Finally!

I’m so happy to get to share that I’m joining the One Room Challenge (ORC) this year! I’ve been keeping up with the ORC for years and have thought about joining in as a guest, but this time around Linda invited me to be one of the featured bloggers and we’ve all had to keep it a secret.

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A quick about me if you’re new: my name is Myquillyn (like Jacquline but with a “mike”). I’ve been married to Chad for 22 years, we have three teenage boys and three years ago we moved out to the country to a fixer upper on 12 acres. I’ve been blogging here for almost 10 years, I wrote a book all about embracing imperfection in your home, my style is ultra-casual and thrift-store-apporachable and I absolutely ADORE this online community of Imperfectionists and Cozy Minimalists. I think the internet is a wonder and a gift and also, isn’t Netflix the best invention ever?!

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About the One Room Challenge:: The ORC is a six week challenge (in its 11th season!) created by Linda from Calling it Home in media partnership with House Beautiful. Twice a year Linda invites 20 bloggers/designers to transform a room in their house from start to finish and share all the details online within a six week timeline. There are some great sponsors who also join in the fun which allows for the participants to be even more creative in the details and the pieces that they incorporate.

It’s an honor and truthfully, super intimidating to join in this project. Some of my favorite designers have created some of my favorite spaces during this six week challenge in the past.  The creativity and inspiration are full on, y’all. I hope I represent us, the Imperfectionists and Cozy Minimalists, well.

The room I’ll be transforming and sharing over the next 6 weeks is….

The weirdest, most awkward room in our house. I begged myself to be normal and redo our family room or a bedroom but I KNEW in my heart I needed to tackle this tricky space that is the bane of my existence.

This room is a glorified porch addition to the back of our house. It’s multifunctional–part laundry room, part guest bath, part coat storage, part junk room, part entryway. Yep, the worst part of this room is because of the way our driveway is currently set up, all our guests come to our back door and this is the very first room they step into.

This back porch serves as a front entry.

Nothing says welcome like a shelf full of cleaning supplies.

Living in a fixer upper for the past three years, I’ve learned how to make some rooms decent enough where I wouldn’t lose my mind, without spending any money or much time. That’s what I did with this room while we focused on the kitchen and bathrooms and ceilings in the rest of the house.

This room has been a temporary fix and knowing when and how to use a temporary fix can be really helpful to our sanity. But you also have to know when a temporary fix has run its course.

Here’s what the space looked like when we moved in and were tearing apart the kitchen:

And then it got worse….

Here’s why…

All that lovely wood, right?! It actually was lovely–it’s 12 inch pine that was harvested by the man who built this house, there was a sawmill on the property here (we’re outside Charlotte, NC) and he milled all the wood himself right outside that back door.

When we moved in, the entire downstairs had this same 12 inch pine on the floors except for the kitchen, so we sacrificed some of the wood on the walls in this back porch and removed it and installed it on the kitchen floor. We replaced the planking, but since we couldn’t match the wood plus, the room was super dark, we painted it all white.

 

Here’s my not to scale overhead drawing of the entire space–it’s a rectangle space but with the bathroom in the corner the main part of the room is L shaped.

But don’t worry, we still have a lot of wood around, there’s also a bathroom back here and it’s all cedar!

We haven’t touched this bathroom since we moved in, it’s the last one in the house to get any attention and does it ever need it–and y’all this is the bathroom all our guests have to use! Dear every guest we’ve had in the past 3.5 years, I’m so sorry.

We’ll be keeping this room simple and no worries, those cedar walls aren’t going anywhere.

Why?

And here’s a little glimpse of the direction I’m headed, I’ll share the full design board next week.

chandelier // artwork

Want to keep in touch and not have to exert so much precious energy clicking over here every Wednesday for the next 6 weeks to follow along with this room’s progress? I’ll make it so easy–just sign up below and I promise to keep you posted, plus, you’ll have instant access to the Furniture Shopping Guide.

Now you’ll want to take some time and check out the other bloggers in the One Room Challenge:

 

Centsational Girl | Chris Loves Julia | Christine Dovey | Dwell With Dignity | The English Room Glitter Guide | House of Brinson | House Updated  | J+J Design Group | Lark & Linen | Abby Manchesky Nesting Place | Old Brand New | Old Home Love | The Pink Pagoda | Rambling Renovators  Erica Reitman | Sketch 42 | Suburban B’s | Erin Williamson

Media Partner House Beautiful | TM by CIH

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