One Room Challenge [Modern Rustic Home Office] Week 1

After watching all the fun so many other bloggers have been having participating in the One Room Challenge hosted by Linda of Calling It Home, I am super excited to jump in this time as a guest participant.  Each Spring and Fall a group of 20 talented design bloggers is invited to participate. BUT other bloggers can participate too as Guest Participants. So I am taking a big, giant breath and setting out to finish a room in just six weeks. Every Thursday I will be posting my progress on my room and linking up with all of the creative ORC projects over at Calling It Home.

If you're coming from the link up, I will introduce myself a little. My name is Dara and my husband and I have been renovating a log home for the past two years. For a long time we had to focus on securing the structure itself and all of its systems. Necessary but unfun stuff. That's why I am so excited to finally be able to begin making it pretty!

So here is what I'm starting with. It has a lot of potential.

Pretty much every room in our house needs to be done, but I've picked one of my favorite rooms in the house, my husband's office. It's a pretty good sized dormer room upstairs and is one of the most light-filled rooms in the house, with a gorgeous vaulted tongue and groove ceiling. I have been wanting to finish this room for my husband for a long time and I think this challenge is just the push I need.

I wanted to have a beautiful design board to show you, but the truth is I am working with a very small budget. I am not going to be buying a lot of new retail items for this project. I'm going to be DIYing and repurposing as much as I can. 

So here is the plan:

This is my husband's current pitifully cobbled-together desk.

I found two antique oak desk bases at a yard sale a while back and because he needed a desk quickly, we used a folded up folding table as the desk top. It works, but definitely not pretty or ideal. I'm planning on keeping the bases and making a cool desk top for him.

And I'm definitely keeping this rug and another similar one. 

A big consideration for the design is my husband's vintage slot car track. He grew up with this set and his dad recently gave it to him. He and our kids love playing with it together so I'm going to find a way for this to fit in the room but not dominate it. And get it off its moving box foundation.

We live on the coast, so my husband is an avid fisherman. And being from the Detroit Metro area, he loves all Detroit sporting teams and has requested that be worked into the room somehow. So I'm trying to incorporate all of these elements because this is his room and I want him to love it.

The sunlight into this room can be intense during the day, so it definitely needs window treatments that will allow some light control. Currently it has some left over curtains from our old house hung on a piece of conduit.

I will be replacing this typical 1980s fan/light combination with something unique, possibly a DIY.

This room also needs more storage and display areas. I'm thinking this wall will be perfect for that.

This project is going to be on a very tight budget and I am going to have to be very creative in repurposing pieces we already have to accomplish it. So stay tuned to see how it all comes together in just six very short weeks!