Welcome to the Blue Leopard Interiors Blog! I’m so glad you’re here! My name is Justine Dennen, and I’m the owner of Blue Leopard Interiors, a boutique residential interior design firm in Great Falls, VA. Although I’ve been in business as a designer for five years, this blog is brand new! For my journey into interior design and a little more about my current and former homes, check out my very first blog post here.

I’m thrilled to be participating for the first time in the Fall 2022 One Room Challenge!! In case you haven’t heard of the One Room Challenge, it’s an eight week online event which happens every spring and fall, where interior decorators, and home bloggers, undertake redesigning or designing from scratch a room of their choosing, while sharing the progress along the way. It’s not a competition, as there is no winner, just a supportive group of like-minded design enthusiasts challenging themselves to complete a room in eight weeks. Huge thanks to Linda Weinstein, the creator and director of the One Room Challenge.

For my first foray into this event, I’ve decided to undertake both my Dining Room and Butler’s Pantry. For before photos, and the story of why I’ve finally decided to participate in the One Room Challenge, (after following it for years!),  check out this blog post, where I talk more about it. But for today, let’s jump into the details of how I plan to transform each of these rooms in eight weeks!

Week Four – Half Way There???

Yikes! I feel like I should have more done seeing as how we are half way into the 8 week challenge, but there has been some progress made, it just doesn’t look like much yet! I have to say, I’m feeling mildly panicked, especially since my wallpaper installer is scheduled to start on Monday, 10/24, (that’s less than a week from now!) and there’s a lot that needs to be done before the wallpaper goes up. All of the drywall needs to be in place and primed for wallpaper, but before that can happen, the support beams (for the custom brass bistro shelving from Soil and Oak) and electrics (for the dining room sconces and butler’s pantry sconces) also had to be installed. But thankfully, paying a bit of a rush fee for the bistro shelving paid off, because it arrived a few days ago and my carpenter was able to go ahead and add support in the walls and ceiling, which is  needed as this shelving will be hefty once it’s installed. Even though it’s in lots of pieces and hasn’t been installed yet, I can already see how gorgeous it’s going to be!!  Here’s a little sneak peek of some of the parts –

While he was here, the carpenter also pulled all the wiring needed for the sconces in the dining room and butler’s pantry, removed the tile and granite backsplash from above the butler’s pantry bar, added new drywall, and cut the front panels out of the cabinets so we can insert the decorative sheet metal once they’ve been painted. Here’s how the dining room and butler’s pantry look currently:

So although it doesn’t look like much, there has been quite a bit of progress made, and I *think* I’m still on schedule. There will be lots of fun updates in the next week: new butler’s pantry countertop, wallpaper, and dining chairs!! In the meantime, I still have a few things I need to decide on and order – namely the dining room console – so keep an eye out on my IG stories where I’ll be taking a poll!

Cheers to Fab Interiors,

Justine

Here is my ORC progress

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