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I'm so excited to finally share with you my plans for the One Room Challenge! I hope you will follow along over the course of the next 6 weeks and see how I transform my space. In a nutshell, I will post here every Thursday with an update on the room and then on November 7th, all the guest designers will reveal their spaces. The 20 featured designers post on Wednesdays and there are some realllllly good ones this time so make sure to catch them too. You are going to be blown away by the talent behind these rooms. Chances are, you follow someone participating in the Fall 2019 ORC-- so support them, cheer them on, pay attention, because it's a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money! ha!
Just a little background in case you are new around here: my husband and I and our three kids moved from Iowa to Florida this summer to follow our dreams. He worked as an engineer for 10 years, I was a part-time interior decorator working with clients and together we did flips on the side in the Des Moines area. To make a VERY long story short: we had a dream of working together and gaining more margin in our lives by being our own bosses. We couldn't afford for Jared to quit his job unless we did something crazy-- so we did! In May he quit, we took our life savings and we moved to a part of Florida that is close to our hearts to live our dream. Why Florida? Because there was this teeny tiny (literally) thing called a "free" house here that we could live in while we got on our feet in a brand new place, AKA, my mom's 700 SF vacation cottage. And the fact that it's two blocks from the ocean might have also been a factor ;) We launched our online shop, Coco & VIv, two months ago and we have been working hard and taking on odd jobs ever since. Uber anyone? It's a dream, and though it's scary it's also incredibly fun.
OK, enough about that, LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE!!
Now that you know how we came to live in what I refer to as "my mom's vacation cottage", everything I'm about to say will make a lot more sense. When we first moved here in June-- I swapped out some of my mom's stuff for my own but left all of her main furniture pieces. I styled the space with things I already owned, added plants and called it good-- for the time-being. The meld of our designs was cute but still more boho than my true style. I decided I wanted to take the space to a more modern and glam place and that's what this design is all about. Of course, I will be incorporating plenty of tropical and whimsical elements along the way.
Here's a photo of the house the day we moved in:
My mom had it decorated in a cute Nautical style but since I knew living in such a small space with kids would be hard enough as it is, I really wanted to make it feel like "ours". She gave the okay as long as I put everything back when we moved, and that's what I plan to do.
Here was the space a few weeks later once I got my stuff in there. This is all stuff that was already here or is from our previous house-- except Viv, my favorite pet Leopard.
And if you are wondering what the other side of the room looked like at this point, just imagine a hot mess complete with random hooks, outlets and one (yes, one!) strip of wallpaper on the wall as I prepare to redo this space.
So without further ado, here is my concept for the space:
You may recognize the rugs and sofa from our last house (the green sofa is making a comeback, baby!!) but with a new and improved "Miami" flair. I want the space to be several things: lux, glam, art deco, tropical, modern, Palm Beach preppy, graphic and colorful. That is a lot to achieve with one look but I think I can do it. It seriously helped that I came up with this concept of my personal interior style so I can reference it when making decisions and asking myself "but is this really me?". I highly recommend taking the time to do something similar.
I've been showing you sneak peaks of this palm wallpaper on IG for awhile now. It's going to go over a huge central wall that spans the entire cottage. That wall is also the wall opposite the sofa where the TV is. I'll be jazzing up that side of the house in a big way starting with a gorgeous piece I found on Marketplace with curved drawers and maple bird's eye wood details. The piece in the moodboard is just representative so you will have to stay tuned to see it IRL :) The wall decor above the TV is representative of a gorgeous giant brass "fan" I found and am hoping to hang above the TV. However, I want to see how the room comes together before I make a final decision on that.
One of the main concepts for the space is bringing in some Art Deco inspired pieces. Art Deco design has a lot of curves and I was SO excited to find two Milo Baughman designed pieces for a steal on Let Go and Craigslist. First, the brass coffee table (which doubles as a sculptural piece as each circle pivots) is SO cool! And the upholstered chair in the corner is a show stopper. The chair is vintage, so again, this black chair is just representative of what I will be doing once it's recovered. But think curves on curves, black velvet and fringe.
The focal-point of the room will be the neon sign I custom-ordered for the cedar wall. We are essentially living in a rental so the wall has to stay as is. It brings some interest but also makes the room feel more dark and rustic than I would normally lean toward. To counteract that, I'm packing a punch with a faux "live" plant wall and a big neon sign.
Something like this lovely inspo:
The sign will actually say something totally different than what's in the moodboard but you'll have to wait to see that too ;)
Of course, in true Rachel fashion, I'll be bringing in tons of pattern and glitz and glam. There's a lot happening that's not depicted here but it wouldn't be fun if I told you everything up front, now would it?? And truth be told, there's still several details that I haven't figured out yet-- heaven help me!
So what do you think? It's everything I love wrapped up into one design and I'm so excited! I hope you follow along and that you check out some of the other designers participating in the Fall ORC. See you next Thursday right back here! And for more constant updates-- follow me on IG at @serene.and.co for lots more details and shenanigans.
Thank you to Better Homes and Gardens for featuring this event-- I'll always love you guys the most since you are from my hometown! And to Linda of The One Room Challenge for all of her hard work at organizing this crazy cool thing! Make sure you head to this blog post to see all of the other super talented guest designers and read about their plans, and this post to see what the featured designers are up to this week.
xoxo,
Rachel