ORC Spring 2021 - Week 1 | Bonus Room Remake

May 07, 2021

ORC Spring 2021 - Week 1 | Bonus Room Remake

It's that time again...for the Spring One Room Challenge hosted by Better Homes & Gardens. Since discovering this bi-annual event, created by Linda Weinstein, I have been really motivated to join along and get my home in shape, since this has been a most challenging year indeed! You can look back to last fall and spring where I joined many other patron designers and enthusiasts as well. Not only do I get to create show house ready rooms in my home for a future move, but I get to mindfully make upgrades and changes economically and sustainably. I am very conscious of the state of our current living environments and choose to and utilize as many earth-friendly materials, products and companies as I am able to. This has become really important to me, after taking the 'Green Leadership' course thru the Sustainable Furniture Council and learning that it is really imperative to 'make a change'!

This time around, I'll be working on a very important room of my home...the Bonus Room! In fact this special space in our home has worn many hats. I don't think it ever really knew what it was suppose to be and I've often wondered why builders label this often neglected room as such. In fact I don't think it was a term used prior to the 80's. Wikipedia's definition says it all--

"A bonus room is a room created by remodeling or adding an addition that does not meet local building code definitions for traditional rooms. For example, codes will typically require that a bedroom have a closet, a window, and a certain number of electrical outlets. Such a room might actually be intended for sleeping, but will be described as a "bonus room" in rental and sales listings."

When we built our current home this was an unfinished space over the garage. After a year we finished the room with much care and a little sweat equity. We have certainly put it to good use and it has certainly undergone many uses. Having a little one underfoot at the time, it was first a child's art room. In fact, after the drywall was up, the first art project was I and the little one stenciling the walls in a paint faux plastering finish. I had always loved the artwork of the American famed artist 'Flavia Weedn', and decided to painstakingly recreate her essence in my room. It will be hard to paint over, since it holds a lot of fun memories I shared with my daughter although the pay-off was her becoming a Graphic Designer after college. I think now it's time to move on!

The room also was transformed into a craft-room, where many of children parties were hosted, and a few adult aromatherapy workshops as well! Lastly, it settled on turning into my office space where I started an on-line shop thus ultimately turning into my eDesign studio! What's an eDesign studio you might be asking? Well, follow along with me on my journey to transforming this space and you will get glimpses of what actually transpires around here.

Here's the what I want to tackle in the next 8 weeks:

Create the Concept & Floor plan
Render the room
Going paperless
Paint refresh & lightly wallpaper
Install mood lighting
Re-shelve existing and install some new
Organize & display decor
Relax and reflect!

If you have a space such as mine, in your home, you will most certainly want to view how this unique transformation takes place. While many people will for sure will want to use it as an extra room for family members, guests, hobbies and such....it would add much more value as a place where us women can create, and that by itself is a most precious B O N U S !!

Let me also take this time in celebration of a glorious Mother's Day weekend to provide an inspiration board of a few of my 'favorite things' ! Many of the products represented here are expertly crafted by highly skilled artisans and created thru fair-trade globally. Remember....I may earn a small commission on any purchases made at no additional cost to you.

Happy Shopping!

From the light of my home to yours-

Deb