One Room Challenge Week 6 – The Final Reveal!

Well, it’s been one WILD week wrapping up our one room challenge space and boy, oh boy did this one take every last minute to get done! While the floors 100% make the room, not being part of the original plan, having setbacks with the materials, then actually finding the time to fit in install, we didn’t wrap on them until last weekend. While the rugs are just as fabulous as I envisioned… it took 4 tries to figure out the best way to install them! I sewed them all together 4 different ways, but the first try they were too big once the baseboard was installed, the second try was better but it became clear we were going to need to use a ton of tape and the sewn area became vulnerable to tripping & looked sloppy. Then I tried 2 different layouts of taping, trying to get the overall spacing right with the layout of the room & finally realizing I needed to see it with the furniture in – so I laid 3 rugs then moved something in and repeated that throughout the space until everything was in!

As far as furnishings go, we started week 6 off missing a few key pieces, namely some additional seating, accent tables, and especially some kind of storage for hat’s & gloves which I’d spent pretty much the entire challenge trying to find the right piece at a decent price and had failed miserably so far. Saturday morning I hit the Dorset Church Rummage sale, hoping to score something to fill in the blanks but as usual, there was minimal furniture and I struck out on that front. (Though I did manage to find some hand painted floral panels, a brass box, and the copper planter that made it into the space.) On my way home I stopped into Perfect Piece, more thinking I might find an end table at a decent price – but instead I walked in to see the black Broyhill storage cabinet with rattan drawers I’d been inspired by but was way out of budget sitting there priced at a very reasonable $295. While it was more than I was hoping to spend (this is our mudroom people!) it was a serious find and in near perfect condition. I left without it but couldn’t stop thinking about it all day, so I went back negotiated and brought it home!

I never had any success on the end table or chair front, nothing felt right that I found able to get to me within the time constraints – it’s easy to get spoiled by custom order furnishings when you’re a pro and we did not have time for any of that! In the end, I had an epiphany – I pulled the brass & marble tables I have from my Mohr & McPherson days that I love and Chris can’t stand out and they were the perfect thing to tie in white we had going on in the drapes and the brass details throughout the house. I also realized the red leather chair of Chris’s that we have in our living room but looks to heavy in there would look stellar against these deep hunter green walls so I pulled it out here and WOW it was perfect! Yes, this now means our living room is literally just a couch BUT I’ve been dying to kind of start with a clean slate furniture wise in there and finally find Chris his dream chair so this is kinda the perfect push.

The last item to go in and the biggest holdup from finishing off the space was our auditorium seating. I pulled it outside to clean them off and assemble and I got halfway through before a torrential downpour forced me to throw a tarp on it and wait for the rain to stop. It didn’t for about 3 days. Luckily yesterday after 3 trips to the hardware store I was able to finish assembling them and we moved them into place after dinner with family. Chris screwed them into the floor this morning and it was just a few finishing touches like fresh bulbs, furniture polish, vacuuming, and windex before we were ready to take photos!

We ended up not using any of our Fast Growing Trees in the space, our fig tree looks about dead (they are sweetheart’s and sending a new one) and the lemon tree likes bright sun which the mudroom only gets a tiny bit of, so it’s going into our sunny bedroom. Once we came to this realization about the light I decided this was the perfect room for lots of ferns and picked up a big one on one of my hardware store trips and split it into 3 pots to put in the metal plant stands I painted. We still plan on putting a shelf for plants across the windows above the auditorium chairs but it was just one too many things to accomplish. I found a gorgeous Gardenia at the grocery store of all places, which is one of my favorite smells and doesn’t need a ton of sun so that became our decorative plant to grace the storage console. At the last minute I felt like the coffee table needed a bit of green so I actually found this weed growing by our garden hose that I thought was cute so I threw it in a pot and it was perfect.

The last switch up from the original plan was not using the pine chest of drawers as our entry table we saved from a job site. Though it complimented the walls, it ended up feeling too big in every dimension once all of the furniture was in. Also the painted navy knobs ended up making it feel like it belonged in a clown themed children’s room… You win some you loose some! So I stole this bedside table from one of the guest rooms upstairs and for now it will be our table until we get the beautiful surprise belated wedding table Dad Conte is building us for this space. I actually really like this table here but I like this table anywhere (its just a good table with character) so it will happily move somewhere else when it’s replaced.

I wasn’t expecting to love hanging out in this space as much as I truly do, it’s such a sunny and wonderful place, not only as your first impression of our home but a place to sit and stay a while. Functionally, the room is so great for creating a landing space for all of Vermont living’s necessities, we’ve got a tray for muddy boots, durable jute rugs, baskets for hats, scarves, and mittens, plus we’re hanging a rod in the armoire for jackets & coats. Our only thing missing functionally is I would like to have some hooks for dog leashes above the boot tray under the window, we ordered some hooks from Anthropologie and while beautiful they were much too big. (In my frantic ordering as the time grew short I very much forgot to pay attention to dimensions on the accessories like a rookie and ended up with roomy baskets for some of the planters.)

Overall, we’ve still got a few things to polish off before I’ll feel totally finished, I still need to touch up all the paint again since baseboard went in, plus the plant shelf, painting the front stoop, railings, & doors, and adding some plants to the front garden bed. Then, I guess I better start thinking about the living room as it’s now sitting empty! Overall, I really enjoyed this One Room Challenge project. While it was definitely stressful, time consuming, and a whole lot of work… it was also an amazing push to actually finish a project, photograph it, and get really creative with a crazy time constraint for having no planning. Will we do it again? Chris says no but I’m tempted to use every single occurrence of the challenge to tackle finishing a space totally because man, was it satisfying! We hope you enjoy the finished product as much as we do.