ORC Spring 2021 :: Week 1

It’s here! It’s the start of the ORC – The One Room Challenge!

The One Room Challenge™, currently in its nineteenth season, is a widely anticipated biannual event. Each round, twenty design influencers are selected to take the challenge, as Featured Designers, and transform a space. Every Thursday, the designers document their process while sharing their sources and professional advice over six weekly posts. I will be joining the challenge as a guest participant.

For the challenge, we will be refreshing the back patio.

In 2019, we built our first custom home. There are so many decisions to make and some of them do not turn out well, when mother nature is involved. LOL The day came for us to pour the concrete for the front and back porch. Immediately after we poured, a giant storm decided to change direction and come right for us rather than away from us. The crew had to set tarps up to protect the freshly poured concrete, but with all their efforts, we still had a small mess on our hands.

SO this leads me to today. We have discussed every option on how to fix the concrete (make it pretty) and came up with tiling it. Along with fixing the floor, we are going to refresh the decor and some furniture too. We even are going to create a TV space to watch movies on those warm summer nights!

Here is the design plan for the space!

Here are some before photos of the space and what we’ve done to prepare!

Follow me on Instagram to get live updates throughout the weeks! I will be saving a highlight called O R C @terranelsonhome

To start the project we simply removed the old furniture & rugs, power cleaned the concrete & washed the siding. Ben also removed any areas that had excess cement or was uneven.

If you have LP lap siding, we used the pressure washer on low setting with a little dawn dish soap and a car wash mitt. We didn’t have a house siding cleaner on hand that day or we would have used that. A little FYI if you are washing your house too. It worked great.

We live in Missouri, so I needed to choose a tile that could withstand long periods of freezing temperatures. The tile we picked is a dark grey porcelain tile from Floor & Decor. Each one of these boxes weigh 50 lbs 🤪 we are getting an extra workout in with this project! We also had to grab a mortar for large tile specifically, as the tile is 15X30.

A recap of the design plan. We already have the sectional/dining furniture and love it so that’s staying. Our pass through window needs some stain on the cedar and that side is getting a TV so we can have summer movie nights! On the flip side of the porch I am FINALLY getting my daybed swing EKKK 💗 more to come on that.

Strings lights = dreamy. I am a hopeless romantic person and live for this kind of thing! I will have these somewhere, somehow, I just haven’t truly figured that part out yet.

The fire pit…. is the part I’m most wondering about. A true fire with wood, the sights and sounds of it is my favorite part. But we live in a very windy area, so would it blow around on the house? A gas fire pit is beautiful 🤩 but not really the same thing… We have a solo stove (have you heard of those) they cut back on smoke, BUT the view is not amazing and you can’t feel the heat. Maybe I haven’t filled it high enough? First world problems here.

Hope you join our journey in this challenge. Every Thursday, there will be a post in detail about everything that is going on for that week. Over on Instagram HERE you’ll see real time results, I’m sure some mistakes along the way and probably a cat or two.

Much Love, Terra