ORC week 1: Before and the plans

Here we go!

As mentioned on Monday, I am linking up as a guest to the One Room Challenge this fall.  Yesterday was a delightful day in the blogosphere, checking out the plans of the official 20 ORC bloggers.  Today I get to tell you all about my plans.

I have mentioned in the past that my girls were sharing a room, but that we knew it was not for long.  In the spring, my younger daughter finally decided that she was ready for her own room, too.  We had a photo shoot at the end of summer and couldn't change thing sup, so they had to wait for fall.

Here's what we are working with:  The upstairs of our house has two bedrooms, one in front and one in back, with a bathroom and laundry room in between.  The girls have been sharing the large room at the back of the house, with the adjoining bathroom, and the smaller room is a guest room.

Girls' Room Current:

Guest Room Current

All beautiful photos by Melissa Oholendt

I LOVE these rooms and I'm kind of sad that these are the "before" shots!

But I love my children, too.  And the time has come for this change.

When we first started talking about who would move where, there were a number of conflicting wants to take into account:  Clio wanted a dark blue room (with white curtains and a grey rug), but she wanted to stay put in the big room and keep her twin bed.  Eleri wanted the curtains and chair from the big room, but she wanted a queen sized bed.  And so on.

In the end, it came down to keeping the decorating (paint, curtains, etc) but changing the furniture, or keeping the major furniture elements but changing up the decor.

Here are the possible furniture plans:

Eleri stays in the big room but gets a big bed:

While Clio moves to the small room with a daybed:

OR 

Clio stays in the big room with the pair of twin beds

While Eleri moves to the small room and keeps the big bed:

I also started to play around with how I would decorate both scenarios, re-using as much as possible from the existing rooms.

Clio in the small room:

Clio in the big room:

Eleri in the big room:

Almost the same as Eleri in the small room:

Keep in mind all of this work was JUST TO DECIDE WHO GOT WHICH ROOM.

So I sat down to present them all of this stuff, and guess what happened?

Clio looked at me and said "Oh. Eleri is moving to the guest room."  And she shrugged her shoulders for good measure.

I guess they held closed-door negotations, but I'm just happy to have a decision they both bought in to.  And I never even showed them any of this!

So come on back next Thursday and I'll tell you how the REAL design planning began.

In the meantime, you can check out all the linking participants (like 100 already!) at calling it home.