One Room Challenge- Week 1 Attic Playroom/Movie Lounge

I’m so excited to announce that I will be a guest participant in the Fall 2021 One Room Challenge, hosted by Better Homes & Gardens! I’ve always wanted to join, but I never knew what room to make over and didn’t quite have a budget that felt worthy of a whole room makeover. I think I was just nervous and scared. However, when I realized that the timing of my attic play room remodel would be at the same time as the One Room Challenge, I decided it was fate to join this time!

A little backstory- in 2020, just before the pandemic hit, I decided to create a play room for my daughter on the main floor of our home. The whole floor is open concept, and the playroom ended up by the door because that’s where the nicest window light was plus we could easily block it off so that the toys stayed contained. I planned out where things would go and set everything up. I’ll share more about that previous version in a full blog post, because I loved the way the design came out.

For a little while, everything was great. As Hailey got older though, she could reach more of the stuff on the higher shelves, and of course another Christmas and birthday came along. Suddenly, it seemed like toys  were always on the floor of the playroom, with a trail leading to the living room where you could find even more toys.

No matter what I seem to do, the mess is never-ending. I seriously contemplated moving because I didn’t see how our house would ever function. While Hailey’s playroom was being torn apart, my craft room was constantly hit by Hurricane Hailey. There’s no door to the attic, and also sloped ceilings. There really wasn’t any way to keep things out of her reach, and it got frustrating that in addition to my mess I had to constantly clean up her mess. 

I was thinking about how my house looks almost exactly the same as it did when we first moved in, aside from paint colors. I felt frustrated that 5 or 6 years had passed and yet nothing had been majorly changed. I thought to myself, if the house had been empty when I saw it, what would I have thought to do? I had the bright idea to put both kids in a shared room, create a big play room/family room in the attic, and move my craft room into one of the kids bedrooms. I also planned out a reorganization of the first floor living space, which never seemed to work. 

The kids rooms and my craft room are 90% done (more on those later) but I’m shifting my focus to the playroom!

Isn’t the mood board for the space dreamy?! Since this is the first space that’s truly getting a renovation (new floors! Paint! Adding doors! New furniture!) I wasn’t sure where to start. I was thinking about everyone else and I realized, you know what? It’s my home too and since I’m the one with the eye for design and the one spending most if my time there, it might as well be something I love that can inspire others! The result was a colorfully boho, vintage movie theater vibe. I’m planning to keep about 75% of Hailey’s toys in the closet and only bring out a weekly rotation of toys. I can’t handle the constant mess! Her play kitchen, baby dolls and doctor toys will probably be out all the time since she plays with those every day. But the rest will be swapped out so that she can have fun and hopefully keep it clean by herself. Travis doesn’t have many toys now but I’m sure once he does, it’ll be mayhem. This toy rotation will help with that issue. 

I’m still working out some final design details so who knows- maybe things will change. But I’m SO excited for this new room, and I’m hoping it’ll have a totally new vibe when it’s all said and done!

What’s your favorite element of the space? I think mine is the dreamy rug and the yellow stripe wall I added at the last second!

To see what the other participants will be doing, click this link and browse through. There’s some really amazing ideas coming to life!