One Room Challenge Week 1 | The Room, The Befores and The Plan

The One Room Challenge starts today! 20 design bloggers will be making over a space in 6 weeks and documenting it from start to finish. We're no strangers to a quick deadline around here--heck, this summer we did a whole kitchen renovation for a family in Pittsburgh in 6 days! And a year ago, we did our own kitchen renovation in 7 weeks. But those took 4 months and 2 years to plan, respectively. We've had many other (like...every other) renovation take months to complete. So today, day 1 of the One Room Challenge, has me feeling a little anxious, but mostly excited to renovate our guest room (see below) into a shared room, complete with built-in bunkbeds and wardrobes, for our daughters.

If you're new here (hi!), we have two girls ages 2 and 6. Faye, our youngest, currently still sleeps in her crib in the nursery. While our six year old, Greta has her own room currently right next to the guest room. Greta has been begging to share a room with Faye and while I'm 100% content with my baby staying a baby forever, I know it's only a matter of time before she outgrows the crib. And I'd love to have some practice runs, you know let's lay in your new bed in the afternoon! instead of her first night ever sleeping in a big-girl bed be a night where there's no going back.

Maybe you're wondering, Why the guest room? Why not transform Greta's room into a shared room? The answer is two fold. First, we love the idea of not disrupting any sleeping patterns or situations for the duration of the project. But more importantly, second, the guest room has the perfect wall for the begged-for bunk beds we'll be building and Greta's room simply doesn't. So you see, it works! Greta's room will eventually be the guest room, which to be honest, I've been dying to redo since we threw it together in a few days before our first guest arrived 2.5 years ago. But that's another project for another time. Let's dive into the plans, shall we?

We'll be doing this renovation in real time, meaning as of yesterday, the guest room (above) still looks just like the guest room. Sure, this is in part due to our nephew staying with us for awhile (he moved out over the weekend), but also, we just really love taking you all for the renovation ride with us.

We'll be building the bunkbeds on the back wall (where the headboard sits now), which is about 147" wide. This is just shy of being able to squeeze in four bunks, but after several brainstorming sessions, and possibly pinning every built-in bunkbed and reading nook out there, we came up with this plan:

On the left will be stairs leading up to the top bunk--I feel so much better about bunk beds when stairs are involved. In the center (err, almost center--slightly skewed left) will be the bunks. And then on the right, there will be a built-in bench with storage drawers and a wall of books with sconces--we'll call it the reading nook.

As for how the room will look, the truth is we don't have every detail nailed down yet--that could explain the anxiousness. But I did create a mood board of where we're generally headed.

sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

Our biggest challenge will definitely be that this room is in the basement--as are more than half the bedrooms in our home; it's just the way homes are built in our region. So, we don't have the luxury of endless amounts of natural light pouring in at all times of the day. Although, to be fair, both of these before photos were taken at night--I'll be sure to snap more before we demo. We're combatting this by adding in a lot of ambient and accent lighting. We're also going to go mostly very light (warm white?) on the walls with the wardrobes in black--that contrast will make the whites feel even brighter. And I definitely want to address the window well over these 6 weeks, too.

There's so much to do, we're definitely planning on checking in and sharing the daily happs with this project on more than just the designated One Room Challenge Wednesdays, but plan to share the meatiest updates, as well as successes and challenges we come across every Wednesday from now until the big reveal November 9th. Who's excited?!

Want more swift renovations to follow? Here are the other 19 insanely talented designers in the One Room Challenge to follow! Can't wait to see where we all end up. 

Jana Bek | Chris Loves Julia | Shannon Claire | Coco.Kelley | The Curated House
Driven by Decor | The English Room | From the Right Bank | Sherry Hart
Hi Sugarplum | House of Jade | Hunted Interior | The Makerista | Making it Lovely
Marcus Design | Pencil & Paper Co. | Megan Pflug | Place of My Taste | Suburban B’s
Waiting on Martha  Media Partner House Beautiful | TM by CIH