One Room Challenge Fall 2016 - Guest Bedroom, Week 1

Welcome to the Fall 2016 One Room Challenge! For those of you new to the concept, Linda from Calling It Home created a blog challenge in which participants make over a room in a short 6 week period.  It's chaotic, stressful, and exhilarating all at the same time.  Many have compared it to childbirth, and while I can tell you that it pales in comparison to an unplanned natural delivery, it definitely brings a mental anguish and exhaustion that you forget all about when you reach the finish line, beaming with pride over your creation.  A short time later, all you remember are the good times, the successes, and the beauty of your space, so you decide that it would be a great idea to do it all over again.  And that's how you become involved in the cycle of the One Room Challenge. Ha!

This will be our third round of participating as a guest blogger in the ORC.  Every Wednesday, 20 featured designers post their updates, and every Thursday, hundreds of guest bloggers join in on the fun.  You can find our Fall 2015 makeover of our laundry room and back entry here, and our Spring 2016 ORC of our dining room here.  Fun fact: we recently revamped the spaces from our Fall 2015 ORC; the office space is now a shiplap mudroom, and the mudcloset is storage for cleaning supplies, household goods, etc.  You can find those updates on my Instagram feed, hcbinteriors.

Life has been more than a little hectic lately; if you check the date of my last post, you'll see that it was the final post of the Spring ORC.  We didn't even decide to commit to this round until today.  But the lure of whipping yet another space in our home into shape was strong, so here we go again.

We will be focusing on our guest bedroom.  It's located in the basement, and has no windows, no overhead lighting, and the outlets the lamps are plugged into are not connected to the lightswitch, so the room is a dark cave.  Not very welcoming!  It's also tends to be our clutter collector, the space where all items go to live until I have the time and space to put them away.  This room, and my husband's cluttered office, are my secret rooms of shame.  Because they are in the basement, I don't have to look at them until someone is coming to visit.  And since those visitors are usually my very understanding in-laws, the rooms are usually just barely cleaner than the pictures shown below.

The Before (can't believe I'm sharing our mess!):

Extra furniture that has no home.  Clothes my kids have outgrown piled on the bed. And a whole bunch of random stuff (don't even know what) under the bed

Mirrors and art that are waiting to be hung (and have been waiting for months)

At one time, this closet was organized.  Until we just started tossing stuff in, with the idea that we would deal with it later.  Now you can't even get in there

Ok, now that everyone in American can feel better about their own mess, come back next week to see my design plan.  I'm thinking Southern Coastal, hoping that I can turn this into a welcoming, organized retreat.  Thanks for visiting, and make sure to check out everyone else participating in the One Room Challenge!

My Inspiration Word for 2016

Happy New Year y'all! I hope everyone had a blessed and happy holiday season full of love and laughter. The holidays are bittersweet for me; fall through Christmas is my favorite time of year, and the time of year most filled with our family traditions, which are so important to me. But, it's also difficult because my mom shared my love of the holidays and traditions, and she passed away exactly 3 weeks before Christmas. Focusing on sharing the joy of Christmas & the other holidays with my girls helps me to push through my sadness, and also is a great way for me to share a part of my mom with them. I both look forward to and dread the holiday season every year, but this year the scales seemed to tip just a bit more towards joy, and for that I am grateful.

Like most people, I have spent the past couple of days reflecting on 2015, & thinking about what I want out of 2016. I've never chosen a word of the year before, but I as I was thinking about my goals, one word kept leaping out at me: FOCUS. I want to focus more on the people around me, and less on the distractions of everyday life. I want to focus on my time management so that I can spend more time making memories, and less time on my to-do list. I want to focus on my ideas & goals in order to complete the things I start, and not leave half-completed projects and partially fulfilled dreams in my wake.

I have another post for tomorrow detailing more of my plans for 2016. Until then, I'd love to hear if you have a word for the new year!