Bye Bye Built-Ins — One Room Challenge Week 1

Hey all! It’s Jillian here, and it’s One Room Challenge time! If you are new to The Brick Nests, welcome! Please be sure to check out our About page to learn more about us. A special thanks to Calling It Home for hosting this biannual event, where hundreds of bloggers link up to show their six-week room transformations. It’s a ton of fun, and a great source of inspiration to get moving on that spring room refresh you may be thinking about! If you didn’t follow the last One Room Challenge, we really transformed my old dated guest bedroom, and I am in love with the finished product. For this One Room Challenge, I am taking on my daughter’s big girl bedroom. It’s hard to believe my sweet daughter is already three years old and has outgrown her crib. Simply switching out the crib for a bed and being done with it isn’t really my style, as I just love taking on a project of a redecorating a whole room. So this room is getting a total makeover and it’s going to be all sorts of girly fun! Today we are talking about removing the built-ins.

The other day, as I was putting on my sweatpants, my daughter said, “Mommy you are like a princess.” Ummm, thanks little one, but clearly as you have older brothers you have not seen enough princess movies! Her compliment did score her a room remodel upgrade though, and I’m super excited about it! My daughter’s room had previously served as the nursery for my middle son when he was a baby. I had kept the room somewhat gender neutral, until the greatest surprise of my life arrived in the form of a baby girl, at which point I hastily swapped out some furnishings, but generally kept the base of the room the same. One of the problems, aside from it not being girly enough, is that it the smallest bedroom in the house, and the built-in shelves were cramping the space as well as dictating furniture placement. It functioned well as a nursery with a crib and a small built-in dresser for baby clothes, but we are talking about upgrading the domain of my Mini Me Sweatpants Princess here, so clearly we need more space!

 

 

I did debate a little about removing these built-ins, as they provided storage without the need for a lot of furniture. But alas, as there is no furniture shortage in this house–in fact, rearranging furniture is a hobby of mine–there was no need to keep these built-ins. And there were other reasons to let them go. They were in need of a paint job, which was going to be costly. I thought the look of the built-ins was 80s-style and a little dated. And finally, as the floors really needed to be sanded and refinished, if I thought I might want to remove them at some point, this was the time to do it. So I said bye bye built-ins, and haven’t looked back! Here is a look at the larger room sans built-ins. It’s not pretty yet (actually, it is a little scary), but just wait!

 

Yikes, um, that looks so much better lol?!?! It is going to be a crazy month, as not only do I have to get moving on pulling together this room transformation, but I am also busy with another major renovation going on here at my brick nest (more on that soon)! Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram for sneak peaks too. I will keep it brief today, so on to the plan for this more spacious big girl room.

• Next week–floors and paint (think pink!)
• Week 3–rug, lighting (it’s so good!)
• Week 4–furniture and art
• Week 5–accents, bedding, and windows
• Week 6–room reveal!

Below is the room idea board for this big girl room!

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I am having so much fun scheming, dreaming, and shopping of course! Don’t forget to check back next week for more on paint and floors!