Beautiful transformations, exciting sneak peeks, Instagram Stories full of the ups and downs of problem solving on tight deadlines! Creativity oozing out of every pore. The Spring 2020 #OneRoomChallenge is here!

FIRST, A LITTLE BACKGROUND STORY.

If you are a first time reader of this blog, welcome! I’m Leslie Carothers, the chief energizing officer of my two businesses, The Kaleidoscope Partnership + Savour Partnership and the curator of the Instagram feed: #DesignHappyLiving.

I’ve been involved in the furniture and interior design industry for the past 35+ years now. For the past 12 years, I’ve helped approx. 35 major and emerging brands and over 50+ interior designers with branding, website positioning, and high level strategic digital marketing initiatives.

3 years ago, I started a second business, Savour Partnership, to produce beautiful, custom shoppable digital publications of all types for lifestyle brands within the home furnishings industry as well as individual interior designers.

My Creative Director, Sam Henderson, lives in Paris full time and also does freelance work for the Discovery family of brands. He is HGTV’s #1 rated content producer as rated by their audience. I feel so fortunate to have him on my team.

I’ve followed Linda Weinstein’s #OneRoomChallenge ever since it first started, seventeen seasons ago now, and have watched it grow and grow into one of the premier influencer marketing opportunities for both the sponsoring brands and the participating interior designers.

Linda’s media partner is Meredith Corporation’s, Better Homes and Garden Magazine, which has a magazine circulation of approx. 80 million.

I know this because back in the days when magazines were just beginning to work with designers with blogs ( known then as bloggers but now known as influencers), Meredith Corporation hired my company, The Kaleidoscope Partnership, to help them find and select their very first group of BHG Stylemakers.

That was a fun assignment and is how I got to know Jill Waage.

Fast forward 10 years or so and now BHG is all in with influencer marketing, and is the official sponsor of Linda’s #OneRoomChallenge! It is so much fun for me, personally, to watch the room transformations of all who participate, whether as one of the 20 officially chosen participants, or as one of the guest participants.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE #ONEROOMCHALLENGE?

The One Room Challenge takes place bi-annually, in April and October. The official and guest participants choose a room or rooms in their own homes to transform.

They post their progress on their blogs and social media channels over 6 consecutive weeks. This Spring 2020 season, though, the #oneroomchallenge is taking place over 8 weeks, due to the pandemic, and it also is starting later than normal.

Every season, Linda and her team choose 20 official participants who are given outstanding national visibility via her website and the Better Homes and Garden website. In addition, any interior designer or design enthusiast is also invited to participate as a guest participant.

Guest participants can participate via their blogs or via Instagram.

Right now, Week 1 has just begun, and it’s not too late to sign up as guest participant if you’re interested! The sign up link at the bottom of this post.

MEET THE OFFICIAL PARTICIPANTS

The official One Room Challenge website has all the live links to each of the official participants so you can follow them all and see the progress of their transformations each week! It’s a lot of fun to follow these talented creatives!

Now, I’d like to introduce you to the 3 official participants who are part of my Facebook Group for interior designers, #DesignWealth. 2 of them I’ve known for a long time, Erika Ward and Kelly and Joann.

Erika had just received the keys to her new brick and mortar retail location/design studio in Atlanta before the pandemic hit, and her #OneRoomChallenge transformation is all about how she is transforming her new shop/studio into a beautiful place of inspiration and joy for her customers and clients.

Kelly and Joann, also in Atlanta, have a wonderful podcast that is gaining quite a following, and their #OneRoomChallenge is all about how they are transforming their podcast space in their current design studio into a more welcoming environment for their burgeoning podcasting and video recording activities.

Alisa, from New Jersey, is a newer member of my Group that I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting in person yet, but insanely talented at making her home stunningly beautiful via re-use and re-adaptation on a budget. See the image following this one to see what she did for the Fall 2019 #OneRoomChallenge.

As she knows, I was blown away by what she created on a very tight budget using mostly Facebook Marketplace finds.

All three of their Week 1 blog posts are linked to at the bottom of this post. Don’t miss some great reading!

This is what Alisa created for her home office (particularly interesting right now with so many working from home, I think) , using mostly Facebook Marketplace finds, for the Fall 2019 #OneRoomChallenge.

Amazing, right? I’ve linked to her final reveal post for this at the end of this one and can’t wait to watch her transform her master bathroom next. Her inspiration photos in her Week 1 post are pure eye candy. Don’t miss them!

A guest participant I’d like to now shine the spotlight on is Jana Donohoe. Jana is a great past client of The Kaleidoscope Partnership and a past client of Savour Partnership, and is a veteran at creating beautiful transformations in her home through her past participation in several #OneRoomChallenge seasons.

Jana has a wonderful blog, laced through and through with her trademark sense of humor. She’s a busy designer Mom of 3 young children so you can imagine. Let’s just say that folding laundry isn’t her favorite activiity!

Don’t miss subscribing to her great blog on the link at the bottom of this post and getting the mini-magazine we created for her, with her top tips on How To Remodel Your Kitchen, for free, as your gift. Jana has remodeled a lot of kitchens in the Fayetteville, NC area where she lives and has excellent ideas for you!

This photo of Jana was taken by her husband, and I just love it. Jana will be transforming her outdoor living area and her basement exercise room for this Spring’s #OneRoomChallenge. Don’t miss following along!

As I said earlier, it’s not too late to participate as a guest participant. Are you feeling the urge to jump in, but still not quite sure what the real benefits are to you, from a business standpoint?

Here you go:

5 TOP REASONS WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER PARTICIPATING IN THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE

Re: that getting published part. As some of you know, Sam and I are the co-editors of Seasonal Living Magazine, a quarterly 32 page shoppable, consumer facing quarterly digital magazine that we design and write for indoor/outdoor furniture, lighting and decorative accessories manufacturer, Seasonal Living.

The mission of the magazine is to inspire people around the world to live more in harmony with the 4 seasons of Winter. Spring.Summer. Fall. through inspiring images and fun, informative articles laced with videos and music, around all thing seasonal in Food + Recipes. Travel. Entertaining. Wellness. Design.

We will definitely be looking through the #OneRoomChallenge transformations for new talent to feature in upcoming issues. And if any of you who might be seeing this need to purchase indoor/outdoor furniture for your transformations, please keep Seasonal Living’s modern, colorful furniture in mind. (Note: #HPMKT Stylespotter, Nancy Fire, recently chose Seasonal Living’s CLIP concrete dining tables as one of her top picks for Spring 2020 market).

Seasonal Living is designer friendly, they have plenty of stock in inventory right now and ship from Dallas.

Past official #OneRoomChallenge participant, Linda Holt, is the featured designer in our current issue, and I invite you to get your complimentary subscription to the magazine on the link at the bottom of this post so you can see Linda’s gorgeous home and read my interview with her.

Seasonal Living’s HELTER SKELTER brightly colored large ceramic planter is already part of first time guest participant Ilse Benard’s beautiful backyard area.

Ilse lives in the same pretty Texas coastal town I do, League City, TX, and is an avid organic gardener. She loves color and will be transforming her outdoor patio area. I can’t wait what she does with it!

See the link to her post, too, at the bottom of this one.

Here’s a sneak peek of how the HELTER SKELTER looks now, in Ilse’s backyard, as shared on one of Seasonal Living’s Insta STORIES last week.

And now I have to let you in on something I’m considering. As some of you know, I curate an Instagram feed just for fun called #DesignHappyLiving.

I’ve been doing this for about 3 years now.

Originally, when I started, I had grand plans for #DesignHappyLiving. Those had to take a back burner, though, due to my other professional and personal obligations + the time I spend as an administrator of my Facebook Group for interior designers, #DesignWealth, where I help the members learn how to use their websites and blogs to create 24/7 income for themselves + how to drive the traffic to their blogs and websites to make that business strategy successful.

But, I am seriously considering, finally, building out a website for #DesignHappyLiving, starting a blog for it, and participating in the #FallOneRoomChallenge, myself.

You see, I was a luxury interior designer in Houston for 16 years, prior to starting my businesses 18 years ago now, and I kind’ve miss the creative aspect of exploring design for myself - something that’s become increasingly obvious to me during the pandemic, where I’ve had to stop all my travels and stay at home.

This is what the #DesignHappyLiving Instagram feed looks like now.

And this is the logo for #DesignHappyLiving and my question for you, my friends and readers. Should I do this? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

And now it’s time to close this post. A long one!

I do invite you, though, to read a few of my past posts about topics that have been widely viewed by many interior designers and that might help you, too, as you think through how you might wan to approach the #OneRoomChallenge so that it might also lead to some financial rewards for you, both short and long term…something I know is very important right now to many members of my Facebook Group.

1. How To Make Money With Your Blog. 24/7 And How To Use Pinterest To Make This Business Strategy Successful.

2. How To Set Up Rich Pins and Make Your Pinterest Pins, Shoppable.

3. How To Set Up Affiliate Product Links Using Viglink’s (now Sovern) Anywhere Links

And here are all the links I’ve been promising you since the beginning of this post:

The Official One Room Challenge Website

www.oneroomchallenge.com

How To Join The One Room Challenge As A Guest Participant

https://www.oneroomchallenge.com/howdoijoin

Register To Join The One Room Challenge As A Guest Participant

https://teamorc.typeform.com/to/z9zbak

OFFICIAL PARTICIPANTS

Alisa Bovino
Week 1
Fall 2019 Reveal

Kandrac & Kole:
Week 1

Erika Ward
Week 1

GUEST PARTICIPANTS

Jana Donohoe Designs
Week 1

Ilse Benard
Week 1

OTHER:

Seasonal Living Magazine

Design Wealth Facebook Group (open only to interior designers with a website)

Design Happy Living Instagram Feed

And lastly, here are two pin sized images. Would you please consider pinning one of them, whichever one suits your taste, to your business Pinterest boards, so that more people might find this post and be helped by the information in it?

Thank you so much!

Leslie Carothers

or this one.