Hoo boy. Here we are at the deadline. The final week of the One Room Challenge.
And I think I might be cursed.
But before we get into that, let me say I am happy with where I am with this room right now in this moment in time. It looks good. I’m back in and working at my new desk right now. I love the wallpaper and the trim and the furniture and the Flor rug. The Article Obscuro desk is so good. The painted Target Tachuri cabinets are also good. All of my computer peripheral hard drives being hidden in one of those cabinets—with ALL THE CORDS OUT OF SIGHT—is a freaking dream come true. I love it.
Look at this view!
Can you believe the change? Look at the room before:
I mean, no more crazy-ass clutter. But also? No more half-glued-over red and green 1980s wallpaper! SO good. The room feels calm and welcoming and not like a dump. Yes!
Here’s the front wall with the French doors that my desk used to span:
Love the Robert Allen Tropic Fern fabric with the Anna Hayman Siouxsie wallpaper. And that Flor Cut Corners carpet tiles? Chef’s kiss! The three patterns work together because the Tropic Fern and Siouxsie are in the same color family and the Flor tiles are such a soft neutral. It still has movement, but it doesn’t fight with the other patterns. I could have used a solid color rug, but that’s not me. Also, I have dogs. Solid colors show hair and dirt. I love Flor tiles for their epic cleanability. I obsessively steam clean rugs at least once a month. Flor tiles take that like a pro and dry super fast. I have them all over my house. They are also ecologically responsible—they’re made from recycled materials and when you redesign and don’t want them anymore you can send them back to Flor to recycle yet again.
The Target Tachuri cabinets echo the pattern in the carpet tiles, but because I painted them black to match the Oscuro desk the pattern is now very subtle.
The lamps are vintage that I’ve owned for years. They add that little bit of warm wood to the room. (And they aren’t orange or stripey.)
I added a cheap print of the sea that reminds me of Lake Michigan, my happy place. It’s relaxing to me. In front of that is a Jonathan Adler box to hold Pantone color books I need for my job.
I also added art to the closet door. I couldn’t bring myself to put holes in the wallpaper.
These are two prints I sourced from Saatchi Art. I was tempted to buy the originals, but not only was that not in the budget, the originals were a bit too big for this space. And if I decide to switch them out for more edgy artwork when I can go to galleries again, I won’t feel so bad that I’m just replacing prints. Right now I love the colors and calm in these though. (Top piece is by Igor Vitomirov. Bottom piece is by Daniel Kozeletckiy.)
I love that the Oscuro desk has two compartments to store notepads and miscellaneous office supplies, but I also have a bunch of catchall bowls and baskets to gather some more often used items and my computer glasses into.
So, this all looks good, right? Yeah, hold on. Let’s get back to my assertion that I am cursed. I ran into two obstacles I could not get around for this challenge.
First: the built in shelves on the wall I am not showing you in this post. (Behind my desk to either side of the doors into the room.) We could not build these by the deadline for a couple of reasons. We can’t move that fast—remember the perfectionist tendencies we both have? AND the pandemic. Michigan has been half shut down and we ran into problems getting wood delivered. So we don’t have all the materials to build yet. Frustrating, but I don’t think we would have finished even if we had the wood.
Second obstacle: my sewing machine died. It’s 15 years old and it’s been acting up for the last two. It simply refused to sew anything thicker than the ivory cotton voile I made the door panels out of. I wanted to add fringe to the tops and bottom of those panels, but my machine refused to sew through that. And see the Tropic Fern drapery?
That’s not sewn. I pinned the hell out of it and stuck it up. It’s an upholstery weight fabric that I am lining with green corduroy. (Super good sewing tip: use corduroy to get that velvet-y feel at a much cheaper price point.) My machine would not sew through that either. I also have some fleece and more of the brush fringe to make a dog bed for the floor next to my desk. But guess what? My machine will not sew that either.
So I’m in the market for a new sewing machine. And I will finish all the sewing projects when I get one.
Oh, also! In the middle of trying to get my machine to sew things, I accidentally set my ironing board on fire. Do things like that happen to you? Just to me? Oh, okay. I am a bit accident prone. This is a story in and of itself. I was multitasking while cooking Thanksgiving food and I started heating a cast iron skillet on the stove while I chopped up vegetables and had a glass of wine. I needed that wine because the sewing machine was FRUSTRATING ME. Next thing I know I’ve forgotten the skillet is heating and it’s smoking. I was listening to music really loud and was like, “Why does it sound like this song has a recording talking randomly in it?” Ha, yeah, that was my smoke alarm. (My overly anxious dogs hate it. As soon as they hear the female voice saying “There is smoke in the hallway. The alarm may sound. The alarm is loud,” they freak out. The Man and I call it “the lady talking” and if we say that out loud or say the aforementioned phrase out loud, the dogs also freak out.)
So I turn off the skillet but it’s not smelling good in the bungalow. The Man isn’t home and I thought if I lit some candles and opened windows before he got home, I could skate by without having to admit to forgetting a pan on the stove. But, alas, no. I set one of the candles on the ironing board that was set up next to my dining room table. It was a fully glass-encased candle, but somehow it spit a spark onto the cover of the board and the cover started smoldering. So by the time the Man walked into the house it smelt like cast iron smoke AND chemical smoke from whatever they make ironing board covers from. Good times. Here’s a photo.
Of course I can’t use it anymore to iron on, and of course no stores around me carry extra wide ironing board covers, so I had to order one online. That still isn’t here. So the Man and I jerry-rigged a towel onto the board with clamps.
It worked surprisingly well. But I still think I’m cursed.
Anyway! I need to take a couple of weeks to get back to work for my clients. And decorate for x-mas. And sleep. After that, I will post with updates on the sewing and the shelf building process.
Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for joining me for the wild ORC ride! Many thanks to the ORC organizers and the two extra weeks they gave us for this challenge. Please check out the rest of the One Room Challenge participants here.
