One Room Challenge Week Eight | The Reveal

We made it! I cannot believe I am here. How is it that each week seemed to blaze by, yet this challenge felt like it took forever?! I for one am glad that I did this. With all the major setbacks I had during the last eight weeks, believe me when I say I wanted to throw in the towel after Hurricane Ian. By the grace of God, I persevered and I truly am proud of what I was able to accomplish even if it isn't perfect. Anyway, I will not ramble on because I know what you came for. Let's do a quick recap of where we started with the One Room Challenge.

Before

Remember this? At one point I was totally okay with this room looking like this! Can you believe it? We gave this room a lot of love, starting with bringing wallpaper to the floor, making a brand new light fixture, painting the ceiling, building two bookcases, revamping some chairs.

Inspiration

I deviated from the design slightly, but over all I am so glad I used Spoak! Mapping everything out like this gave me direction and confidence when I needed to change a decision on the fly. Here are some things I did along the way! Below, I started off with basic bookshelves and a light fixture I wasn't entirely happy with.

Here, I added arches to the bookcases, redid my light fixture and left off the woven basket. The arches really took the shelves to the next level, and I was pleasantly surprised by the gold inside of the paper mache.

Styling

I enlisted the help of my sister on IG live, and she walked me through the process of styling bookshelves and other surfaces. If you missed it, you can view that in my feed!

I tried to squeeze as much of my style and life into these shelves without it getting crowded. The bottoms shelves will have some type of storage, but I couldn't find anything that matched the depth of the shelves before the challenge ended. So that will have to be saved for another post. Plants were also hard to come by due to the storm and flooding we saw over the last eight weeks. I did my best to use the ones already in my house before I purchased anything. My plant throne still needs...PLANTS.

Finally, the rug I wanted was still too pricey, and I couldn't find a replacement that was the right color, so I am okay with that not being apart of the final look. I also got inspired by Kristin Woollery and while I have every intention of buying one of her pieces, I needed something I liked to fill the photo frame that I hade for over the curio cabinet, so I decided to paint a portrait of myself in her style.

The Reveal

Lighting was not on my side as we had two days of super cloudy weather, which on the northern end of the house is fine, but just made the dining room all the more moody. ANYWAY, The moment you have all been waiting for. I present to you the Blackboard Jungle Room!

I cannot say it enough! This challenge was good for my spirit. I have often felt a dreary sense of low self esteem when it comes to what I am capable of, especially when I start comparing my style and creativity to what is mainstream. I think I was secretly unhappy with my home because it seemed to have no soul in it. But GOOD LORD, I am beaming now. And I can't believe most everything in this room was either heirlooms, thrifted, DIY'd or clearance!

Thank you again for following me on this challenge. There is definitely more to come from this chick right here. For now, I am going to enjoy the holidays with my family with maybe a few quick projects here and there, but I'll be getting myself ready for the next design challenge. XOXOXO.