One Room Challenge Week 1: The Before

The One Room Challenge: Spring 2017 has commenced! If you haven’t obsessed over all the bloggers who have participated in the past, here’s the quick recap: Over six weeks, 20 sponsored bloggers redecorate an entire room and post each week on their progress, design inspiration, and setbacks.

one room challenge logo

We’ll be doing our own one room challenge over here as I attempt to freshen up my deck. The deck currently is a little cute, a little awkward, and a little bit storage all depending on where you look. On it’s VERY BEST day it can look like this:

Deck before photo

But, turn around and it looks like this:

Deck typical photo

See that awkward area and blank wall? And what’s going on with those spare boards? Since it’s so rare to get so much outdoor space as a renter in the LA area, I feel like I really need to take advantage of every square inch.

Deck typical photo

The current layout lacks a few main things:

  1. Seating: We can currently only fit whoever squishes on the picnic table. That’s usually four-to-six people.
  2. Activities: While we are usually up there to BBQ, there is currently no games or entertainment while you are waiting for the goods.
  3. Personality and color: While there a few pieces that show some style it is mainly a tan-ish rectangle without much charm.

Thankfully the string lights and awning—the hardest parts!—went up last summer so I won’t need to add those. Wish me luck and check back each Thursday for the next few weeks to see updates!

You can follow along with all the participants with @OneRoomChallenge and #OneRoomChallenge and read all about it at Calling It Home.

See what our fellow guest participants are up to at the link up.

Deck typical photo

Share:

More Posts

Attaching a wood fence to a chainlink fence

As I mentioned in my last fence/gate update post, I helped Erika attach a wood fence to the chainlink fence in her backyard. The process was similar to when I converted a chainlink fence to a wood fence, except in this case, we left the chainlink fence intact. This method is a good option if you want to add a little more privacy to your yard or camouflage a chainlink fence while you wait to save up for a completely new fence. 

Gift Guide: Indoorsy

Struggling to find gift ideas for your favorite people? We’ve got you covered with our And Then We Tried gift guide! First up: your friends and family who are decidedly indoorsy. While we can’t claim to be experts on much, things to buy people who like to stay inside is definitely in our wheelhouse.

and then we tried obsessions 10.19.18

Obsessions: 10.19.18

You wanna know what we have been decidedly NOT obsessed with in the past month? The blog. Womp womp. We’re hopping back in this week, but we’ll be posting a bit more sporadically for a while. Here’s hoping you all loved getting caught up on Michelle’s driveway gate plans yesterday. See what else we’ve been obsessed with in this week’s And Then We Tried Obsessions.

Fence Updates and Two-Panel Wood Driveway Gate Plans

Hellooooo, I’m thinking about fences again! You all had the pleasure of following along as I moved and rebuilt the fence in my backyard and then converted a chainlink fence into a wood fence along my driveway, and now it’s finally time to build that driveway gate. Of course, I can’t just build a driveway gate and leave it at that, I’ve also decided to cap the entire fence to cover up the dogear pickets and give everything a cleaner and more finished look. HOORAY!