper treatment.

Laundry room faux wainscotting getting primed.

Powder room paneling

I used the same MDF boards to create the paneling in each room, I just changed the layout pattern to suit each room.  One of the added bonuses to adding the paneling was that it gave me much better options for hanging the necessary hardware in each room.  A small towel bar for hand towels in the powder room and hooks in the Laundry.  I have constantly struggled with hardware over the years in each room and anything that helped me solve that daily practicality was a real relief!  I can’t tell you how many holes I’ve patched in each room as the years have gone by!

The last of the old vinyl flooring going AWAY!

I showed a photo last week of the removal of the vinyl flooring.  It was a real challenge working in the two small rooms, but so rewarding to have the last piece of the 1970’s gone!  We had to remove the first layer of subfloor along with it…for 2 reasons – the floor had to go lower to accommodate the stone tiles, plus, the sheet vinyl flooring was so ancient that it would have been impossible to remove without taking up the plywood as well.  It was a hard weekend’s work to prepare for the tiling to be done.

 Testing tile pattern

This is what I mean when I say the One Room Challenge is definitely a PUSH to get a room completed!  I have had the tile since the kitchen was redone 5 years ago and we just never got to doing the floors in the Laundry and Powder room…I am so thrilled to have that finally DONE!  The paint and wallpaper have come and gone over the years, and I have done other small “refreshers” but getting the floor finished is the best.

 So exciting!

Next week the painting and wallpaper should be complete, and the “construction ” phase should be done.  I am refreshing the upholstery and doing some serious editing, as well as bringing in some items that I love, but have not been able to incorporate into the rooms before now.  That is the best part of re-doing a room, I think…when you get to play with the fabrics and colors and artwork to get a whole new look to come together!  I have also picked up the window treatments and they are luscious!.. Can’t wait for you to see them, so I hope you come back next week and see what I have managed to actually get done…..

Be sure and check out the rest of the progress for the other rooms in the Challenge….so much good stuff!!

Cheers!

Meredith