The Finale: One Room Challenge Fall 2020

Finale is being used loosely here.

The grand finale! The big reveal!

Yeah, no.

What has been done in the last two weeks since I talked to you last? Honestly, in this room? Not much. I am not dragging my feet here. I just have a lot going on, and not a lot of resources available to do magical things overnight. There are things I was going to do in my ORC room but might just skip. I’ll tell you about that in a minute.

It’s not like an HGTV show over here.

My life is more like a Netflix comedy special, really. Sometimes I wonder if I should be like some of my design friends and just do a lot of insta stories, reels, etc etc. Maybe a regular YouTube channel to document my personal design dilemmas? Who will take time out of their day to watch my antics? I can at least write about them a little bit. Let me know what you guys think. And I probably still won’t do it. LOL.

Currently those antics involve making fun of the stupid things in this new house of mine, and lamenting the lack of tradesmen available to help me transform this into something I might be able to enjoy a little bit. Every time someone buys a 30+ year old home, they have to be prepared for some fixing up, right? But some of this is so wonky, it makes me laugh and wonder WHO DID THIS??

For example:

I think there have only been 2 owners of this house since it was built. I am not sure who decided to do what was done, but hopefully I will not go broke trying to change some of these things.

Ok, back to the finale…

WEEK ONE || WEEK TWO/ THREE || WEEK FOUR || WEEK FIVE || WEEK SIX

Or whatever we are calling this. Here’s the gist of the story: I bought a house in October, two weeks after the One Room Challenge started. Mind you, I NEVER SAW THE HOUSE before buying it because it is in New Hampshire and we were in California. WHAT?? Yeah. Who does that? The most expensive thing I ever bought in my life and I didn’t even walk through it before making an offer.

We saw it online, sent some local friends to look at it, and then I reached out to my old friend Joe Leddy from the Bean Group in NH to be my buying agent to make sure this was going to go well. He made sure this transaction went smoothly and quickly, and kept checking on my sanity (which is quite questionable). And now here we are.

Oh, and while I was still in CA, I decided to sign up for the One Room Challenge and I was just going to make over one of the bedrooms on the second floor that one of my daughters could use when visiting, like I did for last year’s Project Coast to Coast.

Before

After buying the house, I walked through it and decided to throw that idea out the window and do something else completely! So I started this challenge behind schedule and with two weeks lost, I had no idea what I was going to do after all. I looked at this room and decided it will become an office just for me. The official Christine Kohut Interiors office. I felt so fancy!

This first floor room was used as a bedroom by the previous owners.

This is what it looked like when I moved in:

Honestly, out of all the rooms in this house, this one was probably the only one that had a color I could’ve worked with. It’s (well it WAS) a pretty shade of gray-blue. Oh well, bye bye.

I had this velvet flocked wallpaper to use and I am still laughing at myself for choosing it. While I guess I’ve been known for color, pattern and texture in my work, my own spaces are usually quite simple. At least in my mind.

Since I was planning to use the wallpaper in one of the girls’ bedrooms, I had in my head that my own office was going to be WHITE. I know, can you believe it?? I seriously was so distracted, stressed, and overwhelmed by everything that was happening in my life, that in one split second decision, I was like, whatever, let’s put that in the office. There are the boxes of it, on that chair in the corner, the night I decided to make this an office.

And I got it installed before I could change my mind.

After

And now I’m sitting in here writing this, looking around and thinking this looks pretty fun. The velvety finish on the wallpaper changes in the light, so sometimes it looks really green and sometimes it looks almost black. I think that it’s neat to see it change throughout the day.

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But not really the finale

It’s not really the finale because I still have to hang more stuff up on the walls. I have the amazing photograph of Dave Grohl, that I talked about near the end of my last post HERE. Guess what? It’s at the framers and they said it will be FOUR TO SIX WEEKS until it’s ready. Story of my life, and everyone else’s in 2020, right?

The entire One Room Challenge is normally only six weeks from start to finish. This is actually week seven (or maybe eight, I’ve seriously lost count) and I have to wait another four to six weeks to get the art that will go over the bar cart. Thanks 2020!

It will be the first thing you see when you walk into the room.

I’ve collected a bunch of cool bar carts for you here.

Unless I change my mind when I actually get the thing. Which is why I haven’t put up this big ol’ mirror I’ve had in my life since I last lived in NH. My parents got it for me at a yard sale sometime around 1995 or 96 and it’s all banged up and imperfect but I still love it.

I plan to hang it on that wall and stick a removable magnetic dry erase board on it. That way I can use it to create mood boards and write notes. I can then pop the board off the mirror and take it with me (whenever I’m going to get to see clients in person again). But for now, it’s sitting on the floor. I look at it from my desk chair and I can see my butt on the seat and my shoes. That’s attractive. Sigh. I have the picture hooks sitting next to me and might hang it after I finish this post because that is just NOT pretty to look at.

If you noticed, the house came with a blue cushion in the window seat. I complained talked about this before, but I just couldn’t find anyone to sew a new cushion cover for it, and to be honest, I don’t feel like spending that much more money in here. Yet, I still hated it, so I threw a super soft sheepskin rug on it. My dog has decided it’s his favorite place, and he rests his head on the pillows and watches the critters outside.

That works, right?

Is it cheating? I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s checked off my to do list, and I’m on to the next thing. Like finding the perfect spot for my pencils.

If you can remember the beginning of this mega long post, I had some black metal and gray wood shelves sitting in the before pic. They were from Project Coast to Coast. I used them here with the lamps on top, and they work fine for now, but eventually I think I will get nicer looking storage after I spend all my money on other, more pertinent parts of the house. Like my leaking sink in my bathroom and the toilet that won’t stop running. Mine have three shelves, but THESE are similar.

I got the blue chairs as part of my sponsored post I shared last week, HERE.

I think they are perfect for clients who come to my office (someday post-pandemic), and for my besties to sit when we need a private place to chat and have a cocktail (hence the bar cart).

For the closet, I stuck a rolling shelving unit I had bought for my temporary living space in NJ (when I sold my house and had to rent for a year before I could move to CA). I jammed a bunch of supplies, including paint, wallpaper and fabric books into the crappy closet for now. I am debating what to actually do in there. I might set up a big shelving unit to house all the big work stuff in the basement (the door is right outside my office). That way I can keep this office neat and organized and not filled to the gills. So for now, I’m just gonna close this door and check this off.

Speaking of the closet door. I was so distracted I forgot to check on the gorgeous handle that Belwith Keeler is sending to me. It was delayed and never arrived. (SURPRISE!! F U 2020!) Even though it’s not in this finale post, it’s now en route so check back or follow my instagram account to see that when it gets installed (as well as all sorts of good stuff).

Finale Shminale

So, as you can see my ORC finale is not really finished, but I’m ok with it so far. I will finish up the odds and ends and may edit this post down the line. I have been spending time in here every day, getting my business ready for 2021.

That being said, how did I do with this finale? Are you let down that I’m not “officially” done? What is your favorite part?

I know this post was long, so if you’re just scrolling and skimming, here are a couple of before and after shots:

Looking ahead

Now that this finale is finally behind me, I have to start working out the plans for the rest of this house. The outside needs just as much, if not more work than the inside, so I will be very busy for a long time. I am also getting excited for 2021 and what kind of clients and projects I will be working on. Things are changing here at Christine Kohut Interiors and I now that I have a home base set up, I AM READY.

I hope you enjoy reading about my One Room Challenges. I am thinking that if I do it for the spring 2021 season, I will do client project like I did with Project Shut the Front Door and Project Get Clean. Let me know if you think you have a project that might work next spring!

You can catch up on the other ORC guest participants and the 20 featured participants. Better Homes and Gardens is the media sponsor for the One Room Challenge.

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