Hi! Welcome back to the One Room Challenge, hosted by Calling It Home. As a guest participant, I've been making over my entryway over the last four weeks. You can check out where we started, the Otomi stencil saga, and progress in weeks three and four. Now, in week five, we're seeing things come together. The changes are still incremental at this point, so bear with us, but we've added a few more layers to the mix to make things feel a little less stark and a little more beautiful. Those hanging baskets, above, were the jumping off point after I found that at Goodwill while on our recent vacation. They're originally from Target, and I almost didn't buy them, thinking I wanted something more organically collected, or scavenged from a flea market or some such. In the end though, I really liked them, and also was in a little bit of a rut, honestly, about bringing some life to this area, so I scooped them up for $15 (there's another one too, which I have on my coffee table) and I'm so glad I did.
Let me interrupt myself to ask you to please pardon the photography for this session. This week has been very busy, and very dark and rainy, and these pics are terrible. All in preparation for some amazing reveal shots, though, as per uzh.
So anyway: these baskets. Though the pic above isn't amazing, you can see how they look really nice from the family room/dining room, and play off some other items I've got in those spaces. It looks AWESOME. I love walking into the room from the back hallway and seeing the little otomi sliver and these baskets. So they were a great purchase, and they provided a jumping off point for the color palate. The stencil, mirror and fixtures were all very neutral, and as one reader asked, "Where's the pop of color?" Well, it's coming! I love me some navy and already wanted some of that, and the addition of hot pink and turquoise was just perfect. So now I'm working on a few other little DIYs to bring more of those jewel tones into the entry. Stay tuuuuned!
In the meantime, let's talk about the new bar area!
You may know this space as the appliance nook, and you may remember it as a straight up hot mess.
First of all, I'm shuddering to see this whole pic. Gross! I hate that blue! I hate the dingy white in the nook! I hate the coat rack! So, I guess we can already call this One Room Challenge a success? But second, you may see that this appliance nook really needed some work. Wine fridge, toaster, like three different kinds of food processors, random crap, kitchen laundry (that's the pile of, well, laundry you see), and a giant canvas bin we use to corral recyclables. Oh right, and my hideous drying wire for cloths and plastic bags. Blech.
I started off by painting this nook the same brilliant bright white as the rest of the hall. I was torn about what else to do with it: accent color? Stencil? But in the end, I like the white. I hung these animal plates I've had for years, and really love. I used to collect dessert plates, actually, which seemed like a reasonably compact collection item that I could switch out on a whim, but turned out to take too much space and be silly. I live in Brooklyn. There is no room for dessert plate collections. I purged, but these plates were my favorites, and the only ones I held onto. And now, they're perfect in here! Black, white and gold, and a sort of reverse homage to the otomi? Perf.
Once I stopped fawning over the plates, I set about making better use of the space. After a big kitchen cabinet re-org (I know you think I'm crazy, but I had to baby proof! I didn't do it for no reason!) a lot of the appliances got moved from here to behind closed doors, where they belong. That left some space, and I've been wanting to consolidate our booze, or at least our wine goods, for a while. The wine fridge was here, but the rest of the wine and gear was over on the makeshift bookshelf wine bar.
I actually updated it from this at some point and can't find a pic. But anyway, it was random to have our booze chilling out with our books, and I like to keep like with like. If I have a single organizing principle, that's it, so it was time for a wine reunion.
I'm not going to lie, I thinking using my old vintage crate as a glass rack is preeeetttty genius. And topping it with my much loved acrylic wine rack makes it the perfect spot for the reds and other cocktail glasses as well. I wouldn't say it's done done done, but all in all, I'm really stoked about the direction it's taking.
I also really like having the cookbooks over here, and I hung two hooks for our aprons. It's a cute little area, right? I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to perfect it within the scope of the One Room Challenge, but so far, so good. Next week, it's reveal time! I'll be here, sharing final pics of the whole shebang, including, possibly, a Very Organized Coat Closet, and some DIYs, including the mirror, some baskets and whatnot, that I hope bring everything home. We'll see! And if you're interested in seeing what the other guest participants are up to, please click on the link below to follow their progress! Thanks so much for checking in.