One Room Challenge Week 3: Reality Bites

As I begin to write this late on Wednesday night, I’m trying to figure out how I will retrieve my lost iPhone (which I apparently left at a quick-serve lunch and dinner restaurant late this evening) before I leave for High Point market early tomorrow morning. Of course, I can’t go out to look for it because I’m home alone with my kids. If anyone has tips on how to get a temporary (or new, permanent) phone in the Greensboro/High Point area, please let me know! It’s just the exclamation point (followed by #&*$@) on what has been a challenging week already. I think I’m starting to twitch involuntarily.

My home renovation got underway on Tuesday morning, and our lives have been turned upside down as a result. All the while, I’m trying to keep client projects moving along, too! And this is one of them…Lord help me!

Now that you’ve humored me and my violin-playing for a minute, here’s a recap for those who are visiting for the first time (hi, and thanks! and sorry for complaining 🙁 ). I am participating in my fourth One Room Challenge, where design bloggers completely transform a space in just six weeks, documenting the process on their blogs, and revealing a brand new room at the end. I am tackling a client space as an ORC for the first time – a shared girls’ bedroom that’s getting a more ‘grown-up’ look for two deserving sisters. My Week 1 and Week 2 posts will get you up to speed, if you are so inclined!

If you’re really good at math, you might ascertain that this week, Week 3, is the halfway point…unfortunately, that’s not totally true. [They used to call this “fuzzy math.’] You see, the Week 6 point is the big reveal (the moment everyone waits for!), but in order for that to happen, we have to back up a few to several days to finish the room, style it, photograph it, wait for the photos to come back from the photographer, oh, and the write the blog post! My photo shoot date is Friday 5/5, so my ‘pencils down’ deadline is Thursday 5/4 – a full week before the reveal date at Week 6. So, that’s what I’m working toward. A finished room two weeks from today that needs, oh, you know, EVERYTHING.

Since I lost my phone, and, therefore, all of my pictures, I don’t have a lot to show you this week. But I do have some updates – not all of them great :(. The artwork I was SO excited about from Dana Gibson’s collection at Soicher-Marin is, unfortunately, not going to make it in time.

We ordered early in the process, but it still wasn’t early enough. The pieces are made to order, and it will probably be 3-4 weeks before it arrives. I will have to use some placeholder art for the photo shoot – but the girls will still get their doggie! Yes, reality, much like some dogs, indeed bites, but the show must go on. When I return from High Point, I have more artwork and wall decor to source.

The wallpaper arrives on Friday, and the light fixture on Wednesday of next week. My client and I are working on logistics of how to line up the electrician, painter, and wallpaper hanger in the right order in a very tight window. It’s not rocket science, but it is very tricky to schedule these in-demand trades sequentially, and within a timeframe that has no wiggle room. I am thanking my lucky stars that my client has been super responsive, and is totally on board with my deadline (even though she certainly doesn’t have to be). But the holiday weekend, which is even longer in Massachusetts due to Patriots Day (aka Marathon Monday), really did put us in a more precarious position than we might have otherwise been.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with the rug my clients chose – it works perfectly with the wallpaper from Osborne & Little! Now I just have to hope it arrives in time for its close-up. My vendor could not guarantee an on-time arrival, but put a ‘HOT RUSH’ on it (whatever that means), and is doing everything they can. The carpet will make it ok next week, but it then needs to be fabricated into an area rug and delivered. Ay Dios mio…

I have other question-mark items – the nightstand and table lamp chief among them. We think they will make it on time, but neither has shipped yet, and we have no ETA. At this point there is a lot of finger-crossing and B Planning (you know, for Plan B). If it doesn’t arrive by Wednesday 5/3, it will not be part of the reveal, plain and simple.

And the decorative bed pillows I was going to have made – the fabric I fell in love with is out of stock at the moment. So frustrating! I worked out a new plan, which I’m pretty happy with. I also realized that I could order pillows from one of my go-to furniture manufacturers at a very good price and quick turnaround, even while incorporating designer fabrics and some custom details.

On the plus side, the bedding arrived from Pine Cone Hill this week (scary fast, I might add) – it is even better than I imagined! The pictures my lost phone is holding hostage will have to wait until next week. I’m doing a very relaxed and fun mix-and-match ensemble with easy-care, machine washable bedding. Here’s a peek at the quilt.

OK, looking at this cozy bedding is making me super sleepy this late evening/early morning…I think it’s almost time for a nap. I’ve taken to calling sleeping what it has really been lately – a too-short span of shut-eye preceded and followed by work work work (and, that thing called ‘parenting’). If you hang with me for the next three weeks, I hope to be able to finally show some progress on the room – painting and electrical, in particular. I’ll say a million Hail Marys to Steve Jobs and the iPhone Gods to get me to NC on time, with my mobile device in hand.

Have a great rest of the week! Don’t forget to follow #KRIProjectSisterAct on Instagram for the latest One Room Challenge happenings. And please do check out the other guest participants and sponsored bloggers to see how they’re hanging in there this week. Week 3 is always so hard when the reality sets in – here’s hoping everyone has it all figured out better than I.