07 May Kitchens Are the Heart of the Home – One Room Challenge | Spring 2020 | Week 1

I am SO excited to announce that I am a Guest Participant in the 2020 Spring One Room Challenge™ which starts today!  Kitchens really are the heart of the home.  How many times have you hosted a party in your home and all the guests end up crowding into the kitchen. Kitchens are filled with love, laughter, conversation, and a lot of cooking, especially during this serious global crisis we are all facing. It is definitely true in our home as my husband cooks for me every night. (I know, I’m very lucky…and a tad spoiled!)  So it should not surprise you (if you followed my fall 2019 One Room Challenge/ORC) that I’m diving head first into transforming our kitchen for the spring 2020 One Room Challenge. So buckle your seat belts, as I only have 8 weeks to do this kitchen makeover, and you are in for an exciting ride!

About The Pillow Goddess

If you’re on my blog for the very first time, I am so very happy you are here.  My name is Deborah Main and I am The Pillow Goddess. I live in Austin, Texas and have been a luxury pillow designer for 15 years. Shop for my custom designs HERE.  I also write The Pillow Goddess design blog and help luxury brands market their products to homeowners and interior designers. I love what I do! I am not only passionate about pillows but about the brands I believe in and am honored to represent. And yes, I’m addicted to The One Room Challenge.

 

 

What is ORC?

The One Room Challenge (ORC) is a bi-annual national event that showcases the design work of 20 Featured Designers and approximately 200 + Guest Participants, of which I am one. It all started with Linda Weinstein in 2011 who simply wanted to get a room done in her home.  Well, it sure has taken off from there, growing into a much anticipated event every spring and fall with hundreds participating across the country.  I mean, who doesn’t have a room in their home that needs MAJOR attention? Be it a guest bedroom filled with junk, a leaky bathroom, or like in my case, an old, tired, out-dated kitchen from 1999?

Please follow these amazing 20 Featured Designers!

To see their Week 1 blog posts visit HERE.

 

Why Participate?

To be honest, participating in the ORC is a compulsion really.  If you love design, you’re always trying to find ways to improve your own home because it usually gets neglected the most. Now that I’ve had two One Room Challenges under my belt, it amazes me how confident you become and how addictive this challenge really is. I never understood it all before, until I followed designer after designer transforming room after room. The inspiring rooms just blew me away!! I have interior designer Linda Holt to thank for encouraging me to jump into the ring and spread my wings as a designer. (See her fabulous bedroom HERE.) And I’ve made tons of DIY friends through this challenge that you’ll want to follow too.

Spring 2019 One Room Challenge – BOLD Blue + White Bedroom (after photo by Gregg Cestaro)

I participated for the very first time in spring of 2019 (the BOLD Blue + White Bedroom) out of necessity really, cause, as you can see above, it was a hazard to sleep in our temporary bedroom. I had zero room in my little corner against the wall and our bureau drawers didn’t work, so we left them open most of the time.  I learned so much from how to hang wallpaper to chalk paint our nightstands, all from my seamstress (who knew how to do everything!). But it was so stressful that I swore I would never do another ORC again!

Fall 2019 One Room Challenge – Breakfast Nook Transformation (After photo by Gregg Cestaro)

Then came the fall 2019 One Room Challenge where I thought, “Oh, I’ll take the easy route and do this tiny breakfast nook. How hard can that be?” Ha!  Ha! It was NOT as easy as I thought.  (Please read about the Breakfast Nook Makeover HERE.) Now here I am, a Guest Participant in my 3rd One Room Challenge and I couldn’t be more excited!!  Many thanks to ORC for postponing it a month due to the Pandemic and to Better Homes & Gardens the wonderful media sponsor of this national event. But let’s back up a bit. You’re probably wondering why I’m doing the kitchen.  Cause kitchens are not a quick project. Glad you asked.

Our Outdated Kitchen

 

Okay, here is our kitchen, the heart of our home.  It’s really a perfectly functional kitchen that I designed in 1999. NOT!!! But that was before I knew anything about design and it really doesn’t function well at all.  We cut produce over on the cutting board then walk across the beautiful floor (newly refinished I might add!) and drop everything on the way…LOL!   There are a lot of issues with it:

• dated cabinets,
• ugly tile,
• leaky faucet,
• broken garbage disposal,
• 20+ year-old appliances,
• cracked microwave,
• compost placement,
• disgusting trash area under the sink,
• no place for recycling,
• poor usage of the cabinet space,
• no place for the broom and dust pan, and
• on and on.

 

Not to mention the biggie – brown cabinets and this speckled brown granite bar (below), which, at the time I thought that granite was SO unique only to find out it was in every kitchen or public restroom in the city. Show’s you how much I knew about design back then.

The “Refresh” Kitchen Plan  for The Collier St. Kitchen Makeover

Once I decided to transform our breakfast nook,  and we love how it turned out, I really knew I’d have to at some point give our kitchen a major face lift. But the reality is that we do not have $30- 50,000 laying around to properly remodel our kitchen.  (My story actually goes back a lot further than this, like to 2014, but I’ll share that in other posts.)

So, what’s a woman to do?

Take action!  I got busy seeking out some of my favorite kitchen brands to partner with.  That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 6 weeks, planning and arranging how to pull off a kitchen refresh, creating a plan for what I can and cannot update, and learning about all the different details to pay attention to.  Because if you’re ever going to design a kitchen, you had better have a “plan” and hire a professional interior designer while you’re at it! A kitchen remodel is a big endeavor, way different than a bedroom or breakfast nook. So here’s what I, and my interior designer friend and mentor, Patrick Landrum of PL&D Design/Patrick Landrum Design, came up with.

1. Cabinets – I cannot change the footprint of our kitchen because its too expensive and the cabinets we have are perfectly good. So, we’re having them professionally painted,
2. Sink – 20 years old, stained, chipped, and broken. Replacing sink faucet and garbage disposal.
3. Countertop – the counter is an old worn out formica that must be replaced.
4. Tile Backsplash – has to replaced too. Even though my husband can NOT for the life of him understand why we can’t keep a “perfectly good tile” which he loves.  I try to explain it, but I don’t think he’ll get it until he sees the new kitchen.
5. Lighting –  must change out stained glass pendants to coordinate with the new gorgeous chandelier in the breakfast nook. Also need to figure out some better under-cabinet lighting; ours currently are broken.
6. Hardware – updating broken and chipped knobs and pulls.
7. Water Filter System – decided to get rid of our water filter system (since the refrig one broke years ago) because it takes up too much space under the sink.
8. Trash – we’d like to have some helpful storage area under the sink, like to fit a “real” trash can and not the ugly paper sacks we’ve been using for the past 36 years. I”m so embarrassed to even reveal this!
9. Pantry – need to reconfigure our pantry and all the insides of our cabinets so they’re more functional.
10. Appliances – need to replace range/hood, get rid of microwave and cabinet above range, get a new dishwasher and refrigerator. This may or may not happen this spring as the Pandemic has significantly affected many businesses.  I had a wonderful sponsor for the range and hood, but sadly they had to back out because of the Pandemic.  So this may turn into a Part II of the kitchen remodel in the fall. #tobedetermined
11. Bonus Features – I have a few surprises of some exciting, unexpected features we might add to our kitchen.

 

Pandemic Interruption

Again, I really want to thank Linda Weinstein, who pulls off this amazing ORC feat twice a year, for caring about the health and safety of all participants and work crews. She made the difficult decision to postpone ORC from April 6th to May 7th. Believe me, when I say it was VERY stressful having the Pandemic unfold right when ORC was about to start. I had no idea how I’d proceed when I knew I’d have to have work crews in our home.  Linda saved the day by not only postponing it a month, but adding 2 extra weeks.  Thank you so much to Linda and her team for making the right call!!

Now, with some cities slowing opening businesses back up, and trusting the brands I work with to take the social distancing and mask protocol very seriously, I am not as stressed. We all still need to be extremely careful, but now ORC can provide glorious design inspiration to you while you’re stuck in your home. So let the fun begin!

Weekly Schedule to follow

Below is the weekly schedule for when the Guest Participants upload their posts to the One Room Challenge website.  I’m number #111 on the list. See all 150+ Guest Participants Week 1 Blog Posts announcing their rooms HERE.   Week 8 is the SUPER exciting BIG REVEAL, so you’ll want to follow along the progress of all the designers involved all the way till the big day, June 25th!

Please PIN this for easy reference.

 

 

Partnering Kitchen Brands

I want to give a special shout out to all the generous brands sponsoring The Collier St. Kitchen Makeover. I really could not do this without their support!  I’m not only incredibly grateful to partner with them, but proud to represent each of these outstanding kitchen brands.  Some I’ve had a long-term relationship with and others are local brands that have stepped up.  Remember to SHOP LOCAL and support all the small businesses in your communities struggling to survive and thrive in this “new world” we’re living in. I can’t wait to show you their beautiful products! You’ll also learn more about each company throughout the 8-week challenge in special features. You are going to love these brands and I hope you will support them by shopping online!

 

 

 

 

 

We’re Off & Running!

I can’t wait to get started on the nitty gritty of tearing apart our kitchen, having no kitchen for several days in the middle of a Pandemic, and installing all the beautiful features by our wonderful brand partners.  Still lots of decisions ahead, and you will be involved in some of them. A

All of us participating in this One Room Challenge hope to inspire you and help keep your mind off the current situation.  Although, please know that my heart is still with everyone struggling during this Pandemic; this is not an easy time.

Please follow along and let my blog and all the others brighten your day and take your mind off your troubles for a few minutes. No matter what your circumstances are, we are all in this together and you deserve to enjoy design and beauty in your life every day.

So please subscribe to my blog HERE and follow me on Pinterest @ThePillowGoddess.  Also follow @oneroomchallenge and @betterhomesandgardens and the hastags #oneroomchallenge, #thepillowgoddess and #BHGORC. Till next Thursday, stay well and safe my friends, XO PG

Note: This post is sponsored by the following brands listed above. Logos are courtesy of the respective brands. All other images, except where noted, and opinions are my own.