50s Colonial, Decor and DIY, House, Linky Party Fun, Mid Century Modern, One Room Challenge

ORC: The Big Boy Room – Before {ORC Spring 2016: Week 1}

I’m going to skip all the jokes I could make about taking oh, 14 months off from blogging. I never really expected to take that long of a break, buuut…I did. I thought about posting a clip of the opening 3 seconds of Sid the Science Kid but realized how lame it is to admit that was the first thing that popped into my head as my welcome back post. #transformationtoparentcomplete #IusedtobecoolIswear

Reasons why I stopped blogging: my baby became a toddler, I’m expecting #2 in a few short weeks, work seems to be busier than ever, you know, life in general. In short, blogging just didn’t make it on the priority list anymore.

Reason why I’m making myself start again now: as mentioned above, and fairly evident in my instagram feed, baby boy #2 is coming soon. I’m 32 weeks now, and in case anyone remembers slash cares, William was born at 37 weeks. I’m told we should just be ready for anything as far as timing – this one could be earlier, could be later, no one friggin knows. So – as my tax season winds up we are in overdrive to get William transitioned into his “Big Boy Room” and into a toddler bed ASAP. And what better timing than to document it all and participate in the internet-famous One Room Challenge! This room is getting updated in a short period of time no matter what, so let’s see if I can eek out 5 more posts on the next 5 Thursdays? Challenge, accepted.

Of course you might also recognize some of the Featured Participants as well. I’ll be linking up on Thursdays (hopefully) to the Guest Participants page. Go check out the other 200+ bloggers that are joining in on the fun (or at least pretend to). And if you landed here from the ORC main page – kudos to you for clicking through this far. I know I’ve gotta be one of the last thumbnails. That is dedication.

So let’s look at the glorious “before” of this room. I’m going way back to the MLS listing. We bought this house back in June of 2014, and had the rugs ripped up and the floors refinished before we moved in. After that, this room became a catchall for out grown baby junk and whatever else we didn’t want to look at up until about 3 weeks ago. Feast your eyes:

The real estate photographers get a lot of credit. I haven’t seen this picture in a long time and this room doesn’t look terrible, just majorly dated. What you can’t really tell from this picture is:

Those radiators have about 10 layers of paint on them, and are constantly falling away from the wall. Hours of fun for a curious toddler.
There are about 3 different types of molding in this room. Some clamshell, some colonial, some walls have shoe molding, some don’t. This inconsistency is quite consistent throughout our house, by the way. Drives. Me. Insane.
This room is pretty small. Like 8 x 10 small. Trust me, that bed, if it were still there, is way closer to the doorway in person.
And that doorway is in the left corner of the room (basically where the photo is taken from), however, the door opens TO THE RIGHT. Whyyyyyyyy.
The ceiling boob light is about 11 inches to the right of the center of the ceiling. I repeat. Whyyyyyyyyy.

Good news is 1, 2, 4 and 5 are fixable to a satisfying degree for me. And, even better, they actually are now fixed.

So come back next week to either see if I had this kid super early (dear god let me at least make it to 37 weeks again) or to see what we did next in the room. #nailbiter

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 6