The One Room Challenge // Week 6 Reveal

With another One Room Challenge 6-week design marathon now complete, I am happily revealing my husband's newly made over home office. Folks, this was a nail biter, subject to late night electrician work and a last minute design change in the final hours of this challenge. In the end, I shut my eyes last night feeling very good about the space I created and grateful that the end result was just as I had envisioned. 

Some shout outs before we really dig into the big reveal. Thank you to Linda of Calling it Home for once again organizing such a fun and inspiring event. I'm grateful for not only the opportunity to make new friends through this event, but also for the motivation to complete another room in the home we've been painstakingly renovating for nearly 5 years now. Over various seasons, that's three rooms completed now because I had a 6 week deadline and didn't want to fall on my face out there in blog land. 

Also a big shout out to the last minute crew that showed up last night to make sure I didn't: Ryan "The Electrician" who helped trick out the lighting situation with a dimmable wall sconce and Kyle for "project managing". Also, thank you to the dude who added his muscles to some of the heavier projects in this space and worked for 6 weeks at the kitchen table with nary a complaint. 

As a reminder of where we started from, see the unfinished, boring before here. 

To add visual interest to our standard white box room, a faux brick focal wall was added and painted "Nightfall" by Benjamin Moore. Adjacent walls were brightened up with BM "White Dove". Shelves were built and hung to showcase my husbands collectables. I tricked out some IKEA curtain panels and the old aluminum window frame was painted black to mimic steel case windows. I also built a desk from scratch, including my first solid wood table top. 

Previously poorly showcased and unnoticed in the room,  many of the accessories came from what we already had on hand. I also hosted a big 40th birthday bash recently for my husband and in preparation for that, collected some new pieces that made their way into his office. A trip to the flea market over the weekend turned up this set of steel drawers, remnants of an old library card catalog. It actually has several more pieces that form a tower that I'll use to help organize another space.

We didn't get to replacing the door and hardware just yet. I decided to swap those out when we are ready to do so with the doors in the adjacent two rooms so we can tackle that project all at once. Likewise, my lighting selections DID arrive on time. However, a late design change had us sticking to the original industrial pendant as the room sort of grew around this piece and the new one just didn't match up.

The new sconce was hung over the artwork facing my husband's desk. Thankfully this piece arrived on time and was installed just under the wire on the eve of the reveal. 

Aside from the fact that it's a more inspiring place to do paperwork from each day, the happiest outcome of this work space makeover is that it also created a space that my husband can retreat to for some time on his own. It gets the most amazing morning sun and overlooks the vegetable garden right outside that window. I think it's important to have a little corner in our shared home that is meant for each of us to grab some alone time when needed. This space is perfectly suited as an area where he can listen to music or just reflect.

So that brings another round of The One Room Challenge to a close. Be sure to stopover and see all of the jaw dropping reveals by over 150 bloggers this week over at Calling it Home.

Week 1 //   The 'Before'

Week 2 //   The Plan

Week 3 //   Demo + Progress

Week 4 // The Calm Before the Storm

 Week 5 // Projects

THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 1

At long last, The One Room Challenge Spring 2015 link up is here! I must admit I'm becoming a bit addicted to this semi-annual trademarked event, that brings together some of the best (and fastest!) home decor makeovers in the blogosphere. Yesterday, twenty design bloggers selected by host Linda of Calling it Home unveiled their one-room schemes. Today, I'm linking up with many others to share plans for a long awaited makeover of yet another room in my own home - my husband's home office.  

This is a room that has been somewhat of an afterthought, taking on bits and pieces that might not quite work in other rooms, but happily take their place here because, well neither of us want to give up on them or they count as an upgrade to what already existed. Consequently, there is already a lot of stuff hanging out in this space, but until now there has been very little in the way of cohesiveness. One of my objectives will be to unify (and better highlight) some of the cool little artifacts that have become lost on too large a wall, amidst piles on the shelf and behind closet doors. 

Many of my flea market finds have made their way here. I seem to see my husband in so many of the spoils from these weekend trips and he graciously accepts whatever I bring home to hang on his wall. Over the next 6 weeks (eek!) I'll look to better balance some of what I see fitting this space with more of the things he says he wants and needs out of it. 

That will surely bring about compromises. No offense to any of those Goodfellas, but it's always made me shake my head a little that we have a picture of these guys on a wall in our home. To each his own- my husband loves it (and he's already made sacrifices by storing away portraits of Bob Marley and Tupac). Seriously. The bongos can stay. But I'm betting that the margarita glass will probably go- I don't care if he says it's for change.

I have 6 weeks to tie it all together and make this a more inspiring space for him to work from while working some magic to make it compliment our home. I'll be posting each Thursday on my progress and will share all the triumphs and obstacles of making over a space that actually must be functional enough to be used each day in the interim. Hey, I'll count it as my first success if I can get that poor plant in a pot before I report back next week. Be sure to check out and cheer on my design-mates in blogland over at Calling it Home as well.

My previous ORC rooms:

Master Bedroom - Fall 2014

Guest Bath - Spring 2014