The One Room Challenge is back! This time last year I was neck deep in maintenance and infrastructural projects in my basement. I was scraping efflorescence and decluttering and priming and priming and priming everything. As I looked around at myself priming white over white in what was supposed to be a colorful and energizing space, I went into a bit of a panic realizing that my ORC “after” picture was about to look like a sane person’s “before” picture. I threw my logical schedule to the wind and spent the final week adding color and art to spare my sanity and share a piece of my vision at reveal time. And while my head is spinning with new ideas for new spaces, my Instagram community has been wonderfully supportive in bringing me back to earth and encouraging me to get my studio space the way it deserves to be. I’ve said time and time again that my creative outlets are critical to my self-care, and yet my space is still not terribly viable for the type of making that I want to do. So here I am jumping in again, and taking on my basement again. It feels a bit daunting to get back to it down there, but I’m starting to get excited about an ORC filled with the more fun creative stuff and less of the prepping my walls stuff! It’s Week One of the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge!

For those new to the ORC, it challenges participants to make over one room in their homes in 7 weeks (8 weekly posts). The community of designers and doers is so supportive, and it has been an amazingly positive experience even when I haven’t been able to finish. I’ve made so many friends throughout the process, and I’m so grateful that this community is not an exclusive big budget designer’s club. It’s open to anyone and everyone who wants to join.

My basement design from last spring featured five zones - a desk/work zone, lounge zone, laundry zone, household storage zone, and tool/material storage zone (which also houses my chest freezer). I drastically underestimated how much time it would take to prepare my space to receive all of the wonderful finishes I had planned. So while I had a lot of infrastructure in place, in the end I was able to reveal one zone - the lounge zone. This isn’t a space for entertaining per say, it’s meant more as a pausing space where I can take a break from my creative work. I can have a seat and have some light refreshments while keeping myself in an inspiring space. I’m so glad that I put this space together, as I know it will be a motivator for me going through this One Room Challenge experience.

So what’s in store for the Spring 2022 One Room Challenge? I plan to finish the remaining four zones, and hopefully address this stairwell while I’m at it!

Desk/Work Zone - The layout here was not working well for me. There was too much dead space in the lounge area and I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired with my desk facing the stairwell. I plan to move the desk to look into the lounge area, and I plan to paint a portion of the desk orange for a colorblocked effect. I started painting this after the last ORC and I couldn’t get the color quite right. So I plan to correct the color and seal the work surface. I also plan to dedicate more space to other forms of creating. I would like to have enough space to work on my tufting projects AND have space to store one small in-progress furniture item at the same time. Part of my creative process involves moving from medium to medium, and I want my layout to support this type of workflow.

Goal: Finish Painting Desk and Adjusting Layout

Goal: Free Up More Space For Tufting & Furniture

Laundry Zone - Finish the curtain system so that my laundry is concealed while working on my creative projects. Add shelving along the wall above the dryer to help alleviate current storage overflow.

Household Storage Zone - Paint the highboy which currently houses costumes, vintage items, and some art supply storage. Create a bold large scale graphic treatment with fabric and old valances to conceal basic utility shelves.

This Highboy is Getting a High Gloss Blue Treatment

Turn Utility Storage Into Fabric Feature Backdrop and DECLUTTER!

Tool & Material Storage Zone - Reuse shelving from elsewhere in the house to organize tools and large storage. Get creative with rolling storage under the stairs.

Lounge Zone - Ok so I know I revealed this zone already, but I need to paint my vintage shelving find! I’m generally a fan of preserving the beauty of wood, though in this case the wood is in bad shape and could use a lift.

Bonus Zone - The stairs! I don’t want to get ahead of myself (I know how these challenges go) but I would love to give this stairwell a fresh coat of paint, some artwork, and some more light. I have one other surprise ambitious plan for this stairwell, which I’ll reveal a bit later on!

Now, where to start?! Week One for me is all about decluttering and layout changes! Thrilling, I know. I get pretty honest on here and on Instagram about the reality of taking on these projects, and this is no exception. The layout I originally pegged last spring was not working well for me, and with functionality being hindered I definitely slipped back into some less-than-stellar storage habits, AKA “just stick it in the basement.” So I’m going to touch a bit on my decluttering practice here on the blog, and you’ll see it in action over on Instagram, especially in my stories.

This was the view at the beginning of last year’s challenge. Yikes. You can see 12 years worth of storage overflowing in my basement. Bins and bins and boxes and pretty much everything you can image. Way too much stuff. It was taking up so much space in my home, but it hadn’t bothered me much seeing as it was in my unfinished basement/laundry area. But when I decided that my creative pursuits deserved more than a nomadic setup in whatever room I could commandeer for any particular project, I knew that it was time to reclaim this valuable real estate for myself.

Decluttering has become a steady part of my home’s maintenance for the last few years. I’ve been living in the same house for nearly 13 years now, and things have just accumulated over that time. I definitely had questionable purchasing habits in my 20s. I did a lot of bargain shopping in all the wrong places, buying things on sale from big stores to fill my home with things that I thought were supposed to go in a home. Now that I’m older and wiser, I’m much more attuned to what I like, what I need, and what I actually use. And the more I go through this practice of decluttering the more I understand myself. Things I felt like I couldn’t part with a year ago aren’t making the cut this year. And less and less things make their way through my door to begin with. It’s been wonderful.

My favorite takeaways from my decluttering process have been:

The sheer quantity of clutter can feel really overwhelming. Steady initiatives like getting rid of one thing each day have really helped me. Another that I like is getting rid of one thing on the 1st of the month, two things on the 2nd, three things on the 3rd, etc. These types of challenges help me realize that I don’t need to do everything at once. These items didn’t all enter my home at once and it’s helpful to pace myself when letting go of them.
Clearing all the horizontal surfaces in a room is one of my favorite ways to declutter. I place everything in a bin and sort through each item. When I see how immediately clean the room looks with those spaces cleared, I’m much more mindful about whether or not I want to place items back there and whether I need to keep them at all.
Guilt is not a good reason to keep things. I used to keep things out of guilt all the time. I’d keep something that was a gift even if I didn’t like/want it, and I’d keep things I didn’t really use if I spent enough money on it. But in addition to adding to the stress of my clutter, these objects would make me feel bad every time I saw them. Keeping that expensive item didn’t mean I was suddenly getting my money’s worth. It meant that I had a reminder of bad purchasing decisions staring at me in my home. It was hard for me to let go of these types of objects, but once they were gone I never missed them or regretted it. I wasn’t just letting go of things, I was letting go of all the bad feelings they stirred up and it was hugely freeing.

Clearly A LOT Of Decluttering To Do

Some of my favorite resources for decluttering I’ve found through Instagram, so if you’re wanting great insight from some decluttering experts, head on over to @TheGladSuite and check out my stories.

Be sure to check out all the other amazing transformations going on over at www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog There are so many different room types being tackled in so many different styles, which means there really is something for everyone. And if you want to get in on the action, it’s not too late to sign up! My absolute favorite thing about the One Room Challenge is the supportive community, and I always find new accounts to be inspired by and follow.

Spring ORC Take Two

Surprise! Bonus Space!

It’s Only Paint