One Room Challenge Week One | Blackboard Jungle Room

First, I hope ORC appreciates the fact that I built this website purely for this challenge. Second, I really hope I can keep up with it. Anyway, I am really excited about this challenge this year because this year I am prepared. Last year I attempted to do my living room with 2 toddlers and no prep work. Let's just say it did not end well. This year I am redoing my dining room. For a very long time it was white and housed only a table and chairs, but this year I started to go out on a limb and start experimenting with color again. This week I will break down my planning. Budgeting was hard just because the prices kept changing on the stuff I needed....I DID MY BEST.

The Space

My dining room was originally a Florida room, and for those of you not familiar with it, it is a room that was on the back part of the house, usually a lower ceiling height than the rest of the house and surrounded by windows. It was supposed to bring the outside in without all of the heat and bugs. My husband renovated the house before we met and left only two windows. TWO. Now it looks more like a den, but I can work with that.

The Vibe

I am a graphic designer by trade, but it comes secondary to being a mum. Which means I don't have as much time as I used to. I decided to give Spoak a try and learn a few things about design while trying to figure out what I wanted for this space. Now this is not a sponsored post, but I will say I have found it to be a helpful tool for me when I have a million ideas bouncing around on Pinterest. I currently have this wallpaper by Jungalow on half of my walls and want to bring it to the floor.

I want it to be as eclectic as I am with a mix of vintage items, plants, and art. I don't want to lose the warmth in the space but I do want to drop some color bombs. I want it to feel like a moody life sized terrarium.

The Plan

I know the space is small, but trust me my husband crammed way more stuff in here in his bachelor days and still managed to have room to walk around. But for the sake of my sanity, I sketched up a floor plan (also in Spoak). I wanted a built-in to house not only my husband's books, but be a space for all my propagated cuttings and table top plants. I wanted new lighting, window treatment, a new table base that felt more structurally sound, and a plant throne. With only eight weeks to do it all, I am hoping I don't have too many hiccups along the way that keep me from finishing (yes T.S. Ian, I am talking about you. Just dissipate.)

The Color

The primary color in here is Behr's Black Mocha, which is on the warmer side of black in the Behr line. The secondary color is tiger orange which is all over the wallpaper, and then I want to pull accent colors from the wallpaper with a focus on this electric blue complimenting the orange in the room.

I plan to DIY a lot of the stuff in this room, but any items I do purchase will be thrifted items or on sale. Everything else will hopefully be pulled from the stash I have in the back room, keeping my costs down.

So expect to see a blog post every Wednesday as this is when each week starts. But be sure to check out my instagram stories for progress reports! What's your verdict? Do you think I will be able to complete everything (the odds are stacked against me at the moment because my kids seem to always be sick! pray for me).