One Room Challenge Week 1: The Loft Family Room Makeover

The Loft Family Room MakeoverOh my goodness, for all the pre-planing and contemplation- life has me late to the party again! For the next six weeks I’m jumping in with the One Room Challenge- (which launched Wednesday… hey there Friday)- to make over a room of my choice and share with you all the good, the bad, and the pretty! Don’t worry- I think it will be well worth all of our time. In fact I know it will. I’ve decided to finish our loft/bonus room/ currently all of our leftover furniture space. This is a room I haven’t shared on the blog since it looked like this…

Well there was the one time I shared a corner of it as a part of my confessions of an honest mom/blogger… complete with the fake Christmas Tree sitting at the top of our stairs in mid- march.

This room is part of the second floor in our addition, which we built from the ground up. We had dreams for making it a cottage style library/loft/cozy games room. However, it has sat as a hodge podge with a pile of trim ready to go up for the last few years…

How does the saying go… the last 10% is the hardest to finish? Well it’s true! We have been working on finishing for a long while, even though we swore we wouldn’t move in until every last piece of trim was filled and painted. Of course, life happened, we needed the space, and didn’t have the time.

I ran upstairs and snapped a few cell phone photos of the room today…

It’s bad guys….I thought about choosing our bedroom as part of the ORC- I was a little afraid of the work waiting for us in this room. But I talked to Matt, and we both agreed that we need a kickstart to get this space functional and finished. I don’t have a big beautiful style board for you today- hopefully that will come next week! But I do have a quick sketch I put together with the plan.

This room is approximately 10×20 feet. So it’s long and a bit narrow. While we initially planned to put in floor to ceiling bookshelves and have a “library” feel to the loft- after living here for a while we’ve decided that it makes sense to put our tv up there. I still want an open area for my kids to spread out with their toys- as we keep pretty much all toys on the second floor- mostly in the boys room (which I tackled in the last ORC) but they do occasionally spill out into the loft.

We also want a table for puzzles and games, as well as some seating that can serve multiple purposes. A huge factor is storage for all of our board games and books.

Here’s what I know this room will include- an IKEA Hack, reupholstery, maybe a slipcover or two, and some DIY furniture. It will also incorporate some simple, cottage and coastal design elements that flow throughout our home. A huge job, which I have been avoiding is painting/staining the remainder of the pine “shiplap.” I’m about to get really up close and personal with that pine again… wish me luck!

Here are a few bits and pieces pulled together for inspiration.

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This drop  leaf table is about the only piece of furniture I know I will surely be using as the games/puzzle table. I also have 4 french chairs I am planning to reupholster with a mix of ticking and perhaps some linen. Other than that- I will be on the hunt to score some deals, and possibly repurpose other furniture from the rest of our home. Wish me luck!

One Room Challenge Recap: Every week 20 designers will be sharing their progress over at Calling It Home. I’ll be joining the guest participants over at Calling it Home every Thursday! Today is week 1, so that gives me 5 weeks to get this room into shape!

-Miss ash