{This is actually LAST weeks One Room Challenge Post (WEEK TWO), but with a major eye injury and subsequent vision issues, typing this post out fell down my priority list. BUT, here it is! AND after much babying, my eye is doing much better. I’ll save the whole eye saga for tomorrow’s post where I will catch you up on what should be WEEK THREE of the #ORC.}
Today I want to show you the BEFORE photos of my One Room Challenge Space. But first, you’ll need to learn a little bit more about why I chose this space to tackle.
So, lets start at the beginning.
When we moved into our fixer upper the whole top two floors of our home were gutted. I’m talking plywood floors and absolutely no kitchen to speak of. Every box and most pieces of furniture went right down to our basement level, the one part of our home that wasn’t getting an immediate makeover.
Since the basement has remained out of sight and out of mind it truthfully has become a dumping ground for all old furniture and unfinished projects. We have lofty plans for our lower level, but for now, after renovating a lot of the rest of the house, the purse strings are tight.
However, limitations have never really stopped me.
That’s why I knew right away that I needed to finally tackle part of our basement for this spring’s One Room Challenge. It’s Spring after all and we could all use some spring cleaning and organizing in our lives, AND, I do desperately need a little part of our home that I can escape to to work on myself!! No half finished projects allowed.
Half of our basement was finished in the 70’s and the other half is full of storage. Think Christmas containers and boxes of books I can’t throw out because what if I want to read “that Introduction to Psychology” text book from College again, right? The part of our basement that is half finished was split into two areas. Which we have figured the previous owners used as a granny suite.
Here it is in all it’s mustard glory.
It is a long and narrow space with a small counter and sink, meant to be a main living area for someone. The room beside it was once a petite bedroom and is the room I will be tackling.
The space is 15 by 10 and has held all of my crafting supplies and general junk for the last year. It has a huge closet that I filled with stand up bins that hold anything from coloured buttons, to gift wrap and everything in between. More often than not though, the contents of that closet have spilled out around the room when we have worked on projects around the house. But all of that is about to change.
This space is generally unused but has SO much potential.
It is bad though right?? Just look at all of that cast away furniture! And the junk piles!
These before photos might just be the most embarrassing we have ever shown here, because it is our actual messes. Not just an ugly room we are going to attempt to make pretty. I’m glad we are friends here though and you wont judge me for my pillow hoarding. 😉
First thing was first and all the junk from this room had to be organized. It took a few late nights but I finally cleared out that overflowing closet and found a spot for our vast crafting supplies.
I moved out all the furniture using all of my might last week and then collapsed momentarily to survey the empty space.
Once I had sighed and grunted and maneuvered all of the furniture out of the space all by my lonesome I came to the conclusion that I would continue to complete this makeover single handedly. I mean if I can move that heavy duty curial cabinet full of books on my own, then I can tackle the whole space on my own too, right? No muscle from the hand hubby required!
I mean, if I am going to complete this room on a tight budget, like I explained in my first post about revealing my One Room Project plan then I can definitely prove to you that you can complete a room makeover without the help and hiring of experts.
I’ll be sharing with you how I used all of my might to rip apart this space later this week. Spoiler alert, my arms still hurt and getting a 2 by 4 in the eye doesn’t feel good!
Have you ever tackled a renovation all by yourself?? What were the challenges you faced? How did you overcome them?
TO SEE OUR LAST ONE ROOM CHALLENGE MAKEOVER, AND HOW WE TRANSFORMED OUR SCARY MUDROOM, CHECK OUT THE PROGRESS HERE:
WEEK ONE
WEEK TWO
WEEK THREE
WEEK FOUR
WEEK FIVE
