WEEK 3 // ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: CALIFORNIA CASUAL LIVING ROOM

 I can hardly believe that we're smack dab in the middle of the 6-Week One Room Challenge and here I am still revealing snippets of my design plan. Perhaps I want to suspend the element of surprise just a wee bit longer or maybe I am still in the midst of decisions and purchases. Could be a bit of both. But I feel the room really starting to take shape and I'm not yet feeling too anxious or nervous about that hard deadline on November 8 (ask me in again Week 4...). 

If I had to pick a theme for this past week's work, it was all about art. I stripped the old DIY framed art off the walls this past weekend, expecting to commence with a lot of wall repair. Somewhere down the line I had adhered those hex mirrors from Ikea all over that wall and I guess I forgot that the ensuing repairs had already been completed. So happy surprise there. 

I've been researching art options for quite sometime now, archiving those that I really liked and what I found as it came time to make some purchase decisions - the tone of the art in a singular shop was really drawing me in. I was concerned that purchasing from one artist would appear that I did not put a lot of thought into art decisions, but the bottom line is that when you know, you just know.  I got buy off from the hubs (which was a miracle because we're rarely on the same page with artwork) and set to taping the room off to get a better idea for scale.

We have some really big walls in this space and I've been challenged with sizing the art correctly against them. The one over the couch is 15' long and in this room's previous iteration, we had hung a 72" photograph under plexiglass above the couch. But here, I'm looking to break up the space a bit with three separate works and feel like the smaller scale above the couch will work out well. By taping it off, I got a better sense of how it will play out, knowing the frames may buy me a little more visual real estate. Do you do this too? 

While new artwork is in the cards for this makeover, a full furniture overhaul is not. The final design will work in a few new pieces, but will put to use pieces we've sort of been collecting with the idea that one day it would all come together. The couch and coffee table will remain (that's our couch, but similar table to ours shown here). I scored a crazy deal on a pair of contemporary metal side tables earlier this year, but the jury is still out on whether both will reside in this room (I have just the place for the extra table if needed). The counter-height director's chairs were also scored during a Memorial Day sale, so they are already in place within the adjacent dining area, as is the molecular lighting fixture. So what about recent purchases? That rug. Oh lawdy - that rug... I ordered it from Istanbul from an international seller on Etsy a week ahead of the ORC kick off date, thinking it would take forever to arrive. Little did I know I'd be unwrapping it a mere 3 nights after I placed the order. It's everything and fingers crossed when it all comes together that it will be the tie that binds in my design.

Next week's update - we'll talk windows and possibly a little DIY action I have planned if I can make that happen over the coming weekend. My husband thinks I'm a little nuts with this idea that I've floated, but then I reminded him how many of my nutty little experiments are still living with us in our home.

You know, my family always asks what I get out of this - what is the prize if I "win" and always give me a funny little look when I tell them that there really is not competition per se except that I am giving myself this challenge to complete a design in 6 weeks.  I feel like the tight timeline, personal budget and to be frank -internet audience - push me to do things I might not otherwise try if I didn't feel that little added pressure. Some things I'm really proud of have come out of past seasons and I'm hoping to pull the same off this Fall.

Want to be inspired? You should really check out the other guest participants challenging themselves this season. There are 200 of them all linking up alongside me at Calling it Home. 

Catch up on Week 1 and Week 2 Here