One Room Challenge: Organizational Joy

New England Finery Magazine, issue 1, photo credit: Yvonne Blacker

I imagine that getting up each morning to be greeted by a well organized closet must be pure bliss! Having one go-to location to find everything needed to start the day is what I am most looking forward to once my Calling it Home One Room Challenge Master Closet project is complete. We are getting close, so this week I am presenting my chosen selections for my closet design plan. All wish list items below are from The Container Store. 

Luxury Closet Starter Kit

I love love love these acrylic hangers! And the linen storage boxes are just the right neutral colored solution for my space.

12 Pair Shoe Organizer

I’m not 100% sure on the overall size of this shoe storage option (do I really need to store my shoes in two different directions to fit them in the designated area?) I plan to visit my local Container Store and check it out in person to see if it works (yes, will probably take my shoes off and try it out in the aisles!)

Petite Basic Acrylic Hangers

Joy Mangano Platinum Huggable Hangers

Did you see the movie “Joy” starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano? It was a great story about the woman who invented these extra thin, non-slip velvet covered hangers (along with her first and less glamorous invention, The Miracle Mop). I love entrepreneur stories and I know that I will love seeing the word JOY every time I select my outfit of the day. Scenes from this movie were actually filmed in my hometown, North Reading, Massachusetts. The photo collage above includes a selfie of my friend and I, taken “on location” after the filming was complete.

I like that Joy’s hangers can be doubled up with an add-on hook. As we say in Boston, that’s wicked smart : )

11-Peg Acrylic Necklace Wall Rack

More acrylic storage? Yes, please!

Round Water Hyacinth Hamper

And this naturally woven, water hyacinth laundry basket is simply beautiful. I love the size, shape and texture. Perfection!

Now to finish up in order to install my design choices! To see how everyone else is doing with their ORC spaces, click the links below. We are nearing the finish line, so good luck to all!

Sponsored Designers, Week 4

Guest Participants, Week 4

Media partner:

One Room Challenge: Hot Mess Stage

One week into the Calling it Home One Room Challenge and this is where my master closet project is at: the hot mess stage. Not much pretty to show, but this behind-the-walls-view means that progress is being made.

The new closet is roughly 5 feet wide at one end and then narrows to 4 feet wide at the other end with jogs created by the adjacent master bath. The overall length of the closet will be just over 14 feet long – which is great – but the slanted hip roof causes the height of the wall on the shortest side to be less than 4 feet tall (so this wall is only good for tops, skirts, and pants folded on hangers) while the opposite wall is about 8 feet high. The far end of the closet will be for long dresses (fortunately I don’t have a lot of these in my wardrobe!)

70s fashion via fashion-era.com

I vaguely remember my mom having a very similar shaped closet in our home growing up. It was large enough to get lost in as a kid. I used to love going in there and checking out all of her outfits (many that she made with her Singer sewing machine). It was the 70s and she did have a lot of long dresses and pant suits in her closet, so I guess it might have been a bit taller on the back wall than mine will be. My favorite part of visiting her closet was peeking inside a huge black steamer trunk that she had in there (seriously, how big was this closet??) Inside the trunk was where she stored the patterns and fabrics that she used to sew outfits for herself, for me and my two sisters, and then later to make doll clothes and quilts.

Dress made by mom for my vintage doll
displayed at a local design show.

I do happen to have a couple of large black steamer trunks handy that I found on the side of the road a couple of years ago. If there is room, I will be adding one to my closet, too : )

Come back next week and hopefully we will have walls up!

How are the other One Room Challenge participants doing on their week two? Check out the guest participants here and the sponsored designers here.

media partner: House Beautiful

One Room Challenge: Master Closet!

It’s time to finish our master closet design project, and what better motivation than signing up to participate in the Calling It Home One Room Challenge! Above is my dream closet mood board along with a photo of the carpet that we will put on the floor of this walk in space that runs the full length of our four square Colonial farmhouse.

As I always say, our house may look big, but really it’s just tall. The third floor attic that we transformed into our master bedroom is large enough to include a decent sized room, a modest sized full bath, and a walk in closet that spans the width of the house and has been on the back burner for far too long. Truth be told, I am looking forward to the day when I can move all of my party dresses upstairs from my second floor office closet (who am I kidding, I am starting a fresh wardrobe with all new clothes once this project is ever completed!)

Come back next week to see our layout plan for this time-to-get-it-done new and functional space. In the meantime, check out the other guest participants who are committing to accomplishing at least one of their home renovating dream projects over the next 6 weeks. Will you be one of them?

media sponsor ...

House Beautiful

items on mood board ...

pendant light via Arhaus

typography art via Minted 

velvet hangers via Amazon 

little black dress by Emporio Armani 

wedge shoes by Ugg via Zappos

ribbon stitch bag by Fendi

collage created in Polyvore

check out Arhaus on Instagram

for more design inspiration

Master bedroom preview, part 1

As I pulled in to my driveway early this week, I came upon this mesmerizing sight. There is nothing like a huge boom truck delivering a bunch of blue board to bring a smile to this decorator’s face! I will now show you a series of before and after pics from this project ...



Master phase 1: new floor boards are put down over newly insulated and framed floors. What I don’t have a picture of is the true before, when there was a chimney surrounding this black vent pipe and the access to this space was a pull-down ladder that was situated in a 2nd floor bedroom closet! My I’ll-never-forget-memories from the day the chimney came down is a story for another post!



Master phase 2: framing of the new room has begun! What happened next was Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we did not get back to this project till the new year (and the day I created our at-home-projects timeline calendar!)

Master phase 3: insulation! We are now fully insulated. Doesn’t this space just look warmer?? A crew showed up last week and created this sci-fi like scene. Spray foam insulation is the latest energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly technique used to achieve a completely air-tight insulation application. Here is a close up of under the eaves (which will be a great area for long-term storage) ...



The difference in the overall temperature in our house was noticeable right away. Before, heat was going through the slate roof which would cause landslides of snow to come crashing off the roof during the winter months. When my kids would go out to play, I used to fear that they would be caught in a mini-avalanche if they walked too close to the sides of the house! Now, the snow stays on the roof like a blanket. With the added insulation, it is also a lot quieter in the space. Bonus: we are expecting to cut our heating bill almost in half which is something to look forward to!




Master phase 4: the walls are up! Yesterday the boarders did their magic. A dream is starting to look like a reality! This dormer will soon be my mini-office. There is actually room for a good-sized desk and file cabinet in this little nook (see my sketch below). Now all we need is an energy-efficient double pane window to replace the ancient single-pane ... the only window in the main house that was never changed by the previous owner (we will replace this in the spring).

I used a neat online tool, icovia to sketch out the plan for our new room. I first discovered this resource while reading the blog of Linda Merrill. I asked her about it, and she walked me through a couple of her projects (virtually). The software offers a lot of options, although the monthly fee certainly will add up. The offset value to the monthly fee is that program updates are received automatically (without having to purchase a new version). Plus, if I were to sign up I could cancel at any time. I have already tried it out for a couple of spaces, however I cannot save my project work until I become a member.



What you can’t see in the above drawing is the future master bath (just framed for now) and the walk-in closet. Both of these will be just outside of the room and to the right. I will be very happy to finally have space to hang all of my clothes in the same spot instead of stashing them in various closets like I am doing now (old homes like this one are notorious for their lack of closet space!) I also like the idea of having our clothing storage located outside of our room – it will be much more serene. To check out some inspiring walk-in closets, visit Heather Clawson at Habitually Chic who recently posted some enviable spaces!



Come back next week to see the completely plastered room along with my color and fabric choices. I am off now to make some final decisions on the flooring ...