The One Room Challenge officially kicked off yesterday and today all the rest of the participants are linking up to talk about their big plans for the upcoming weeks. This will be my first time to participate, and I can hardly wait to get started.

For those not familiar with the ORC, it’s a six-week series where designers and bloggers post weekly updates as they redo a room from top to bottom. It’s a great motivator to get a project finished, for sure.

THE ROOM

At our house, I’ve been planning on updating our family room. It’s been a few years since we repainted and it’s overall functioned pretty well for us. But with Jude getting older and having friends over, plus the addition of Archer, etc., we’ve needed more seating.

(As an aside, I’ve gotten many questions over the years about that cream leather Henredon sofa we purchased. It’s held up beautifully despite its light color thanks to frequent conditioning and occasional scrubs with baby wipes. )

The family room is open into the kitchen, which I love. But thanks to that enormous window, it gets a little tricky to arrange furniture in there. Everything is juuuuust slightly off center. The window also means the TV can only go on the huge empty wall.

Let us not even get started on the discussion about how the whole room has to center around the TV. Le sigh.

The IKEA hack shelves had to go when I started babyproofing (hello, boy who climbs EVERYTHING).  And the poor Madeline Weinrib rug has seen better days, sadly enough (remember this? OMG). It’s time to update, not to mention make it bulletproof. And I mean bulletproof as in kidproof.

The TV wire-and-cord situation is out of control. I’m hoping my brother can help me corral it once and for all. How is it 2016 and we still have a tumbleweed of cords to contend with?

It’s really tough to figure out how to balance out that long empty wall. I’ve done a gallery install which I like, but I want it to feel just a smidge more grown-up.  The campaign dresser is on its last leg; when I bought it three years ago off of Etsy, it arrived severely damaged and it was a total debacle. I didn’t want to send it back because the Etsy shop I bought it from had such a long waiting list for painted campaigners, and I’d already waited 5 months or so. It was a custom color, and in my frustration I was like ‘screw it, we’re going to keep it.’

I still love the bright white walls, so I’m not planning on painting. It’s still so fresh to me and I’m glad we did it.

I’m also wanting to do a big waterfall console that’s wider than the current dresser — I don’t like that the TV is basically the same size as the dresser underneath. It’s … wonky.

Gotta love that Rody’s hanging out there on the rug.

THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE PLAN

The goals are this: more seating/lounge space, color (ha – always!), and for it to reflect a little more grown-up style.

This is just a sneak peek of what’s to come, but I’m really excited about the direction this is heading. I’m especially in love with Annie Selke’s Dash & Albert Regatta Stripe rug as it was the piece that inspired the whole space. Simon’s eyes lit up when he saw it and I was like “Welp, that decides it!”  We’re also doing a large sectional from Rowe in fabric from Crypton (more on this in coming weeks! Can you guess from the photos above what design direction I’m heading?).

There’s too many good products to list, but I’m especially a fan of their fleece blankets (errrbody is getting one for Christmas) and the indoor/outdoor pillows.

Of course, nobody makes striped rugs as good as Annie Selke’s Dash & Albert. The hardest part is picking your favorite stripe. Hop over to their site and request a copy here of their new catalog!

Special thanks to my ORC partners: Crypton // Rowe  // Annie Selke // Liven Up Design

Ok, that does it for week 1! Come back next week to see the progress. And just in time — the bottom drawer of the campaign dresser literally fell apart yesterday.