One Room Challenge Reveal-Our Urban Oasis
Well, the time has come to wrap up the One Room Challenge. This year, with the Pandemic, the awakening and acknowledgement of systemic racism and everything else that has been thrown at us, the ORC creator, Linda from Calling It Home, delayed and then extended the ORC to give participants the maximum time available.
What is normally a 6 week challenge to transform one space of your home, became an 8 week challenge, with an additional 12 days to post your reveal, and we are right up to the wire with ours posting on the last allowable day.
That said, I am so happy with the progress we made in our backyard! Even though it isn’t 100% completed and where I would like it to be, we truly did transform the space and it does feel like a little oasis! I can’t wait to have morning coffees out there with baby number two and enjoy the one on one time with them there before everyone else wakes up. I also can’t wait to see E and babe 2 play and grow in that space.
We have always used this space heavily. We eat out there regularly, we play out there daily, and I enjoy just sitting on the steps when our dog, Brantley, goes out a few times a day. It was always our goal to have an outdoor space, but to have a beautiful outdoor space that looks and feels like us is next level and truly makes it an oasis for our family.
I will share final final photos soon, but as we were working on the yard until about an hour ago, I haven’t taken them yet! I will get the finishing touches done over the next few weeks (as long as this baby doesn’t come too early), and then I will update the post with photos once we’ve gotten to a good ‘stopping’ place.
Here’s a quick reminder of where we started (For more, check out our first ORC post here):
Given everything I’ve wanted to do, and where I’m at with the project and my pregnancy, I realized pretty early on that we weren’t going to finish everything. The chalk wall won’t be updated and the planter bench I envisioned won’t come to light for a few months, if this year at all. But it’s not really about what we didn’t do! Here is a look at what we did get done:
(DONE) Clean up/remove tops of existing fence.
(DONE) Paint or stain existing fence.
(DONE) Add a clean and simple lattice at the top.
(DONE) Where the fence is missing between the decking and the next panel- add in a full height of lattice.
(DONE) Add some vining plants there to add a nice focal point and give E some of those flowers she is looking for.
(DONE) Remove the existing pavers.
(DONE) Bring in larger, natural stone pavers, ideally spaced a few inches away from each other with grass planted in between to add softness and expand the visual appearance of the yard.
(Removed- we won’t have time to complete this the way I want so we are putting it off until after the ORC has concluded.) Build a planter-bench for the back perimeter space.
(DONE) Clean up and paint the picnic table- I’m thinking yellow!
Clean, sand and prep the deck for refinishing.
Seal/stain the deck.
(DONE) Add in finishing details- additional seating, pillows, plants, etc.
Here are some pictures of some of the work, to hold you over until I have the final photos ready to go:
I hope you liked following along with our ORC, to make sure you don’t miss out on the final reveal or any of our other design project reveals and blog posts, please sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you once a month with easy links to our updates. (By signing up, you’ll also get our free PDF download on our top 5 tips to a beautiful home!)
Also be sure to hop over to the ORC main page and check out the reveals of the 20 host bloggers/designers as well as the reveals of the countless others (like us!) who jumped in to get their projects done!