Hello Friends! Can you believe its already Week Five & Six of One Room Challenge and I’m living for the extra two weeks this round! Quick reminder, One Room Challenge is all about the process of re-imagining a space in 6 weeks (this round has an extra two weeks to transform our spaces due to Covid-19) and sharing the design process from start to finish. This round of One Room Challenge, I’m thrilled to be a Featured Designer, every Wednesday on my blog for 8 consecutive weeks. For my One Room Challenge, I’m giving my backyard cottage a makeover inside and out! I’ve linked my weekly blog posts below and you can also see the progress in real-time as I shared on Instagram & Instagram Stories, follow me here I’m also saving my IG Stories to my ORC 2020 Spring Highlight.

This week of One Room Challenge, I combined Week Five & Six, week five posting was postponed due to all the Protests held across the country and world, fighting for equality, ending systemic racism. It’s been an extremely heavy few weeks. Lots of big discussions were also happening in Instagram about Diversity, and Why It's Important to Diversify Your Feed, check out this article from Domino from 2018 about this very topic. I share my of my thoughts on a few of my recent Instagram about how I’ve personally experienced microaggressions and racism, Yes I’m going there. It’s my truth.

Let’s dive into Week Five & Six, I’m excited to share some progress. Over the weekend, I finished up all interior painting, painted the inside of the door Downtown Grey by Behr, installed all the Quater-Round trim on the baseboards. They look so so good!

Furniture Arrives // APT2B Sofa

The Furniture for the Cottage Studio has arrived! Let’s dive in. As I mentioned before, I really wanted a sofa in my small cottage studio. I wanted a spot for myself and guests to sit on, I wanted the vibe to feel less of office and more small creative space. Before I had a desk and a built-in bench that I loved but it didn’t serve a purpose when more than one person was in my office. I like the idea of being able to change up my seating when I don’t feel like sitting at a desk, I can easily work from the sofa.

I partnered with APT2B on my sofa and I’m so in love with how beautiful the sofa is! APT2B showcasing a wide variety of fun modern furniture for the home, of their specialties is sofas. They offer a wide selection of sofas styles, with a wide range of fabric options, you can even select the feet style depending on the sofa you select! The process of finding the perfect has never been easier and streamlined! You can shop sofas by size, color (up to 27+ colors depending on the sofa!) and they even offer apartment size sofas for small spaces and I love that the sofas are made in downtown Los Angeles.

When looking for a sofa for my small cottage studio, I knew that I wanted a leggy sofa with MCM Vibes, I ended falling in love with the Monroe Sofa. Next came the exciting part, selecting fabric options. I narrowed my selection down to four colors and one wild card color, navy. I ordered the following swatch colors: Snowfall, Stone, Silver, and Baltic.

Initially, I wanted a white sofa or a super light grey sofa. But, Something kept pushing me to strongly consider a navy sofa for my cottage, I knew it would add an infusion of color and this space is just for me, so why not? When the samples arrived, I immediately loved the navy shade baltic but wanted color just a smidge deeper. I loved the nuby texture of the Navy fabric, its beautiful.

Last night, I finally un-wrapped the Monroe Sofa (I wanted to wait until all the painting was officially done) I’m blown away, I love the long bench cushion, the beautiful button tufts and the low back sofa is perfect for space! Check a little glimpse below.

FABRIC SELECTIONS FROM CALICO CORNERS

Sitting on my new sofa, are the DIY Roman Cordless Shades, I can’t wait to get them hung this weekend, they turned out amazing, I used Tosho Stripe Pewter Fabric from Calico Corners for the roman shades. This fabric is a DREAM to work with. I plan to have a How-To on my blog later this week.

I’ve been a huge fan and long-time shopper of Calico Corners and so excited to partner with them on my One Room Challenge Cottage Studio makeover. Calico Corners offers a wide selection of fabric and trim in a rainbow of colors along with, furniture, window treatments, and free design services. I really wanted to add a beautiful punch of color on my sofa and highlight my love of navy.

SCANDINAVIAN DESIGNS CREDENZA & DESK

I’m so excited to partner with Scandinavian Designs on my One Room Challenge Project. Scandinavian Designs. Scandinavian Designs has beautiful modern, high-quality furniture, for the entire home, living room, dining rooms, office, and bedroom. When I was deciding on storage in my cottage studio, I decided bookcases in my small space + love ceilings would be too over-bearing (been there and did that) I really want this little space to feel light and airy.

When it comes to furniture, think outside the box. I found the perfect dining room sideboard; I’m using the Eptri Sideboard in my office as credence. I love its mid-century vibes and two-tone style. It’s so beautiful, roomy on the inside, and feels like a great scale for the cottage.

I’m also head over heels in love with the desk! It’s the Bolig Desk, also from Scandinavian Designs and its perfect for my cottage. I really wanted to later in various wood tones and this desk nails everything I wanted! There’s lots of storage and the legs of the desk are perfection!!

The sofa looks even more beautiful, when the light hits it. I’m in love.

I have a long list of projects to tackle and my photoshoot is scheduled! I see lots of long days and nights ahead. Over the past six weeks, I broke up my to-do list in chunks.

WEEK SIX AND SEVEN PROJECT LIST

Hang Roman Shades
Clean and Put Furniture in place
Install Interior Lighting
Organize Office Space & Make it Personal
Outside, add flowers to window boxes
Organize Potting Bench
Plant Flowers Outside & Roll Out Sod (as part of our entire backyard reno!)
Sew 4-5 pillows and make them amazing!
Paint Exterior Door
Install Door Hardware

Please follow me on Instagram I will share all the behind the scenes details, the good and the bad! I can’t wait to have a creative office space again, that feels like me and gets me excited to get some work done! Next week, lots of behind the scenes and all the pictures!!

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY FELLOW ONE ROOM CHALLENGE FEATURED DESIGNERS BELOW

A Glass of Bovino | Beginning in the Middle | Beth Diana Smith | Clark + Aldine | Coco & Jack

Deeply Southern Home| Design Maze | Dwell by Cheryl | Erika Ward | Home Made by Carmona

Veneer Designs| Rambling Renovators | Renovation Husbands | Studio Plumb | Media BH&G

The real MVP’s of the One Room Challenge are my Design Collaboration partners for believing in me and being so supportive and making everything come together. Huge thank you to my ORC Design Collaboration Partners: APT2B, Calico Corners, Emtek Hardware, Handy Products, Hudson Valley Lighting, Velux, Scandinavian Designs and The Home Depot

What do you think of my new updates so far?

Happy Tuesday! It’s been a busy month over here! In addition, to being a Featured Designer One Room Challenge, my husband and I have been working on our outdoor spaces. Since we’ve been spending so much time at home the past few months, we decided now is the time to tackle our outdoor spaces with intention. We have a small patio off our bedroom french doors, I love that its a separate space away from our larger patio.

You all know how much I love small spaces! They’re my absolute favorite to decorate, however, this space has proved so challenging. We had a small sofa in our patio, but scale-wise it felt too big and the wrong vibe. I moved the sofa to our front porch which is a much better fit. I’ve partnered with Scandinavian Designs to help give my patio a makeover, and I’m super excited. Scandinavian Designs has beautiful modern, high-quality furniture, including outdoor furniture.

Before selecting furniture, for my patio, I wanted to be very intentional and decide how we intend to use our small patio. Did we want a little bistro set-up table + chairs or did we want a lounge area? After discussing it, we decided we want a small lounge patio that felt intimate, filled with lots of plants and beautiful lighting. Below is my small patio, on both sides of the patio, I added lilac vines and a trellis. I painted the trellis the same color as our home, hopefully, over time it blends into the background as the vines continue to grow.

One of the projects we’re tackling in our backyard is adding sod! We’ve spent the past several weeks prepping the lawn, we’re installing it over the weekend which will totally give our backyard the lush look we want.

Below is some small patio inspiration, that’s giving me so much life and push to create a beautiful space for my husband and to enjoy. I love all the planters, I’m invasion planters on the patio and walkway and garden bed, the more the merrier. I also love the idea of stencil floors! I’ve pinned so many, I want to stencil our concrete patio for a few reasons. I think a stencil will help hide the dis-colorization years of leaves has caused. I really love Morrcain Tiles and think they look beautiful as a stencil.

at_archive_6eece2d01baaba162bef68291e0d3cf21479e0d1.jpg

images via: Stencil Patio

Small Patio Design Plan

ONE // Farino Sofa TWO // Modern Outdoor Light Fixture THREE // Farino Ottoman FOUR // Iris Planter Large FIVE // Modern Planter AND SIX // Lilac Vines

I’m so excited about the Farino Sofa and Farino Ottoman, combination, there’s also a Farino Corner End, but I don’t think I have enough room. I do love that I can add this if I want more seating out there. The sofa & ottoman arrived a week ago and I finally placed the sofa and ottoman on my small patio and I instantly fell in love. The pieces are beautiful and well made, I love the wood slat combination paired with the stainless steel metal. The combination gives it a nice unique design, both are currently on sale! I also added the Matera Round Accent Table to act as a little coffee table/side table/plant holder, I think it will be a great addition to the small space.

Weekend Plans

This Weekend in addition to installing our sod, I want to change out of light fixture outside our master bedroom, add plants to empty planters, clean-up! Our small patio as been a de-facto dumping ground for projects. The concrete is pretty stained, so for now it stays until I can find a stencil I love, I’m hoping to stencil the patio in the upcoming weeks. I think it’s going to be so pretty! I almost forgot! I need to repaint our french doors, I painted them last Fall and they were supposed to be black, but the ‘paint guy’ color matched the paint wrong, and I the paint was dark grey. In pictures, they look fine, but in real life, they bug me. I’ll be back next week with a major patio update, also I’ll be sharing progress all weekend-long on Instagram Stories, Follow Me here on Instagram.