One Room Challenge Week 5: The Emotional Benefits of a Well-Designed Space

It’s Week 5 of the One Room Challenge – the penultimate post before the big reveal next week! If you’re new, welcome! You’ve arrived at Interiors for Families, blog of Kelly Rogers Interiors (that’s me!), where we celebrate great design, furnishings, and decor made for stylish family living.

I’ve linked up with over 200 other guest participants (!) transforming a room in just six weeks. My ORC space this time around (I’m a three-peat-er!) is an unfurnished and underutilized 7’x 10′ landing off the second floor hall in my 1896 Victorian home – which I’ve made into a polished, yet comfy and functional area for playing boardgames and cards, and reading bedtime stories with our 5- and 2-year-old boys. #KRIProjectPerfectLanding on Instagram, to be specific!

You can catch up on the last four weeks, if you are so inclined, right here.

Due to some scheduling oddities, my ORC journey is actually complete. Well, everything but the reveal, that is! The room is finished, has been photographed, and we are enjoying the space on a daily basis. I’ll share a couple of sneak peeks, but I thought the most appropriate thing to do for this post, since all of the drama and nail-biting is behind me (on this project anyway!), would be to talk about the ‘enjoying the space’ part, and how beautiful, well-designed rooms and homes can truly improve one’s quality of life.

First of all, having a designated place to play, and store games and cards has been a revelation and a relief. As any parent will know and understand, the accumulation of ‘stuff’ over time and the necessity of organizing it can become totally overwhelming. We’ve been in our house for about 3 1/2 years of said accumulation, and have been planning a renovation for our home for even longer than that.

Since we kept putting off the reno (which we are actually doing starting early spring!), our ‘temporary’ storage solutions – if you can call them that – became completely unwieldy, to the point that you would just call it cluttered and messy. I never invested in shelves or cubbies or drawers or boxes or anything for the family room, because I always thought we were on the verge of gutting it and building the right solution from scratch for that part of the house (note: the aforementioned renovation will also include a proper basement playroom, which will be an even more profound revelation!). I am neither the cleanest nor the most organized person, but even I can’t deal. We are still in the process of setting up the landing and moving stuff into the drawers there, but it feels good to put stuff away, and not be able to see it.

 

This table from Somerset Bay Home is amazing and is the best thing I put in this space – it has eight functioning drawers (every other ‘column’ of drawers you see is operable) to stash everything away, out of sight – and they’re within reach for the kids, and are easy for them to use. The distressed and mottled finish means I’m not worried about scratches and blemishes (unlike my dining room table, which definitely suffered during epic Monopoly marathons with my 5-year-old 🙁 ). And the 20″ height is the absolute perfect height for both of the boys to stand at. Because if you have boys (or active girls), you know that they much prefer to be moving than idly sitting when focusing on a ‘sedentary’ activity. Now we have a dedicated and enjoyable place to do just that. Which just feels good. (This table is so good, I recently featured it on my blog as a Friday Family-Friendly Find!)

 

Then there are the upholstery fabrics, which I specifically chose for their soft hand and casual texture (and of course, durability!). The brushed cotton on the sofa and milled wool plaid on the lounge chairs are just so darn inviting; like a child snuggling with a favorite stuffed animal or security blanket. They give me the warm-fuzzies, literally and figuratively :). Not to mention that yummy faux fur throw.

 

The dark brown/aubergine paint color is warm, enveloping and calming, while the aqua accents and bold artwork, and interesting, mixed metal finishes inject some energy and happiness. It’s like a big hug. There really is a wonderful mood that’s been created here. And I can’t get enough of it. The balance is palpable, and spirit-lifting.

Speaking of hugs, I really needed one this week, as I’ve been struggling with severe laryngitis (which is caused by a myriad of other equally annoying and painful issues – not your run-of-the-mill viral deal…), and just got put on ‘voice rest.’ My kids are delighted. Hmph.

 

 

I hope you’ll come back next week for the full reveal! Week 5 can be a real bear – please check out my fellow One Room Challenge guest participants, as well as the 20 featured bloggers, and maybe even leave them a word of encouragement as they work to complete their spaces.