It's week three of the One Room Challenge and our progress is nowhere near where I wanted to be. We got hit with a blizzard that started Friday evening and didn't stop until the weekend was over. We got over 20 inches of snow! My plan to get paint and materials for the walls and DIY shelf projects didn't happen. We also couldn't go get the larger pieces of furniture either. The blizzard forced us to stay in and that also gave me a chance to reflect more on this project.
This week, the company I work for lost a wonderful person due to an airplane accident. I don't know her personally and have never met her but every time I learn of someone's passing, especially someone so young and close to my age, it makes me reevaluate my goals and priorities in life. This person contributed immensely to her community and seemed to be loved by everyone that she met. When a person passes away, the biggest memory and the one thing that remains of them is the way they made others feel when they lived. Was the feeling warm, comforting and inviting or was it cold and isolating? Did their presence brighten up the room even when no word was spoken? When I think of these things, my heart sinks. I'm not particularly good with words of comfort and I'm shy and sometimes awkward in social situations. I'm a homebody and I choose to spend my time with close family and find inspiration for my passion for anything design. Focusing on interior design and fashion can seem vain and materialistic, insignificant compared to what others have contributed to the world. I'm sure that for those who don't have the same passion, it can appear that my priorities are wrong and my thoughts, shallow. But how can that be? I'm the lease bit concerned about having the newest of anything or wearing the newest trend. My top priority is my family and their well being. After that, it's how I can contribute to my community and make someone's day easier than it was a minute ago. Interior design might seem material but for someone like me, someone who's mind can't stop the visions of how little visual changes can alter the mode of an environment, it's less about material and more about the people. My passion focuses on how a space can create feelings of inclusion, comfort and setting the right mode for anyone who enters the space. We contribute to our community in different ways using different skills and talents. I have to remind myself that my talents are not selfish and not simply material. It's a passion with good intentions and that's all that matters. If my words didn't come out right, my smile isn't remembered, at least I know that the spaces I created was my way of making the world more comfortable, vibrant, and memorable.
When I started on this project I told myself that I wasn't going to let the time constraints pressure me into making decisions about larger purchases unless I knew they would work. Sometimes the pressure to just have something that will work for the time being results in pieces that don't get utilized and that take up much valuable space. They end up collecting dust in the basement where all the furniture and pieces that don't feel right goes to die and not only that but the money spent on them means that's money you won't have for the pieces that you really want. So I've been taking it slow and haven't made major purchases for the last few weeks. Come this week, I'm starting to panic because I'm not having any luck finding pieces that will work. The colors that we chose for A's room have been hard to work with. With the purple tones, she also mentioned gray and white. I've been hunting around for a duvet cover that incorporates purple tones and haven't found one that will work. Gray can tend to be too masculine and we wanted to steer away from the all white bed sheets, but it's looking like we might go that route. In a bedroom, the bedding and bed frame's style has such a large presence, they require a lot of thought and consideration before committing. I don't want to end up with another bed frame collecting dust.
On the bright side, we have some smaller pieces en route to be arriving soon and we've decided on a dominate wall color. So that's pretty much the only progress we made this week.
For the walls, we liked Valspar's Hush Hush. It's a white with just a hint of lavender and almost looks like pink. It'll be easier to mix with other colors too. We'll continue to scout out pieces that will bring out the purple but could easily turn a different direction with color scheme as plan B is starting to look easier to achieve in such a short amount of time.
Plan B also means that the DIY portions of this project will no longer occur. With the finish line quickly approaching and knowing that we might be out of town the weekend before week six, I'm sure some ideas from plan A will be dropped.
Which lights should we go with? A, B, C or D? I've been having a hard time deciding on the right lights for her room as well. As I've involved her more and more in the design decisions, she's given me more control as a designer and has become less concerned over how the room will turn out. With the way the room looked before, anything is an improvement so she's told me she'll be happy with the end result regardless. Knowing that your client trusts your decisions as a designer (even if the client is your own daughter) is a relief.
Thank you for dropping by this week. I hope that you'll visit again soon.
To see other guest designers' progress for this week, click the link below:
