Things Jamie does

Hi there! I’m Jamie, and I’ve started a blog? The only reason I’ve started this is to document my participation in the 2024 Spring One Room Challenge. My partner and I bought our home 2 years ago, and I have not made the progress I thought I would have made by now. I know Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I’ve found myself in decision paralysis from the presence of too many options.

I think I’ve found the limitations of renting as a sort of guidance, since I couldn’t do anything permanent. I couldn’t re-tile bathrooms or paint walls in a bold color. About 4 years before buying a home, I prohibited myself from buying anything new for the home since it’s my total weakness. The strategy behind that is that anything I buy will be for my renter’s style, and when I’m a homeowner, I can finally embrace my true style. Except now, I don’t even know what my true style is.

I have a two-story home that’s a blank canvas of beige walls and beige carpets. I am getting used to it now, but being surrounded by one neutral color has driven me crazy. If my partner gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted to do to the house, I would probably have a hot pink room, and everything would be totally maximalist. Or so I think? This is where I get stuck. So, If I continue this blog beyond the ORC, then I will figure it out along the way.

The point of the One Room Challenge is to focus on transforming one room in 8 weeks. I never have the attention span to focus on one room and usually, move on to something else before I’m done.

The room I’m focusing on is my office. My job is fully remote, and as long as I am at my company, I will never go into an office (we do not have one). My office doubles as our guest room, so I’ve had limited space for what I would like to do. I have found myself sitting in my office thinking about how to decorate it and if I could better optimize the layout. It has hindered my creativity, which isn’t a good thing when you’re in Marketing.

A while back, I decided to add a mural to the vast, blank, beige wall. It took so long to do, and I got sick of looking at it. Thinking of how much time I spent on it, I didn’t want to paint over it, so I decided to add color. It just so happened that the colors I had were not the colors I wanted to decorate with, which added more anxiety and decision paralysis. As you can see, I painted it anyway.

I also decided I needed more room, so I bought a Murphy bed kit so I could save money and build it myself. I did not have a clear vision and I should have put more thought into it. The problem is that my pillow top mattress is so thick that I had to build my own headboard, which cost a bunch of money and I had to redo it a few times. I’ll showcase this later, once I pull the Murphy bed down. This ended up being a royal pain in the ass, but I do have to say, I like that I have more space.

Despite having more room, I have crap lying everywhere now since my closet is in disarray.

So please join me as I attempt to get this office together and try to learn new things along the way. Here is my tentative post schedule and the projects I’ll be working on.

• 4/3/24: Intro, a glimpse into the madness
• 4/10/24: Closet organization and new desk configuration
• 4/17/24: Murphy bed plan & part one of build in
• 4/24/24: Murphy bed doors
• 5/1/24: Murphy bed completion
• 5/8/24: Pegboards and shelves
• 5/15/24: Decor
• 5/22/24: Reveal!