late to the party – guest room – one room challenge

Well, hello friends!  I feel a little like Adele at the moment…..hello from the other side!   The other side of Hurricane Matthew that is.   Last week was um, in a word, hectic.  The hubs and I started our week with a trip to Disney World for the Epcot Food and Wine Festival and ended the week evacuating from our Charleston, SC area home and hunkering down in a cabin near Lake Keowee.  It was a week filled with all the emotions as we sat helpless praying and hoping for the best.  I’m happy to report that we came home to a house unscathed, but my heart is so heavy for those that suffered such great loss.  So many of you reached out to check in on me and my family, and I’m so grateful to have been in your thoughts and prayers.   From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

I had planned to post about my plans to join the One Room Challenge as a guest participant last week when the challenge started. (For those that aren’t familiar with the One Room Challenge, it’s a six week design challenge in which you completely makeover a room in your home.)  But truth be told, after having to evacuate my home, I wasn’t exactly sure I was going to have a house, let alone a room to makeover once the storm had passed through.  So please excuse my tardiness to the party.  I’m more than fashionably late as we’re already in to week two.  Hopefully I can still use this challenge as the kick in the pants I need to get going on our guest room.  It definitely needs a little love.

The Backstory

Let me back it up to last year before we moved in to this house.  This is how the room looked on the MLS listing.

After moving in, the hubs and I decided that this room would be my son’s room.  We thought it made perfect sense for our kids to take the bedrooms that shared a jack and jill bathroom.  This was the first room I painted in the house.  I chose a neutral color for the walls, Sherwin Williams Shoji White.

After living with this situation for almost a full year, we’ve decided to move my son into what was the guest room.  It’s a larger bedroom with it’s own bathroom.  It just seems silly to leave the larger room basically unused the majority of the time.  Plus with having a boy and girl getting closer to their teen years it makes more sense for them to have their own bathrooms.  When guests do come to visit they’ll have a decent sized bedroom and will share a bathroom with my daughter.

The New Guest Room – Before

So now that I’ve moved all of my son’s belongings out of this room, I’m ready to give our new guest room a little love.  Right now it’s just a hodge podge of what we already had around the house.  I’m planning to keep most of the furniture but will be changing the accessories and bedding.

The truly scary part of this challenge is that I’ve not yet figured out a design plan.  This is why I chose to do this challenge, and why I picked this room to makeover.  I have such a hard time designing guest rooms.  It’s difficult for me to decorate a space that will be used by so many different people.  I want all who stay with us to feel comfortable.

So wish me luck!  This could be a total flop, but hopefully the challenge will be the motivation I need to get this room done!

Since I missed last week, I’ll be sharing another update on this space on Thursday.  Check out all the other crazy people that have signed up for this challenge right here.