This week kicked off the 2025 Spring One Room Challenge and I’m so excited to be participating again! If you were here last year, you might remember I decided to renovate my kitchen for my first ever One Room Challenge. While it seemed like a lofty endeavor, especially before the holidays, I couldn’t be happier with the end result.
Last year’s ORC project was a bit aggressive!
What I’m embarking on for the Spring ORC may surprise you, because it certainly surprised me! And if you subscribe to my newsletter, you already know what I’m about to say. I originally had every intention of renovating my home office, but ultimately, I wasn’t as excited as I wanted to be about the wallpaper samples I picked out. In fact, I felt fatigued by it all. So, we’re going to pause on that project for the time being.
I cycled through a few different areas of the house that I intend to renovate, but none of them felt like they were scratching the itch. And then one night as I was brushing my teeth, it hit me: I’m updating my primary bathroom.
My Biggest Renovation Mistake
Now I know what you’re thinking: isn’t the primary bathroom already done? Yes, and no. The quick backstory is I had some friends help me renovate my primary bathroom inside of my first 30 days of owning this house (never do that by the way). I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t draw anything out or even present any measurements! I explained my vision, ordered the materials and they knocked it out in 5 days. It was such a glow up from where I started, and I was elated. You can see all the photos and read about the process here.
But I made the biggest mistake I think anyone could ever make when renovating a space. I made a concession and settled, when I knew I shouldn’t have. For some context: the room itself was originally a primary bathroom and a primary closet. I knocked down the wall in between the two rooms and expanded it to make one large bathroom (don’t worry – my new closet is awesome!). Because of the original layout, there is an air vent on the floor in the back half of the room (where the closet was). Instead of closing this off and tiling over it, I let it dictate everything. How big the shower was going to be. Where the tub got placed. Everything.
You can see how unnecessarily cramped everything is with this layout
The result is a weird layout in the back half of the room that doesn’t function in a streamlined way. The linen closet sits back in this deep recessed corner and there’s so little space in between the shower wall and tub, I have to shimmy sideways to get back there.
Creating Cohesive Design
Last year I flipped my primary bedroom by adding picture frame molding, color drenching it and updating the décor to fit my current style. Everything feels so perfect. I realized recently that my style from 2018 vs my style in 2025 are two completely different people, and I feel that disconnect when I cross the line from bedroom to bathroom daily.
The flow between the primary bedroom and primary bathroom is not as cohesive as I want it to be
My goal for updating my primary bathroom is to create a more cohesive design not only between the primary bedroom and bathroom, but with the rest of the house as well. The bathroom currently feels like an odd mix of farmhouse (vanity area), vintage (tub & tile) and traditional (toilet room).
Updating My Primary Bathroom
Before you get too excited, just know this is phase one of a two phase project. I learned my lesson with the kitchen last year! For phase one, I’m focused on a mix of clean up and design.
The clean up will include patching and smoothing the walls and ceilings – there’s a mix of bad drywall patches by yours truly, leftover popcorn from the ceilings that fell into the paint and is now stuck on the walls, and random dents and dings. There are also several poor electrical jobs that I’m going to have a professional come in and clean up.
From a design standpoint, I’ll be adding molding throughout the entire room, and I couldn’t be more excited. I know it’s going to give this white box the personality it’s craving! This will be the third time I’ve done molding (the dining room was the first and the bedroom was the second). I’m still working on the design but ultimately I plan on trying something a little bit new. More on that in next week’s post!
This will be my 3rd time adding molding to a room. I’m excited to mix it up a little this time!
The walls, trim and doors will all be painted the same color which is TBD, and I think I’ll be keeping the ceiling white. I’ll also be focusing my efforts on the vanity area and will be swapping out the lighting and mirrors and am currently exploring a new countertop as well. Depending on the final colors I choose, I’ll decide on whether vanity stays black or if it looks better in a new finish. The tub and shower will be part of a later phase of the project (at least for now!).
What to Expect
With this design and decision happening so fast, you can expect to see a lot more decisions being made as I go. While I admire many designers for having the ability to fully flush out their designs in advance, I’m leaning into the benefit of being both the designer and the muscle on my project and will be embracing slow design. I’ll decide as I go and will make the best decisions as I’m updating my primary bathroom.
To be perfectly transparent, this was something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time, however I did not want to appear as being wasteful or ungrateful. But ultimately, I want to share this story and transformation because it’s an example of a mistake. Ultimately, if you don’t like something then you should change it, and we all deserve to love where we live.
Stay tuned for much more over the next 8 weeks! And make sure to visit the One Room Challenge page where you can follow along with dozens of talented designers that span across every type of project and style you could imagine. This community we’ve fostered is what the One Room Challenge is all about!
Related:
Fall 2024 One Room Challenge – Kitchen Reveal
Adding Picture Frame Molding in the Dining Room
