Fall One Room Challenge 2021 – Room Reveal!

Hi everyone – nice to see you again! If you’re new to hanging around with me, my name is Michelle and while a healthcare consultant by day, I am a fearless DIY-er and real estate investor by…. night? Honestly, anytime I have some free time. Each spring and fall I like to participate in a little big challenge called the One Room Challenge (ORC). The ORC Fall 2021 round will be my fifth round – check out the seasons’ past:

This time, I am coming back from quite the year. If you were here with me last fall, you know that I was preparing for the complete surprise arrival of our twin boys, Jacob and Lee. I found out they were on the way due to the miscarriage of their triplet brother… for some reason I just feel like he was a boy.

So, I had to turn that home office from the Spring 2020 ORC into a twin nursery. THEN they decided to come seven weeks early. THEN the military decided to move us across the country. It’s been a tough year. So now that the dust is settling, I’m taking on an easy project – our new dining room. I forced myself to only DIY the crown molding and baseboard and buy the rest. I might think I can do it all, but I can’t do it all… all the time!

The Before

How can I best describe this entire house right now?

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Needy.

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We specifically chose it because it needed some help. But seriously, leaving my beautiful projects behind and moving into this home left me kind of heartbroken. There is SO MUCH possibility here. Dining room was up first, though, for pure functionality issues.

A little background first… one of my very first DIY builds was my farmhouse dining room table.

I made it for my daughter’s first birthday! We have made many memories around this table and I love it. I have not yet come to terms with the fact that it won’t fit in our new dining room.

So, it’s hanging out in our garage right now. That has left us dining like this:

The Plan

Part of the plan came together on the day I decided to actually dive into the One Room Challenge. It was a very spontaneous and last minute decision. That very day, I found the PERFECT table on Facebook Marketplace. We drove up to Baltimore and met the coolest person who just so happened to want to get into DIY! We exchanged numbers and will probably hang out and become BFFs.

Or moving/working remotely has us desperate for friends. Or both. And you know what? That’s 100% awesome.

Once I got the table home, my daughter picked out some things to put in the middle of it and suddenly I just started envisioning this…. idea of a room! I threw together the mood board that night after seeing a few of my ORC friends posting about their rooms.

We’ve Made Progress!

I know I haven’t been online ripping things off the wall yet, but it’s coming! This past week has been about ordering things – the rug, the crown and baseboard, and the chandelier (over the weekend). At least we have a table, though! That’s probably the most important part of a dining room, right?

I hope you’ll enjoy following along for this one! Be sure to follow along with me on Instagram so you don’t miss any progress. Check out all of the featured designers and guest participants‘ amazing talent at the One Room Challenge blog when you get a chance. I’m so excited to see what everyone does!