One Room Challenge Week 1: The Plan

Wow!  I can’t believe it has already been six months since the last One Room Challenge!  Time goes by so very fast.

Last time I embarked on this crazy six week journey into design insanity, I tackled my master bathroom and it just about killed me, but it turned out so very pretty.  You can see that reveal HERE.

This time, for the One Room Challenge, I am working on what should be a much easier space than last time, our media room.

We’ve switched from calling this the playroom to the media room because it sounds so much more grown up, something my 14 year old is happy to concur.  I’m getting ahead of myself though.  Let’s take a look at the space and talk about my big plans.

Now prepare yourself…it’s not a very pretty sight.

It seems like gaming wires, games, and all the accessories just keep multiplying and spilling out all over the floor.  The bookcases I stuck in this room aren’t doing anything to contain the situation and clearly my family members haven’t read the numerous posts on the perfect way to arrange bookshelves.  I’m pretty sure my 14 year old would look at me as though I have lost my mind if I gave him a lesson on artful shelf arrangement.  He might feel my forehead.

A while back I found these like new matching beige chairs at the local thrift store for $40 a piece.  They are perfect for a playroom media room because they’re the not-so-fashionable-but-so-easy-to-clean microfiber.  I believe they’ll stay.  I may sew some ticking strip slipcovers for them if I can keep this little project on track.

This is the moment when I would be saying to my screen…”all you need to do is clean up, duh!”  This is my little hoarding moment in our house.  Everything I’m not currently using seems to find its way to this little closet and my secretary desk that is supposed to keep me organized looks like it’s regurgitating papers.  Some organization is in order.

One of the big challenges for this space is that it’s super narrow.  The room measures only 9′ by 13′.  We opted to use this as the media room because as a bedroom it doesn’t work very well.

Ummm, yeah.  Don’t you wish you had blue paper crowns adorning your bookcases?  Look at the second shelf.  Seriously, I don’t think anything more could be shoved in that little space.  A new game…shelf Jenga.  The printer is going to be relocated into a less visible space.

Need a little Happy New Year hat in your space?  I have one for you.  How about some bookcases without bottom knobs?  These are going bye bye.  In fact, I’ll be dialing my local thrift to see when they can come pick them up along with the TV console.  With such a narrow room, the tall bookcases really close the space off.

Now for the fun part, let’s look at my plan for this space.

Just looking at the picture of my plans makes me take a calming breath.  For just a moment, let’s not think about the hard work of taking my before space and turning it into a lovely, calm, coastal after.

I’m giving this room a little more of a grown up look because I have found more and more often I find myself in the media room watching one of my programs as the boys, including hubby, take over the family room TV with shows about cars.  This is important because the season premier of Poldark is right around corner.

I’ve been swooning over a few inspiration photos to help me picture what it is I want to do for this One Room Challenge so I though you might like to see them.

Can you see where the wood in my collage is going to come in?  That’s right, not on the floors!  I’m so excited to start the wood treatment I have in store for this room.

The walls are going white.  It will be such a relief to be rid of the yellow undertone beige paint.  It’s never been a nice yellow or a nice beige.

I’m super excited to start on this One Room Challenge and I hope you keep coming back every Thursday for the next 5 weeks as I transform this space into something so much better than the “before”.

To see what all the other Guest Participants are planning, hop on over to Linda’s blog, Calling It Home, to see tons of other projects bloggers like me are working on.

If you really want some fantastic inspiration, visit the posts of the 20 featured designers who are all tackling a room and posting about it every Wednesday.  You can find all of their room plans HERE.

Have a fantastic day!

Nancy