Good morning! Today marks the beginning of what I hope will be a pretty exciting journey. If you investigate other blogs out there, you may have seen something called the One Room Challenge, hosted by Calling it Home for the past five (!) years. Each spring and fall, 20 designers are invited to totally transform a space in the time frame of six weeks, and share their trials and tribulations with the group every Thursday. I haven't been invited to be one of those designers (yet!) but I am following along as a One Room Challenge Guest Participant. It's all very official. So, for the next six Thursdays, please check back here to see how we're transforming what is currently the biggest disaster zone in our apartment: the entryway.

This tiny, dark, shadowy hallway is as hard to photograph as it is to get in and out of. You may be thinking to yourself, "Dear God, haven't we been here before?" And the answer of course, is yes. Yes, we have. But thanks to the constantly changing nature of this thing we call life, I just haven't been able to hit on a long term solution yet, functionally or from a form perspective. The hall closet is clearly a disaster...though there is more of a semblance of order than these pictures seem to impart. But we could do so. much. better. And the hallway itself is cramped and really ugly: I hate hate hate that blue paint on the walls, which I slapped on to cover up my DIY stencil attempt a few months back, and the plaid rug has overstayed its welcome. The high chair is incredibly useful as a staging point for West -- I use it to corral him while putting on shoes and coats and hats -- but it's really big and bulky in such a tiny space. I hung the coat hanger months ago, planning to install a shorter hook for Louisa, but I never got around to the second hook. The current hook is too small and flimsy for all the crap we hang on it, and Lou not being able to hang her own coat up is a huge bummer.

So.

Let's start with the fun stuff, shall we? I'm going to get rid of that dull, flat blue and replace it with a gorgeous gray and white Otomi pattern. I'm making my own coat hanger and big round mirror, and plan to reuse the Ikea Skogska stool here...of something like it. Something small but useful for perching on when tying up my new vintage double-buckle lace-up cognac boots, which are the least practical shoes an always-late mom could ever ask for...but so, so cute. I want an umbrella stand, and I dig the industrial vibe of this one, but I plan to just hunt/haunt local shops until the right thing appears. I'm not totally sure about rugs yet, but this bright yellow number is so charming that it might be the one.

I'm also going to make use of the sliver of wall that greets you when you open the front door. I've already coated it with chalkboard paint and hung a clock on it. Now it's just time to make it awesome.

As for the closet. Sigh. I don't know. It's not helping that April is having an identity crisis right now. April, girl, I know January. And you are no January. So stop acting like it so I can put away the damn snow pants. But also my free, trash-picked storage "solutions" in here are not really solving that much. That's a trash-picked cabinet on top of a trash-picked bench, topped with a cheap shoe organizer. I'm thinking through the best way to use this closet, purge what we don't need (maybe 2 out of the 5 strollers currently calling our home can hope to stay here) and make it so that it doesn't always look like a total sh*t show. One can dream.

So don't forget to check back in next Thursday to see our progress on the One Room Challenge entryway extravaganza! And check out the other guests and amazing designers who are following along - it's great fun.

Click to see more One Room Challenge guest participants!