One Room Challenge Week 5: Home Office Makeover Sneak Peek!

If you missed my last post, you may be wondering where the master bath project that I was so excited about went! Well, as I explained last week, I had to shift my design schedule around to accommodate my contractor. I hear people complain about this type of situation often, but when you are married to the contractor it’s easy to be more understanding. Working in the trades is not predictable. There are a lot of variables at play. And schedules and resources do not always align. So I have moved my attention to my home office that I have been ignoring since the fall 2015 One Room Challenge. No one to blame for lack of completion of this project but me. So I am back at it with focus and enthusiasm! I saw the acrylic frame above when I was out shopping for a visual merchandising client project recently. I almost gave it to my client, but I liked it so much that I kept it. I have it right where everyone (as in all of my family members) can see it when they enter my space. So far it’s working : )

My office desk is a very cool black vinyl covered custom table. It’s 8 feet long. I inherited it from a creative business associate who made it for the Frette showroom in Boston. They used it to display luxurious bath linens and such. When they were done with it, my friend was asked to remove it. He was about to cut it into pieces and I asked if I could have it for myself. My husband was nice enough to go pick it up for me, and I love having it! My plan is to organize the large surface area to better accommodate my various projects in the works. My first upgrade was my new mouse pad that looks like black alligator skin (found it at Staples). I love how it disappears into the table now. I wish I could hide everything else so easily! I spent all day today moving unwanted clutter out of my office. It’s now in my hallway and working it’s way up the stairs to the third floor. Remember we don’t have an attic since we turned it into our master bedroom, or a usable basement for that matter (it’s a VERY old farmhouse). I sometimes wish I could just get a storage pod delivered to my driveway just to place the stuff I need to sort through until I am ready to tackle it. But I have a feeling I would end up with a colony of pods if I went that route (plus my husband said “absolutely not” when I mentioned my brilliant idea to him). So for now the boxes will remain in the hall till I can get to them. And I promise that I will. Nothing will go back in this room unless I love and need it!

My favorite light is already installed. It is a Schonbeck crystal chandelier that we picked out for our original master bedroom. We have great high ceilings in this house (close to 9 feet) but the new bedroom we built in the attic is not quite as tall. So I decided to keep it where I would enjoy it every day. And I do!

Come back next week for my final reveal. I am really going to try to get it done before the clock strikes midnight on May 12th, the last day of the One Room Challenge. Thank you, Linda, of Calling it Home, for providing this design motivator – it really helps! Check out how motivated everyone else is ...

Featured Designers week 5 progress here

Guest Participants week 5 progress here

House Beautiful weekly trend round up here

How is that #OneRoomChallenge going?

I managed to move a bunch of stuff out of my office, but now the hallway is an obstacle course of to-be-sorted boxes filled with magazines, paperwork, design supplies, swag bags, and oh so much more. I am going to need a small miracle just to get fresh paint on these four walls!! Please check in with a few of my friends who are actually making progress with their Calling it Home six week makeover #OneRoomChallenge:

Linda Holt Interiors

Kelly Rogers Interiors

Meredith Bohn Interiors

And follow the other participants here.

And here.

One Room Challenge: Confession Time

I wish my office was looking as pretty, neat and stylish as the

Christopher Peacock showroom at the Boston Design Center.

My One Room Challenge to-do list (week 4)

1. Completely empty office.

I may need to get a storage pod just to relocate all the stuff I am trying to sort through. I am not sure I can get through it one category at a time with any amount of joy at this point (sorry, Marie Kondo!) I am basically feeling pretty overwhelmed by my surroundings, and I have not made much progress since I have been working on other projects that I actually get paid to do, and the rest of the time has been procrastinated away by scrolling through facebook or playing with my new bunny or going out to eat with friends or taking care of my family (not necessarily in that order). 

2. Paint walls, touch up trim and ceiling.

I am not a huge fan of painting, in fact I dread getting started, but if I can empty the room, I will take on this part of the project myself. Once I get in painting-mode it will be fun, right? A fresh coat of paint is the quickest way to transform a room, unless of course you have to declutter the room to paint it.

3. Style the space.

Of course this is my favorite part of any design undertaking, but to get to this point I am going to have to move mountains. And probably reduce my time spent on social media for at least a few days. Already feeling withdrawals.

Can I do it? I am not feeling very confident. I really wish I had a personal assistant. Or a fairy godmother. Or both.

How is everyone else doing with their One Room Challenge? Check out their progress here. And here. 

One Room Challenge + The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Ok, I am going to make this brief. I have many rooms in my home that are challenging. Years have passed, and life has piled up, and motivation has dwindled. But I am ready to make a change. Now that I am working from home full-time again, I need to clear some debris from past projects, positions, and bouts of creativity. The photo below is of my home office, taken almost 5 years ago superimposed over a ghosted image of my office today. I can’t even post a picture of what it looks like right now ... it is that bad!

My dirty secret ...

Clutter has taken over every surface in my existing office. Am I a certified hoarder or am I just lazy? Have I given up or am I just too busy looking for instagram worthy moments outside of my four walls to pay much attention to what is right in front of me? Or is it that I am just too micro-focused on creating that I neglect to manage the chaos that ensues from being overly involved in multiple projects? Constantly living in a state of construction while running a household of six certainly doesn’t help, but others manage to make it work – and do so in elegant surroundings – so I really do not have an excuse. But now I do have a deadline, so I am hoping that will help!

My goal in entering the six-week One Room Challenge blogger link-up event hosted by Calling it Home is to hold myself accountable. To put my designer challenge out there into the blogger universe, and to work towards creating a designer worthy space that I am not embarrassed to share with others (including my boys who come in to chat, but seriously have no where to sit!)

How I am going to get it done ...

Have you read the best selling book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” by Marie Kondo? I now have it downloaded onto my kindle, and the plan is to use it as a road map to finding my way back to my former uber-organized self. 

Six weeks from now, I am hoping to be able to post a pretty photo of my newly organized office that is a true reflection of my ability to transform a space into a welcoming environment, one that will assist me to be creative while comfortably celebrating my family and all that is important to me. But first I have to clear the clutter. Stay tuned for next weeks post to see how I do. And be sure to link up to follow the progress of other design bloggers who are tackling far more ambitious projects than my own! It takes serious commitment and resources (whether financial or emotional) to undertake a room makeover. But we are all in this before and after journey together, right?! Good luck to the rest of the One Room Challenge participants and to all of you who decide to muster up the courage to tackle your own projects, whether a complete room makeover or just clearing out a junk drawer!

#oneroomchallenge

Ship Shape

Six days into the new year and I finally made it to the gym. Surprisingly, it was not crowded. It felt good to walk the treadmill, read a magazine (okay, wasn’t going to over exert myself on day one) listen to some tunes and watch some TV in a pretty setting (seriously, the gym is pink). We actually have a treadmill at home but it is surrounded by so many boxes of stuff and items “worth saving” that it is impossible for me to go in there to exercise and clear my mind when I can not block out all the clutter – visual and emotional.

This year I am focusing on getting to the bottom of the clutter. I tend to save way too much and hold onto anything of perceived value, and after over a decade of raising children I now have not only my childhood objects of affection but all of theirs as well. It is too much. Clothes, books, toys, furnishings. I know I should have been getting rid of more of it as the years went by, but with four of the same gender it wasn’t unusual to hold onto a winter coat for a decade because it was going to be worn again. And again. And again.

But that is just the big stuff. Along with all of that there is the day to day stuff that just tends to pile up. Especially when we always have at least one room in the house that is under construction. We are constantly shifting items from their intended space to a temporary space. Not everything ends up back where it should be. But this year I am going to tackle all those small but hugely unorganized areas. I say year because it could take that long. It is that overwhelming. 

I have found a method to start dealing with the chaos though. Professional organizer and regular on the OWN network, Peter Walsh is hosting a #31Days2GetOrganized challenge on both Facebook and on Twitter. Each day for the entire month of January he is offering up one small 10 minute task designed to chip away at the type of clutter that most of us are hiding behind closed doors.

I’ve found that once I start in on the specific task assigned, I usually keep going. It feels good to over achieve when I only have to get past 10 minutes to complete the first goal. Hopefully by the end of the month I will be well on my way to getting this place back to how it was when my boys were little, I was able to spend more time at home, and hadn’t resigned myself to the fact that I am living in a virtual frat house. Wish me luck! 

It’s not too late to start getting organized – if you start today, you only have about an hour’s worth of organizing assignments to get caught up on!