The good folks at One Room Challenge #BHGORC warned us that Week 4 tends to be the hardest of all the weeks. They were not kidding! We all barely survived the flu at our house this last week. It has been years since I had the barfs and this round was brutal. I’ll spare you the details, but you can imagine that working on the room fell down on the priority list. We did get some work done though and I am pleased at our progress, despite our setbacks.

I also felt like Week 4 was a good representation of real life because not only did we get sick, but I also slowed down my spending. It may be taboo to talk money in this challenge, but I am going to be real. Making changes in your home is not cheap, and like most renovations, budgets start to slip as visions and dollars don’t align. I returned a few items and started to think about things I could sell so I could supplement the costs.

I wish that I had a never-ending flow of cash to create, but I believe it is in our limitations that innovation emerges. In my book Making Room: How to Create Soul and Style in Your Home, I encourage everyone to create beauty in their home with whatever budget or knowledge they have. When we plan and work, the things we need manifest in different ways or we are wise enough to be grateful and patient as our homes evolve.

Here is the progress this week:

• Trim applied to about half the room. The walls aren’t straight and the corners are not 90 degrees which makes it a challenge to make the trim fit up. The Trim on the hinge side of the door meets the wall and about a half an inch had to be taken off the bottom due to the wall not being straight. Cody used a block plane to shave off the 1/2″ so that it would fit properly. It took a long time just to get one piece of trim in. One thing to always plan on with DIY is that the first time you encounter something will always take the longest because you will have to do the problem solving up front, but it will make it easier next time. And tools are so important to the different jobs you do.
• Bunk bed constructed. In my original design I wanted the beds side by side, but the size of the room is going to make it important to save space with bunk beds. Thankfully my girls are super excited about it. There are a lot of options for bunk beds and we are pleased with our choice so far. Below are some of the styles and colors that I liked.

• Put Beddy’s (affiliate link) bedding on. We are super excited about how well they fit for a bunk bed. I will be sharing more details in a post just about the bedding.
• Put prints into frames. One of my favorite parts of decorating my home is choosing art. Art can tell stories and bring us so much beauty. I am excited to share with you the art that I chose.
• I did find window treatments and a few other accessories this week for the room as well.

Next Week:

Next week we plan to finish putting in all the trim, any touch-up painting, and installing the canopy for the reading area. I am also hoping that our windows will be installed. I got a call from Renewal by Anderson about the windows coming to the warehouse, so I think that means we are close.

Until next week!

Lucy

Check out the progress of all the participants here!