Hi there and welcome back to week four of the One Room Challenge! This week’s for the first floor! As as reminder, for this year’s One Room Challenge, I am doing a surprise whole house renovation for my mom who is moving to North Carolina and doesn’t read my blog frequently. This week in the Coastal Grandmother’s Cottage, I’ve been spiraling around the first floor like a little hamster on a wheel. So much progress was made that I almost forgot to update you all this week. Here’s what’s gotten done:
Living Room Progress in Week 4
Demoed the bookshelves in the living room: The mood board for the living room is above. I wrestled back and forth with if the living room builts-ins in the original living room photo needed to be removed. As a reminder, built them when we lived here to provide storage and to house our large dogs when they needed to be crated. So the scale of them was quite a bit larger than necessary for a room that is so long and lean. We made the hard decision to remove them since my mom will long term value the visual open space more than the shelving. I’ll go in an add either a slimmer profile Ikea built in hack or a piece of furniture that does the work of storing dishes since this house has no formal dining.
Fill and sand all holes on the first floor: Sounds like nothing but there were so. many. little. holes. in the walls, in the trim, in the crown. So I took a little whirl through and spackled them all. You can see quite a few of the holes in the picture above. I also primed them. Every single time you spackle, you have to prime other wise you’ll get flashing when you paint the walls. Meaning, that little spot you filled? You’re gonna see it. So I filled, sanded and primed not just the first floor but the entire house.
Family Photographs: This one is a little random for a project like this but my mom has begrudged for years that we don’t have family photos of us all together. The last Christmas that I was home in Philadelphia for college, she asked for them and we were all in quite the rush. Sigh, college students. So this time, I wanted to get it right. I snagged my local siblings and an easy mood board of denim, khaki, cream and white (to match the house) while my mom was here and headed out to Historic Oak View County Park for photos. They turned out lovely. I’ve printed and framed a few of our favorites to serve as art in the living room space.
Kitchen Progress in Week 4
Clean and prime the kitchen cabinets: This one’s the biggie and will probably consume all of next week’s post when I get the chance. I finally decided, yes yes. Kitchen paint would be the vibe. The cabinets were starting to yellow after three years of white paint and quite honestly a rush job when we still lived here. This time, I am taking my sweet precious time in order to get it done correctly for the long haul. It really helps that the painting is getting done in a house we don’t live in so the dry time between coats has been a breeze. As usual, I prop the cabinets on cups to elevate them from the floors so I don’t have to use a drop cloth.
Okay there we have it for week 4! Progress has been made. Next week is definitely for paint. I’ve teamed up with a fun partner for it and it’s taken me quite some time to narrow down my choices. I can’t wait to show you. In the mean time, in between time, go check out the other folks who are bringing some real fun and love to their spaces for week four.
XO Victoria