ONE ROOM CHALLENGE, WEEK 1

If you’re new here, my husband and I purchased our first home (a generic, 1960’s bi-level) two years ago in Northern NJ. Little by little, I’m adding personality and style to our builder-grade home and for this Fall’s One Room Challenge™, I’m tackling my office and have a goal to furnish most of the room with Facebook Marketplace finds (see previous One Room Challenge reveals here and here).

I encourage you to sit back and follow along with a glass of vino while I dedicate nearly 98% of my free time to making over this space. The other 2% of my free time? That’s for showering and the occasional snack. Check back each week until the final reveal on November 7th!

This time last year, you could have found me sweating in the corner of our tiny master bathroom with kneepads and a respirator on while the crisp September air flowed through the studs in our newly gutted bathroom. 

But this fall, I decided to put the mortar and wet saw to the side and keep things simple (biting my tongue) and makeover my office. Since we bought our home in 2017, this room has been a reflection of the ebb and flow of how my style has evolved over time.

Starting with this from the previous owners:

To this…

We had just moved in and we had no furniture. So we went to Ikea. This, of course, was prior to my discovery of Facebook Marketplace and my own personal style. 

My first “risky” move in our home was painting these walls black. This photo has picked up quite some traction on Pinterest and although I love the black walls, the furniture is not exactly a reflection of my current style. I sold everything in this photo and am starting with a clean slate!

And embarrassingly enough, how it looks right now. Agnes it totally judging me.

It’s become a dumping ground for all of my crap and I’m so ready to clean up and create a cohesive space that’s now a true reflection of my current style: traditional modern with a hint of glam. 

But alas, a plot twist. 

This isn’t going to be an ordinary ORC. Yes, I’ll still be getting my hands dirty, and maybe lose some sleep over the perfect wallpaper/paint combo, but I have a pretty ambitious goal:

To furnish at least 75% of this room with Facebook Marketplace finds. 

Not thrift stores, not e-bay, not craigslist, not the ReStore. 

Why would I try and furnish an entire room using mostly FB Marketplace finds? 

Glad you asked. A few reasons:

• It’s the One Room Challenge, so I wanted to challenge myself to focus on sourcing items from one place, where nothing is promised and I’m relying on complete strangers within a 5-100 mile radius to list exactly what I’m looking for (or a close variation) for sale. I have a list of items that I need to search for every day (actually, every 2-3 hours) in hopes that when I hit refresh, something I’m looking for pops up. See this post for how I source furniture on MP.
• It’s much easier to go to retail or to-the-trade, but the thrill of finding quality, secondhand items at a good price seems more exciting to me. 
• MP is the world’s biggest (online) garage sale and I stumble upon tons of fabulous new items every day. I’ve had luck in the past with finding items for a fraction of what they cost at retail on MP. 

POTENTIAL (ONE ROOM) CHALLENGES

I know this won’t be all fun and games as there are definitely some challenges in designing a room solely based on what I find on marketplace. 

This isn’t a store I’m dealing with…these will be real people living their own lives. 

The control freak in me is squirming because I’ll essentially be relying on other people to:

• Sell exactly what I’m looking for (or something similar)  
• Accurately describe the item I’m looking for (which, I have found rarely is the case)
• Sell it at a reasonable price (and be willing to negotiate)
• Respond to my messages (half don’t even reply, lol)
• Be available when I’m available to pick it up (and uh…not ghost me before I arrive or send me a “sorry, this isn’t available anymore” message. It’s happened.)

Basically, the stars need to align for multiple items and with multiple strangers…over 6 weeks. 

Where’s the cabernet?!

INSPIRATION AND AESTHETIC:

Via Wendy Labrum

Via Paloma Contreras

As usual, I’d like the room to be grounded in traditional with an infusion of modern and glam elements throughout. 

Here is my current concept design:

I asked on Instagram which color I’ll be infusing throughout the space, and hinted that it’s a color I’ve never used before. Technically it’s two colors, since I’ve never used olive green in our home (but plenty of forest green), but the color I was referring to was fuchsia! Which I feel pairs beautifully with olive. 

Fun fact about fuchsia – it’s often confused with pink or purple, but it actually is 50% red and 50% blue!

I also created a visual of which items I plan to source from MP and which items will be discounted/sponsored from the amazing and generous brands I will be partnering with:

TO-DO

Over the next 6 weeks, I plan to complete the following:

• Choose the perfect paint/wallpaper combo
• Cut, install and caulk Metrie molding (the usual – crown, base, wall)
• Prep and paint the desk that I sourced on marketplace a few weeks back (this is the first and only item I found on MP for this room so far)
• Paint the ceiling, walls and trim
• Install wallpaper in molding boxes
• Install window treatments 
• Reupholster a chair for my desk 
• Hit refresh on FB MP every 11 minutes 
• Most of my time will be spent  driving all over the tri-state area to pick up items from strangers houses (this will need to happen at least 12 times based on how many items I am trying to source from MP). I work full time….should be interesting.
• Setup and photograph the room
• /fin

That’s it for week 1! If you’re on Instagram, follow me @aglassofbovino to watch my progress in my “ORC Office” Instagram story highlight! I’ll be sharing a lot more there.

Thank you to Linda from Calling it Home, for organizing the One Room Challenge!

Also a huge thank you generous brands I’ve partnered with who provided discounted/sponsored items for this makeover:

• Metrie –  molding (sponsored)
• Loloi – area rug (sponsored)
• Capitol Lighting – ceiling light  (discounted)
• Emtek – desk pulls (sponsored)
• Ekena Millwork – ceiling medallion (sponsored)

Don’t forget to check out the featured designers and guest designers to support them and see the awesome things they are doing in their rooms too!

See  you next week!