When the floor is pulled from beneath you - The One Room Challenge - Week 5
Hey Hey,
Welcome to the home stretch and a new month of Novemberville. Plus, of course, the penultimate update on my One Room Challenge. I can tell you now, that I was NOT in the mood for what happened to me on Monday which ripped my week apart BUT first let me tell you what else happened that I must share with you.
A quick reminder and a shoutout to Better Homes and Gardens who are the official sponsors of the challenge. I can hardly leave out the One Room Challenge itself for encouraging folk from all over the world, including me in London, England to transform one room over a 6 week period. They’ve both helped create a great community vibe and there are some BADASS projects going on.
It got dusty
Do you remember what disaster of a ceiling there was with cracks, woodchip wallpaper and bad lighting? Well, I am finally pleased to say that the crack and wallpaper are done and after coating myself and the entire room in dust, and filling in the holes I got to sanding it. First off, ouch. Sanding above your head is exercise. I know how a cake feels when they’re dusted with icing sugar because the more I smoothed over the lumps the more filler dust landed on me.
Whenever you’re DIYing it, protect your lungs and eye health and be safe. Wear a dust mask and goggles. As fine as the dust was poring down as I sanded the ceiling those little speck played havoc. I would say wear gloves too, they proved messier than they were protective. Every time I took them off dust fell off in an air puff, but using my bare hands the dust just stuck by me until I washed it off. Over and over again I will add.
As frustrating as it is, until the ceiling is fully complete I can’t hang a room of wallpaper or anything. I’m so excited for the walls, and the makeshift car track that was drawn onto it previously, to be covered but patience is a must.
I’ve decided to revamp the drawers too. It was no great value other than being able to hold lots of clothes but doesn’t it look so drab? A quick paint job will help the cause for sure, you’ll have to see the reveal.
Good stuff comes in delivered mail
More deliveries have come in to pile up in a spare corner of the house if there was one. At this point deliveries are everywhere, in the corner of the sitting room, hanging out chatting to other boxes in the hallway, taking up residence under the stairs and left in the shop as long as possible too.
I have bedding of the healthy variety. WOO HOO And of course I took full advantage of La Redoute’s sale. Totally worthy of a self hi5 when it comes to saving money
Still had to check the labels, especially after one disaster I’m not trying to had another botched purchase.
La Redoute is where I got my latest delivery of bedding. Remember the aim is to create space for wellness so only the healthiest will do. Organic, no toxic cotton was a no brainer to buy and yet again the internet won the buying hunt for what I was after.
Next week you’ll see what bedding I’ve choosen, but I can reveal the BARGAIN. I was blessed with La Redoute, French brand that i’ve not tried before but have a great reputation, having a sale of up to 50% offline. RESULT. Buying OEKO-TEX® (an independent product label for all types of textiles tested for harmful substances in everything from yarns to fabrics to the ready-to-use items that you can buy) does attract a higher cost but we’re talking YOUR health here. If you can, don’t compromise it for the sake of style.
Am I happy? YES. Which leads my on to my stress of the week……
When the floor is pulled beneath you
If I wasn’t used to the hitches that can come along at any time to during a project, I would’ve spent Monday morning crying. The drama goes like this:
I got an email from the cork flooring company to say they were out of stock of the cork I had ordered. No issues there, it happens, so I was happy to choose something similar or wait up to 2 weeks. 2 weeks that I don’t have inside the One Room Challenge time. Urgh!
When they offered me an alternative for more money I wasn’t keen on incurring extra wastage (not an eco friendly move) I sent a reply asking about alternatives and additional costs and waited the entire weekend to know where I stand. Still no flags were waving red so on the Monday morning I got a reply but it had ZERO contact details, no logo and certainly no order reference.
I looked at my emailed receipt and the trail but found zero telephone number. I know we’re in the computer age and all but phone numbers still give us comfort that there is something more than a robot and automated response to turn to when we have a query. Cool, I’ll just pop onto the website, log in and check the status of the order. What did I get? NOTHING! The website was no longer, do-do level of deadness in a matter of days.
I used PayPal to buy the cork flooring so being as calm as I could, I was hopeful that their contact details where A-ok and I could sort the deliver out. Another link to a dead website and panic was all I had. No account to check, no person to cuss on the phone, not even a telephone number that had anything more than a dead dial tone. BUT they had my money! F@~K.
Using the one dry email that I did have, I wrote a strong worded “GIVE me back my money back NOW, please & thank you” message with hope of a response and waited. And waited. You know when you check your inbox hoping that something just filtered through to the spam? Yep, I was on that almost hourly. With the shame of being gypped, it was time to tell Mr what had happened.
“RING RING!
Me: Good morning. I got scammed, lost our money and have no flooring. How are you?
Mr: Err, WTH do you mean woman? What happened?
Me: The website etc doesn’t exist. it was there and now it’s gone. they have our money.
Mr: It’s cool, it’ll turn out just fine, contact PayPal to reclaim the money. i’m going back to sleep.
ME: err, ok (phew! he ain’t fussed!) i’ll let you know how it goes.
MR: Goodnight and quit panicking
Hangs up
ME: (AWW, he calmed me down, bless him)”
I left it a day later, and called Mr (different time zone so super early for him).
I explained that although I got a reply saying my money will be refunded when they can, I had no reply as to when and definitely had no signs of a credit note. What did you mean, when you flipping can? Damn cheek, but that’s the only hope I had left of seeing £200 ($260)!
Instead of crying I was saying F@~K F@~K F@~K in my head and spent the morning sorting this mess out which was just rechecking if the website was back up and running, using every link possible to get there and Googling everything about the company in search of hope. wasted my time and made me feel bad. In the grand scheme of things it really is just a mere snag in getting to the finish of this challenge. The way I see it now, even if I get to the end and have zero flooring, it’ll come eventually (via another supplier) as plans do go off track.
in the meantime, catch up on the last 4 weeks antics.
What needs to be done to get us to week 6 and the grand reveal?
EVERYTHING and them some madness
Install shelving.
Install Fireplace
Wallpaper the walls like my life depended on it (Yes this should have happened last week but it didn’t)
Lay rugs ignoring the fact that the flooring underneath is the sane ole crap that sucks.
Hang curtains, made window covering and forget that on the other side of the window there is scaffolding (more on that next week).
Style accessories
Install lighting and relish in the ability to see the true colour of my clothes and make up.
Tell you all about the week of craziness
Time for me to get the room together and thank you for stopping by. I appreciate you staying on board. If your like how the wellness bedroom is taking shape, give this post a like, or comment below. Hi5s and curtsies! Til next week and the REVEAL!
Don’t forget to cheer on everyone else who are doing a fab job for this challenge. handy links to read your heart out is here: www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog
