ONE ROOM CHALLENGE, WEEK 2

View Week 1 here

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!

Last week I announced that my goal for the next 5 weeks (now 4) was to makeover my 75% of my  office with Facebook Marketplace finds, which means a lot of time spent refreshing, stalking, bargaining and driving. 

Huge potential plot twist – I found out yesterday that I *may* have to travel to London and Basel for work during the last week of the ORC, which would completely throw off my timeline, so now I’m determined to finish by the end of week 4, which is less than 2.5 weeks from now. AH.

So far I’ve spent a good amount of time scouring marketplace, using various keywords when searching for items. I’ve been using different methods to find what I’m looking for, which are all highlighted in this blog post.

To meet my goal of furnishing 75% of this room from FB MP, I need a total of ~15 items. So far, I have 4. Deeeeeeep breaths. 

Here’s my checklist (already found items that are bolded):

• Desk 
• Mirror 
• Marble top chest 
• Storage/dresser (for closet)
• Lamp (1 for desk)
• Lamp (for chest)
• Cowhide rug 
• Desk chair
• Corner chair 
• Corner lamp
• Plant 
• Curtains
• Curtain rods 
• Ottoman 
• Console table
• Bench 

What I sourced from MP this week:

Carver’s Guild Mirror

My heart nearly stopped when this popped up on my marketplace feed a few weeks ago, but it was a bit out of my price range. It hadn’t sold yet, so I reached out the seller asking if he would come down on the price and he did. I purchased it for $170, and on Carver’s Guild website (to-the-trade only) it’s priced at $1210. SCORE.

Tiger Oak Antique Dresser

This antique tiger oak beauty was listed just 4 short minutes before I slammed the “is this available?” default message. It was available, and I dragged Angelo 45 minutes with me to pick it up. It will most likely be used a closet storage space and therefore won’t be included in the final photoshoot.

Curtain Rods:

These aren’t worthy of a photo – I just needed basic black rods and found Umbra rods for only $10.

To-do list updates:

• Choose the perfect paint/wallpaper combo – I chose wallpaper, just need paint. NBD.
• Cut, install and caulk Metrie molding (the usual – crown, base, wall) – picked up, need to start
• Prep and paint the desk – prepped
• Paint the ceiling, walls and trim – primed
• Install wallpaper in molding boxes
• Install window treatments (shades discounted from Select Blinds)
• Install ceiling medallion (sponsored by Ekena) and light (discounted from Capitol Lighting) – ordered, just need to schedule my electrician to install!
• Hit refresh on FB MP every 11 minutes – yep, still  refreshing every 11 minutes. 
• Drive all over NJ/NY/CT/PA to pick up items from strangers houses (this will need to happen at least 15 times based on how many items I am trying to source from MP). – So far, sourced 4 items out of the ~15 
• Setup and photograph the room
• /fin

This week’s accomplishments:

Primed walls: I primed the black walls and after the first coat, I’m realizing that it will take at least 3-4 to completely cover the black. 

Prepped desk for painting: I used Kayla Payne’s “How to paint high gloss” class to prep my Ethan Allen desk for painting! It’s going to be brushed/rolled in Farrow and Ball pitch black high gloss. 

Picked up Metrie molding. How lucky am I to be only a 5 minute drive from one of their few East Coast locations?! 

That’s it for this week!

If you’re on Instagram, follow me @aglassofbovino to watch my progress in my “ORC Office” Instagram story highlights! I’ll be sharing a lot more there.

Thank you SO much to Linda from Calling it Home, for creating and 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!