Small Balcony - But Mighty | Spring One Room Challenge
I can't believe I am writing this, but somehow I decided to be a guest participant in the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge. The focus is going to be on a small balcony. This really does fall in the category of, "What the hell was I thinking?" along with a smattering of, "When the hell am I fitting this in?"
For those of you who are not familiar with the One Room Challenge™ , this fun event is held twice a year. The mission statement is:
The One Room challenge™ will provide participants with a supportive, enthusiastic forum in which to share the process of transforming a room. The ORC is not a competition, but rather a celebration of creativity, inspiration, and original ideas.
The ORC™ is in its 19th season and I was a participant a few years ago when we designed and built our new main bathroom prior to our son coming home from college. It was a fantastic experience which is why I am doing this again.
Better Homes and Gardens is the media partner and this season, there are 20 featured designers that partner with brand sponsors, along with hundreds of guest designers and bloggers, and 'grammers' (Instagram). Each week we will be writing about our process, progress, and perhaps some pitfalls. We will all provide and link the posts to the One Room Challenge website HERE where you can follow along and be inspired! I hope you will follow along!
Small But Mighty Balcony
As you may remember, this past December we moved our daughter into her very first apartment. I was lucky enough to have such an easy 'client' to design her new space. Abby is pretty easy going and has a definite idea of what she likes and does not like.
The Balcony
The only space left for our daughter's apartment is her balcony. As you can imagine, in an apartment, it is not very big. Her balcony is 12'-2" X 4'-9" for a total of 61 square feet.
Wants, Dreams, Wishes
It's hard to know how you're going to use a space if you have never lived there before. When I asked Abby about her wants, dreams, and wishes, I got the following response:
- seating
- a place to have a morning coffee in the summer
- a place to potentially work outside
- for it to be pretty
How's that for a list? Her view to the east (as the sun rises) and the view to the west (where the sun sets) makes this a perfect balcony to design!
My challenges
You may not think there are a lot of challenges in a small space, but I'm here to tell you differently.
- First of all, small-scale furniture is needed. This is not always easy to source.
- Secondly, I'm not sure if you heard, but we are currently in a pandemic and just yesterday, we had even MORE restrictions imposed on us.
- Third, supply and demand in the world of renovations and decorating are crazy. That's crazy with a capital C!
- And last but not least, budget. Let's be honest, Abby has no budget so momma's looking after this one!
Coming Up
Next week I'll share with you the design we came up with for this small balcony. Since my daughter's favourite colour is black and mine is not, we have some negotiating to do!
Until next week,
