It’s Week #7 of the One Room Challenge! If you haven’t been following along, this challenge was created by LInda Weinstein in 2011 and she had the idea to get some of her online friends together and challenge themselves to focus on finishing one room from start to finish. The challenge is 8 weeks long, so the great reveal is next week.

Anyone who is online can participate and weekly progress updates can be found on the ORC website. You can catch up with all of my previous weeks at the bottom of this post as well as going to their website to see all of the participants. It’s not a competition and everyone is so supportive.

I’ve had Missy Elliot’s song, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” on my mind all week. Beep Beep, who’s got the keys to the Jeep, Vroooommm. But I digress. That’s how much it’s been raining here. It’s messing with my projects for real. It’s crunch time but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This fireplace is the bane of my existence. When I finish this build, I’m going to take myself out to dinner or maybe go on a weekend getaway to celebrate. When you have a house built in 1950, the walls and floors are wonky so let me tell you, the math wasn’t mathing and the level wasn’t leveling.

I decided to stabilize the legs because the last thing I need is for the whole thing to come crashing down in the middle of the night.

I used my jigsaw to cut out a portion of the backing so I can get to the light switch.

I anchored the mantle to the wall and screwed up from the bottom to anchor it to the top of the surround.

I did the best I could with leveling it but as you can see, I had to prop up the left side a little bit. I also realized that the actual mantle/headboard was not level either. Remember I told you this was the headboard of my waterbed from back in the day. The bed  slats were used for my kitchen shelves which I detailed in my Renovation Journey Part 5.

Next, it’s time to measure and cut the the cement board for the fireplace surround.

I continued ripping off the material on the loveseat.

I found the price of the sofa underneath the cushions. $39.95!!!! I always find great deals at the Habitat Restore.

I found some woven upholstery material in my stash that I can use for the outside of the loveseat but none of my samples matched so it was off to the fabric store again.

I found the perfect fabric. It’s soft, has green and gold in it and it should be dog proof. My dog likes to paw at the upholstery before settling down. It’s called “nesting” and it’s something some breeds do.  Does anyone have a dog who does this? It’s so funny to watch.

I’m using the fabric from the loveseat as a pattern.

These are the cushioned arm rests. I took the fabric off with a seam ripper.

The stuffing was in surprisingly good shape, so I’m going to reuse it.

Can’t wait to get to the good stuff like curating my art collection, making art and accessorizing. Here’s some of the art I plan on putting in the room along with some canvases and frames I had hanging around. There’s more vintage frames and art I have collected over the years in my attic and it’ll be fun getting to use some of them.

I feel good about where I am even though I have several projects left. Once I got over the hump of building the fireplace I feel like it’s all downhill from here. I still have to tile the fireplace surround, but I had to order more tile since several pieces were broken and I can’t use them.  I also have to make an upholstered headboard, finish upholstering the loveseat and make pillows. I have all of the materials so I just need to bang them out. Sounds like a lot, but I’m confident I’ll get it all done.

Let me know in the comments what you think so far.

See ya next time for the big reveal.

Week 1   ||        Week 2   ||        Week 3   II        Week 4   II        Week 5   II        Week 6   II        Week 7   ||        Week 8   ||