One Room Challenge: Week 1 - The Befores

May 5

I’m so excited to be a guest participant in the One Room Challenge for the first time! I will be making over my son Aaron’s room over the course of the next 8 weeks, which has been something on my “to do” list for months. This week, we’re setting the scene and going over the pain points I’m hoping to fix in his room.

I haven’t touched this room since it became a nursery in 2016 (aside from switching his crib out for a big kid bed). My husband and I built the giant canvas on the wall with 1X2’s and a drop cloth. We painted the mountain mural over the course of a week, and it’s been my favorite thing about his room since. I’ll be sad to let it go, but Aaron has outgrown it and I’m ready for a less “themed” approach to this space. Here’s what the room looked like as a nursery.

This room has functioned pretty nicely for Aaron so far, but there are some things that definitely need to be changed. For instance, I created this “super hero” station for him on the wall behind his door. It was functional for a little while, but he’s accumulated more items and they’re basically pouring out of the baskets at this point. The towel hooks have also been a huge pain point for us as they aren’t secured well to the wall. There’s something inside the wall preventing us from using wall anchors properly, so we definitely need a better fix for that.

The dressers will stay - we refinished them years ago after finding them at a thrift store for a steal. I still love the midcentury lines and the original hardware, and I know they’ll grow with him well. I’m also hoping to create a lounge area for him in this space, and possibly somewhere he can “hide”.

I’m so excited to make this room feel more like Aaron! This transformation will be coming at the perfect time since he makes his transition into Kindergarten in the fall. I’m sure the process will not be free of my mommy emotions… there’s just something about going from a nursery to a big kid room that makes the passage of time extra palpable. Stay tuned for next week’s blog post all about my plans for the space and head over to the One Room Challenge Blog to read about the other participants’ rooms too!