One Room Challenge -Week 3 – Anyone Else Starting to Panic?

Well, just like that week 1 and 2 of the One Room Challenge are behind us!! If you missed our first and second blog post of the challenge, check it out here for week one and here for week two.

It was so inspiring to see all the other guest participants designs and of course the featured designers, as well. Be sure to have a look on the One Room Challenge (ORC) Blog site to see all the amazing projects going on.

It really is so crazy how quickly time flies by, especially when you need it to slow down. I feel like this happens all the time with my kiddos too, everything please stop moving at lightning speed…Week 2…gone in a snap!! I have to be completely honest and say that I am already behind on my schedule. Which of course is totally freaking me out. I’m trying very hard to not panic and just keep moving, but I’m sure as many of you know life just keeps going even when we have things we really want to get done. Just keep swimming…just keep swimming!

Alright, so lets talk Week 2 and what has been accomplished…This always makes me feel better! 😉

1. The best part of my week by far, was having my amazing Best-Friend and partner-in-crime come up, which p.s…is a few states away and help me make some big final decisions that I have been struggling with. I tried to get her to do some of the hard-lifting work as well, but she chose to drink coffee and watch me instead…Oh well, I guess I’ll settle for all the behind the scene work she does. I’ll stick with the Hammer while she sticks with the Coding! 😉  Without her, all the blog posts would only include emoji faces, explanation marks and so many SO’s…Lol!!  First, on our list was choosing an accent color. This has been really hard for me to nail down. There are so many amazing choices. I’m pretty sure the lady at Benjamin Moore doesn’t know if she hates me or loves me…hehe…Life decisions over here guys! I think we finally got it though. I picked my favorite color and she picked hers…shockingly they were the same color. Boom one thing done!
2. Ceiling painted…What’s that you say??? You can’t tell…right! Ugh, it’s suppose to have a subtle hint of green to it. I think I went a little to subtle, figures…Who doesn’t love painting ceilings? OMG…ME! Good news is you can’t see my patch holes at all from where I installed the wire and light fixture box. So, the paint might have to be redone. Who am I kidding, that has to be redone!
3. Hardest task this week was installing the floors. They gave me a run for my money in more ways than one. Read my “what I learned this week” to hear all about my do’s and don’ts. I choose wide planked luxury vinyl flooring in Silver Oak Mist that match the rest of the flooring in my house.
4. Design and Supplies selected for Built-In Desk
5. That’s it guys! 😉

I thought something that might be fun to add to each post is “What Did I Learn This Week”. This way maybe I could spare someone some of the pain I suffered.

What I Learned This Week

• When installing Pergo (Laminate) flooring, your first row should start with the tongue side facing the wall. You obviously want to rip the tongue part off when putting it against the wall, but I started with the grove and apparently it really matters. Each and every board was such a struggle to get in, which has never happened to me before and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. I even called in the big guns, my contractor and he told me right away what was going on. Once I knew it was too late to start over, so I just had to add a lot more elbow grease and let me tell you my hands are so mad at me now…lesson learned. It’s all in now and that’s all that really matters. Hope this helps you not make the same mistake.
• Measure twice, cut once. Sometimes no matter how many times I measure, things just don’t come out right. I’m a little dyslexic and numbers and visuals really show up backwards. I cut this same board three times, yes three the wrong way each time, the same way each time, so that’s really a skill if you ask me. What I learned from this, is it’s really okay to step away for a little bit and sometimes it is necessary. I’m always so eager to get things done when I get started and don’t want to stop, but sometimes you just need a mental or physical break and thats really OKAY. For this cut, after three mistakes I got in my car went to my favorite place, Starbucks and felt like I need a reward, obviously not for doing a good job or being perfect, but for trying. I always tell my kids that! It’s about time I listen to my own advice. So after a nice cup of coffee, which really solves everything I tried again and Boom…perfect, just like that…#winning..Forth time must really be the charm!
• Always, always buy extra material. I was trying to be stingy because my Dad aka my husband is breathing down my back about how much money I am spending on MY room. So, I thought when ordering flooring I would just get enough. Well, as you can see from the advice right before this, mistakes happen no matter how hard or prepared you are. I was two, that’s right TWO boards short when finishing my flooring. If that isn’t a pain in the you know what…I don’t know what is. Of course, none of the stores had any boxes, which leads to so many other problems. So buy, expecting to make some mistakes.

Okay, now let’s talk about Week 3 and what’s to come.

• DIY Barn Door -Built and hopefully hung
• Trim work for Flooring installed
• Start of Built-in-Desk
• Possible, ceiling painting again (not convinced on the color just yet)

That’s all guys. I got a lot to get done, so I better get to work…Thanks for following along, we love all the support!

Just a quick photo recap of where we started on week ONE before we go, this always always makes me feel better :

Week Two:

Jessie & Jen