Week 2 // Fall One Room Challenge: California Casual Living Room

Vanessa Alexander

Today we round the corner into Week 2 of the One Room Challenge, a biannual room makeover event hosted by Linda of Calling it Home.  Last week, I shared a look at the evolution of my living room - my focus for this challenge - and how it has slowly morphed through renovation and decor trends over the last 7 years.   This week, I am checking in with you to share more about my direction and the design influences for the California Casual design I will reveal on November 9. 

We've lived in our home while we've renovated and over time, focused sporadically on each room as budget has allowed. Two recent changes - a new floor and our recent kitchen remodel - have both helped solidify our design plan and created an easier, open feeling flow from room to room.  As I work to complete a more finished look with our adjacent living room and adjoined dining area, its important to me to not only create something complimentary to other rooms in the house, but continue with something that is aesthetically aligned with aspects that are important to my husband and I in our private living space.  In the end, what will our living room reflect about us and how will we live in it?

Design Influences

California Casual is a style that has recently come into better focus through the widely published work of local California designers. But I feel like its been evolving for quite some time. I can think back to places I frequented as a kid in the 80's and remember hints of what it has now become embedded into those early furnishings.  Nostalgia aside, what has drawn me most to this style are the airy rooms, earthy, muted tones, clean lines and soft textiles - all things that are comfortable and soothing for two people who spend most of their time saddled in front of a computer or navigating their way through LA traffic all day.

Amber Lewis

Laura Singleton

Surf Shack - Photo by Brittany Ambridge

Design Goals

Our design goals for this space are well defined and will continue to unify the rooms throughout the house. We will transition away from trendy accessories (many still packed away from when we put the floor in this past Spring) and work toward something modern, but a little more timeless.  

In next Thursday's update, I will share work in progress and a first look at some of the materials that will be brought into the room ahead of the final reveal. In the meantime, catch sneak peeks on Instagram (@HoltwoodHipster) and be sure to check out progress by the other guest participants on Calling it Home.

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 6 - THE REVEAL // MODERN RANCH-STYLE KITCHEN

Just 6 weeks ago, we embarked on a long awaited kitchen remodel, complete with new countertops, tile and appliances for our 1960's era kitchen.  Throughout this time, I blogged weekly about our progress and shared some of the triumphs and challenges encountered as a guest participant in the One Room Challenge along the way. For this redesign in such a crucial area of our home, we chose not to move walls or replace cabinetry, but instead transformed these well loved bones with a contrasting paint and materials scheme that also complemented new white oak flooring replaced at the same time throughout the entire house. 

Wanna see a really good before and after? You can catch up and see where we started HERE. 

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 1 // MODERN RANCH-STYLE KITCHEN

Good news. This before also has an after - before the after. 

Welcome to Week 1 of The One Room Challenge, the bi-annual, room makeover bonanza created by Linda of Calling it Home. This virtual event takes the design community by storm - and unites bloggers and design enthusiasts alike - inspiring, motivating and creating virtual friendships all around. All eyes will be on the twenty design bloggers hand-picked to lead the charge in making over a room of their choice over the course of 6 weeks, all the whilst blogging and photographing their progress on Wednesday of each week. 

How do I fit in? I'm throwing my hat into the ring each Thursday as a guest participant after a two-season hiatus from the event- and frankly, a much, much too long break away from the ol' blog. 

I've really missed it. 

I've really missed you- and my hope is that this event will bring me back around to doing something I truly love - connecting with you all about our homes and the big (and even not so big) things we do around them to make life more comfortable, efficient and most certainly pretty. 

This round - I'm completing the long-awaited remodel on our kitchen.

This will be the fifth space in our home I've tackled thanks in part to all the moral support I've received from so many of you throughout previous ORC seasons. Check out previous designs completed for our guest bath, master bedroom, my husband's home office and my own home-based workspace.

So let's get to it.

These are the current bones I'm working with:

But it hasn't always looked like this. This is actually the transitional "after" that has served us well for the last six years while we planned and plotted for the eventual overhaul of this space. When we moved in, we assumed a clean, but dated kitchen area from the original homeowners - complete with tile counters, cabinetry and layout circa 1967. We gussied it up and made it work for us for the short term with some paint, shiny new appliances, hardware and fixtures. But functionally speaking, it has had some modern day challenges for us that I hope will be solved for under the redesign.

Wanna see what it looked like when we moved in? 

 Fast forward to today's landscape. We actually have utilized the room off the kitchen as sort of the eat-in area, complete with built in-bar. So this makeover will include both the immediate cooking and dining areas.

This is the most lived in and traveled room in our house. We cook big family meals here, entertain around our bar and open the slider to wet pool guests running in to use the bathroom. It's a critical space for us and one we want to make work more efficiently. 

Next week - more about our current state, the things we hope to change over the next six weeks and the plan to get us there.

In the meantime, please be sure to check out all of the other designs in the works by 200+ talented design enthusiasts and bloggers over at Calling It Home.

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 5

We are just a week away from next Thursday's reveal of the new in-home workspace that I've been designing for the Fall 2015 edition of the One Room Challenge. For today's update, I wanted to focus on some of the resources I've been leaning on throughout the last 5 weeks. I'm a big supporter of both small business go-getters and do-it-yourself warriors and my final design will feature the work and learnings from both. 

The gallery wall is nearly complete (I'm waiting on one more order from overseas - cross your fingers for me!). I have my selections matted, framed and put in place along the ledges Dad helped me hang in that first week. When sourcing artwork for our home, one of the first places I always look is Etsy. Where else can you access talented graphic designers, artists, photographers and vintage works all in one place? The pieces I chose are a composition of vintage and modern photography, sketch-works and hand-drawn graphics, some of which were affordably purchased as downloadable art that I took to my local copy house and printed for mere dollars. I've featured some of my selections and sources above. 

Camera Lucida is an Etsy shop devoted to vintage photography works largely focused on Americana. I chose one by depression era photographer Dorothea Lange and the works she did under the FSA capturing the harsh realities of the depression. I've always loved her work. While the irony in the image is not lost on me (these down on their luck cowboys no doubt are being taunted by the image in the billboard), I like to look at it a little differently and it will be a reminder to me in my work space that the easy road is not always the most suitable for travel. I also came upon the vintage 70's style sketches of artist Susan Brommelsiek in her Etsy shop "When I was 20". Her shop features sketches she did long ago while in art school and is well worth a look - particularly if you're looking to source tasteful nudes and anatomy studies. 

I also completed my first set of lined draperies using my beloved 'Pyne Hollyhock' from Schumacher. I was lucky enough to source the fabric from an overseas distributor as "seconds" quality for half the retail price. There is nothing to indicate anything inferior to the original in the yardage I received so I am still scratching my head at that one. I kicked around different styles - toying with idea of more formal pleating. In the end, I chose to hang them rather simply using clip rings and I'm really happy I went in this direction. I did line them and used inexpensive Ikea draperies (in the end, much cheaper and easier than if I had purchased fabric by the yard). I had never done a lined drape so I leaned on this very easy to follow tutorial put together by House of Hepworths. The tutorial shows you how to line panels using an inexpensive bed sheet. As an alternative, I opted to use Ikea Vivian panels (and flipped them upside down to leverage the 4" bound top which added weight to my panel bottom). 

I also previously shared a peek at the refurbished DIY shandy in Week 3. I had previously hacked a IKEA Maskros fixture following Jenny's lead from Little Green Notebook. It was starting to look worn and tired and quite honestly was too busy for the overall look I wanted in the new space. But I really still liked the footprint in the room and didn't want to toss it. I was lucky to find a more streamlined version by Bethany of Dwellings by Devore that translated into exactly what I was after. I disassembled the old fixture, repainted it and set about flanking it with simple catering cups (rather than the scalloped design I used previously). Like the tutorial, I opted to cut out gold circles and glue them on the inside base of the cup for a more polished look. I dug through my stash of old invitations and as luck would have it, I had some gold invites I was able to repurpose with the use of a 1" punch without any further purchase. 

One of my favorite projects from this round of the ORC is the barrel cane chair I was able to re-upholster in this black and white buffalo check pattern. I inherited the chair from my neighbor's curb and though the upholstery was in good condition, I wanted to update it with something both equal parts classic and modern. I was a little intimidated and again turned to both You Tube and online tutorials for help. One of the references I found particularly helpful was this one by Peacefully Home via Remodelholic. It helped me troubleshoot some of the tougher areas where I was not sure how to go about deconstructing and reassembling. There were certainly steps to take to ensure the chair went back together as it was intended to. It also helped that I took photos at each stage for later reference.

I'm pretty jazzed at this collision of pattern in the corner of my new office. Did you also catch the new look we gave the old aluminum frame with a little oil based black paint? 

I can't wait to show you the finished design next Thursday. Be sure to pop on back for the reveal of the full art gallery wall, closet organization system and a full look at all the details that came together in this space. In the meantime, my blogmates are sharing Week 5 progress over at Calling it Home. The last week is one of the hardest of the challenge and we can all use the support. 

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

ONE WEEK CHALLENGE // WEEK 3

I've been parlaying all of my learnings from previous One Room Challenge projects (Bathroom, Master Bedroom, Masculine Study) and as of Week 3, find myself still fairly organized and on track to deliver this room on schedule. I'm transforming essentially a blank slate into a very personal space for myself, so I think that alone has helped ideas form and decisions get made pretty expeditiously. 

If you are new to my little corner of the blogosphere by way of the One Room Challenge, thanks for stopping by! My name is Erin and I'm transforming our former guest suite into my very own home office work studio. I work my day job from my home desk so the final space will need to be very tidy and bright and filled with things sure to inspire me through long workdays. I am also a creative and am looking for a way to integrate my overflowing project space into my home office a little more efficiently, so I am less likely to leave my project materials all over the house. 

I shared the room I'm focusing on in Week 1 and the inspiration for my design in Week 2.

 As I close out Week 3, I already have a good base going of paint in two of my favorite colors, long loved fabrics and new shelving. You guys, I scored the deal of the century on 7 meters of Schumacher 'Hollyhock Pyne' - a pattern I've always wanted to incorporate into my home. It's a funny little departure for someone like me who gravitates toward more minimal, modern designs. But if there was ever a floral for me, this is it.  This pretty design will become new draperies to soften up all of the edgy black and white elsewhere in the room. 

Perhaps the most thrilling part of the One Room Challenge for me is the way it pushes me to problem solve and take on physical challenges for myself. I dove right in on that closet just a day after emptying it and demo'd all of the typical closet structures myself. I repaired the drywall and then set to painting out a charcoal accent feature in the otherwise white closet.  I had purchased a bunch of these brackets from IKEA, convinced at some point they would become shelves in this space. Dad came by and blew through the list of stuff I asked for his help with and suddenly we found ourselves back at Home Depot for wood so that he could build out the shelves. I was so happy he convinced me to knock these off my own punch list and even happier with the way they came out. These will eventually become part of the command center for all of my project materials. 

We also got the picture ledges put up on the opposite wall. This is the foundation for the framed gallery wall I am composing (I'll share art selections in a future post!). I've been playing with frames and matting and new artwork has been arriving over the last couple of weeks that I can't wait to share.

That very same day, we pulled the old shandy down for a little rehab. I pulled off all the old accessories, gave it a new coat of 'brass' and reworked the tentacles a bit. Next week, I'll go into what I did here in further detail. 

So that will take us into Week 4 of the One Room Challenge. Have you seen all of the spectacular work my blogmates have been putting into their spaces? Be sure to hop on over and take a look at Calling it Home. 

Week 1 // The Chosen Space

Week 2 // My Inspiration

SITE MAINTENANCE: 

A fresh, new look for Holtwood Hipster is currently in the works! Things may look a little sparse and formatting/fonts might seem a bit jumbled at the moment. But I'm excited to soon share a cleaner, easier to read layout that will help me better connect with all of you! Stay tuned...

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 2

Today I am sharing a bit about my direction for the Fall 2015 One Room Challenge. For this round, I'm making over our unused and often neglected guest suite into a new home office studio where I can both work productively for my bread and butter during the day and create by night. I'm still ironing out some of the details that will be incorporated into this new space, but I have a pretty solid grasp on the scheme and vibe I want the finished room to reflect. 

 I know what works for me and while I really admire bright, colorful eclectic designs, I always gravitate toward a more neutral - even monochrome palette in my own home. I'll be continuing on with the use of my beloved Benjamin Moore White Dove for the walls, with an out of the box accent painted out in a dark charcoal gray I have sitting around from the last One Room Challenge.  I'll soften out the edges of a mostly black and white color scheme with use of floral and buffalo checked pattern, while also warming things up a bit through a gilded statement light fixture. I'll fake out he black thumb I've been sporting of late by incorporating some digital plant-life and pull in some low maintenance, sculptural flora to breathe life into the room. 

 The lighting won't be the only statement in the room. There will be a stacked gallery wall to house a curated collection of art prints sure to inspire and motivate me through future workdays.

I try to avoid "cluttering up" a room. But a creative space is the one place I feel at liberty to display some of my very favorite things en masse - things that are a meaningful and memorable link to a past experience, an entrepreneurial dream or beloved hobby. So there will be some of that incorporated as well.

I have a growing collection of creative materials for all my little passion projects. I have a grand plan to organize myself a little better, while adding additional functionality and dimension to the room. That plan involves use of mixed colors and materials. 

Next week I'll show you how that scheme is already taking shape. I'm moving right along and already have the space painted and built - yes built! - out. I thought well ahead of this round and placed my materials orders early, so the UPS guy is arriving with daily goodies sure to keep this gal busy until the next update. 

Be sure to hop on over to Calling it Home and check out how the rest of my blogmates participating as guests of the One Room Challenge are making out in Week 2. 

photo credits:  annika von holt's home by marie murstad | apartment therapy | made llc | erin gates via the everygirl | lauren conrad's office via domaine home | sagmeisterwalsh

SITE MAINTENANCE: 

A fresh, new look for Holtwood Hipster is currently in the works! Things may look a little sparse and formatting/fonts might seem a bit jumbled at the moment. But I'm excited to soon share a cleaner, easier to read layout that will help me better connect with all of you! Stay tuned...

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 1

Life can really move by in a clip, can't it? Just six months and several posts ago I was revealing my last One Room Challenge design to you all. Now here I am again, embarking on yet another design adventure, by the end of which I will have a completely new space to work and create from each day. 

Undoubtedly by now you are all familiar with the 6-week design sprint (I'm not calling it a marathon!) known throughout the blogosphere as The One Room Challenge. Created by Linda of Calling it Home, the event centers on twenty design bloggers hand-picked to lead the charge in making over a room of their choice over the course of 6 weeks, all the whilst blogging and photographing their progress on Wednesday of each week. I'm lucky enough to get to join in on all the fun along with other design enthusiasts who share progress each Thursday.

This will be the fourth space in our home I've tackled thanks in part to all the moral support I've received from so many of you throughout previous ORC seasons. Check out previous designs completed for our guest bath, master bedroom and my husband's home office. For this round, I'll be transforming our unused and oft neglected guest suite into my own personal workspace.

 

Though I'll only reveal one redesign, the collateral effect of this makeover really will address two troublesome rooms. You see, I actually already have a home office I work from each day. While it was one of the first rooms I outfitted when we moved into our home 5 years ago, it has slowly morphed into a hodge podge of storage, project and shipping paraphernalia where amongst I have a desk and computer that I use for my day job. It's no longer an inspiring place to work from and it too is in need of a redesign and reorganization. The current guest room that sits adjacent to it has long played overflow - to both my current workspace, the linen closet and my growing collection of fabric and project supplies. The bottom line: because of the chaos, we have been underutilizing precious space in our house. My goal is to clean out and convert the catch-all guest room into a beautiful and productive space to both work from and create and share that final result with you on Week 6.

Why am I moving into the guest room? To be honest the room gets far better light and it is also in the center of the house and is better situated for quiet daytime work away from the street.  I also like its cozier set up. Give me an inch and I'll take a mile, I swear! I think half the battle in maintaining an organized office is not allowing too much extra space to fill up with "stuff" that really should be stored properly elsewhere. So, I'm looking forward to purging, donating and getting creative in a smaller space.

The "before" photos I'm sharing in this post were brightened up a bit for presentation. The current walls are actually a light gray and are on the target list for some brighter paint and trim. By post time, I've already disassembled the guest bed (it was a fold-away bed from Grandinroad), removed the makeshift headboard and cleared the space of the pileup of linens, gift wrap and artwork that had started to accumulate in the room.  I've also gotten into that closet (yes- doors bulging under the weight of more "stuff" behind them). I've been on a transformative purge, inspired in part by this philosophy (I'm going to Kondo the entire house!).

I'm not tossing it all however. I plan on repurposing quite a bit of what you see (and frankly may not be able to see) here. I'll be giving new life to the hacked IKEA chandelier that currently hangs in the center of the room (originally concepted by Jenny of LGN). It has fallen into disrepair and this makeover seems like the perfect opportunity to give it a more streamlined look. 

I'm excited about the design direction I've chosen and look forward to sharing it all with you in next Thursday's update. Until then, be sure to follow along on Instagram for all kinds of design shenanigans and don't forget to check out plans from the 20 design bloggers and the others taking part each Thursday.  

Until next week... 

New Entryway Tile

Over the years, every house endures a new stage of life - be it through new occupants or renovations alone. We bought Holtwood House both for and in spite of all of the idiosyncrasies that come with those various life stages. It's funny, but walking into the house on that first tour, I looked down at the original, 1960's grimy, avocado green glazed ceramic tile in the entryway and I think it struck me as "cool". Original details usually pique the interest of a buyer like myself who was looking to purchase an older home. It wasn't too long after purchasing that I started to rethink that cool tile - partly because it never really looked clean, but also because I was trying to work in a lighter, more modern palette and the dark, dated tile in the entryway always bore such a challenging contrast to all the progress around it. 

We battled it for 5 years, largely based on budget and other renovation priorities. We tried distracting away from it with colorful artwork and covered it up with rugs and furnishings. I actually even painted it out once in my most epic DIY fail to date (please don't even think of doing this - just don't) and inevitably had to scrape all of the paint off it to live with it yet another year.  I have to admit we even thought about coating over it with feather finish to give it an industrial warehouse type look. Obviously I was getting a bit desperate.

Once we decided that we would finally make this a priority in 2015, we waffled between a colorful polished concrete and tile - eventually landing on the latter. We shopped various tile styles and budgets for our roomy 100sq. feet of entry and eventually made the decision to purchase an inexpensive plank style from Home Depot. 

We played around with different layouts right there on the showroom floor and in the end, decided to lay it in a herringbone pattern. A light gray grout complimented it nicely and will save us from scrubbing out stains that will eventually come in an entryway had we gone with a bright white.

What a difference it makes walking through the front door or looking on from adjacent rooms. It brightened up our tunnel-like entry so much. I also can't help but be amazed at how all of those furnishings that once clashed, now settled in and became part of the overall landscape of the space, the way they were always intended to.

*Tile is Marazzi 'VitaElegante Grigio' available at Home Depot

Grout is 'Delorean Gray'