One Room Challenge

03 Oct One Room Challenge

I am very excited to tell you about an event I am participating in over the next six weeks!  It’s call The One Room Challenge, and was started a few years back by Linda at Calling It Home.  Twice a year, Linda invites 20 designers and design oriented bloggers to transform a room (either theirs or a client’s) in six weeks, sharing their progress each week as they go.  While I am new to having my own blog, I have been reading these women’s blogs for quite some time, and let me tell you…they’re one creative bunch!  I’m always so impressed and inspired with their ideas and creativity, especially when they accomplish their transformation on a budget.

Here are the women participating:

This year, Linda opened up the fun to everyone, and since I was just starting to update my dining room, I’ve decided to join the One Room Challenge.  We live in a 100+ year old New England home in Massachusetts, which we love for it’s character and charm.  But with that comes horsehair plaster walls, sloping floors, (if we drop a marble it rolls to the center of the house!), smaller rooms, and unexpected surprises when doing a renovation. But since this dining room is going to undergo strictly cosmetic changes, hopefully things will go (relatively!) smoothly. 

Here are some before photos of our dining room:

Not horrible, but it definitely needs some updating and a little love.  It’s all a little bland right now and I’ve been over my shabby chic phase for quite some time.  I’m looking for something more coastal classic: a natural wood table, wicker chairs, beachy accents. The room has two windows and gets lots of sunlight during the day. It is a high traffic room as we have to walk through it to get to the kitchen.

The opposite wall from the black hutch has pocket doors that lead into the living room, which has been decorated in various shades of blue and gray. (Stay tuned- the living room transformation post is coming soon!)

The dining room table I bought from an unfinished furniture store years ago, and they painted it for me.  Unfortunately they used a high gloss paint and I’ve never been happy with the shine.  And too much white with the matching chairs!  While I love my black hutch, it’s not wide enough for that wall, so it’s going to get moved into the kitchen and I am on the Craig’s List search for a new piece to transform.  I also love my jute rug but the tassels have gotten worn and torn, so much so that the rug is starting to unravel…yikes!!  That needs to be replaced.  The chandelier and cream secretary need to go, and the wall opposite the windows needs to be filled.  I bought this mantle at Brimfield Antique Show years ago, and painted it white. 

I would like to find a big hutch like this to fill up that wall.  But perhaps in white or gray…I don’t want it to overpower the (fairly small) dining room.  This is gorgeous…

As always, feel free to leave a comment or ask questions in the comments section below.