One Room Challenge Linking Event - Week One

What do you win?

Did you win last time?

Did you win the time before that?

Why are you doing it if you don’t win anything?

These are the kinds of questions you are likely to hear from friends and family if you participate in Calling it Home’s One Room Challenge™. 

If you do another one, I will break your fingers.

If you ignore me and do it again, I will divorce you.

If you completely disregard our 10 yr marriage vows and disobey me, I will cut off your wine supply.

I will not help you anymore.

I will not, absolutely paint another GD wall.

I am not swapping out any lights.

Do not buy another lamp or rug or piece of fabric.

I sanded your damn walls and hung your stupid, old light fixture…

These are also the kind of statements you are likely to hear from your spouse if you participate in Calling it Home’s One Room Challenge™.

6 weeks is no joke whether you are participating as a featured blogger or as a linking participant – as I have done both.  No matter.  It is a train wreck of real deal Holyfield fun.  In spite of threats of imminent divorce or people failing to understand the simple thrill of pulling a genie out of my hat in 6 weeks, I cannot deny my design junkie ways.  My nights will be filled with boozy anxiety for the next six weeks while I participate again in the ORC linking event.

The first time, as linking participant, I did my master bedroom: 

You can check that out here and here.

Last time, as a featured participant,  I did my kitchen:  

You can check that out here and here.

In both cases, it went down to the wire because I am a procrastinator extraordinaire and an indecisive fickle feck wit.  As a matter of fact, I decided to do this one exactly three days ago.  The mister is less than pleased.  He made me promise both times that I would not do another one.  But the ORC trials and tribulations are much like pregnancy and labor.  The further away you get from the aftermath, you think it wasn’t so bad/hard/difficult/insane/painful/divorce-inducing/neverhavingrelationsagain labor.  That’s where you would be wrong. 

Without further ado, I am tackling our bathroom but let me manage expectation up front.  I have no plans to do any major demo work.  The tile(s), vanity, and shower hardware all have to stay per the mister’s orders.  The toilet is a Toto and is the only muy bueno thing in the joint. Because it's a Toto and it flushes like the dickens.  No lazy river here.

Some might say ‘not so bad.’  A few, like my mister, might even say ‘not a finga!’  But I am here to tell you that I am over it.  Boring.  This was the absolute first DIY project my husband and I tackled right after we got married.  I did not even know how to use a power drill.  With one bathroom, it got sporty with a quickness.  That whole ‘don’t have a pot to piss in’ became reality for two solid weeks.  An orange Home Depot bucket in the back yard did the trick but it proved to be the first of many tenuous moments in our marriage involving DIY renovations.  Needless to say, by the time we got around to picking the fun stuff, I just wanted to use the loo.  A matching vanity/mirror situation sufficed along with a sad builder special vanity light fixture.  Little finishing details did not get completed and they have annoyed me to no end - things like gaps in the crown molding and bead board.  A patch in the dry wall near the light fixture that never got painted.  

Also, apparently I had a thing for chippy paint.  Where is my bird, you ask?  Um.  Why I thought to hang that dumb cage on the wall is beyond me.  In a fit of Cottage Living induced fantasy, I thought it was a terrific idea to use a fallen barn beam as my pooper paper holder and a random architectural piece to hold my towels.  Over it.

So  here is what I plan to do:  switch out boob and vanity lighting, vanity hardware and fingers crossed, faucet.  Get a new mirror because I hate the dumb matching mirror with the dumb ledge.  It is a gatherer of dust, toothpaste spit, and water stains.  Plus, we have plenty of counter space and drawers.  I felt like now might be a good opportunity to depart from my typically saturated color leanings and lighten things up a bit with a more neutral palette.  I would super love to switch out my bathroom door for one with a frosted window to allow more light into the very small space but after one afternoon of searching for vintage and new options, I soon discovered that with a smaller non-standard door it was a looney pipe dream. Instead, I might go even darker.  Yeah, fickle feck wit.  I figure two things:  a small space might as well be intimate and jewel-box like; secondly, I want my guests to feel glamorous and magnificent when they powder their noses in my one little water closet.  Who feels glamorous and magnificent in a milk carton?    Who feels glamorous during an anxiety ridden tinkle wondering about a missing bird?  But then again, I have been known to figure wrong a time or two.  Case in point, said dumb bird cage.

My inspiration looks and feels like this but as anyone can tell you who has followed along my boozy design rides, the plan changes quickly and often in these parts.  I found an incredible stash of vintage chinoiserie barkcloth fabric a few months back that I intended to make into a shower curtain.  Who knows if that will work out as it has damage in a few spots but it's got my head spinning for a fancy shower curtain sitch.  Come to think of it, this might be a lot like the time I painted the kitchen the same color as the kitchen.  That BM Smoked Oyster I picked is looking dangerously close to the BM Davenport Tan that is already on the wall.  Oy.  All I really know is that when I tell mister V that we are painting yet another room, another part of him will die inside the fire swamps of design despair while he curls up in a ball whimpering, ‘as you wish…’

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My process often starts with an inspiration board filled with beautiful things I cannot afford.  But the plan gives me the confidence to improvise on the fly when I see things that are similar in feel  but more affordable on the pocket book.  Most of the time, I cannot find exactly what I am looking for and will likely make it myself.  I have a loosey goosey plan for some such chicanery but it is way crazy, even for my standards, so I am keeping that one close to the vest, or the chesty larue, in my case, for now to see if I can even begin to pull that shiz off. Anywho, since I am not a professional, I can use all the help I can get.  I would love to hear what you would do in here.

Check back next week to see if I have done anything more than pop open a few wine bottles and in the meantime, let’s go see who else is playing…

All design, photos, styling and layouts by Emily Vanderputten unless otherwise noted

kisses,  mrs. V