The WillPower Project

A few months ago, I started working on a very special decorating project with two friends and fellow decorators, Sarah Kidder of Sarah Kidder Design and Candace Plotz of Candace Plotz Design. Along with Daniel Smith, owner of Right Angle Renovations and Strokes of Genius Painting, we’ve formed The WillPower Team to do a charity makeover for a family here in the Ottawa area.

Sarah, Candace, and I wanted to do a makeover for a young child with cancer or another life threatening illness. We found out about six year old William Greer through a friend of mine who’s battling cancer herself. The three of us met with Dan for sushi one night in February, and The WillPower Project was born!

William suffers from an inoperable non-cancerous tumour on his brain stem. He’s had multiple surgeries to insert a shunt in his skull, and he’s now undergoing chemo treatments once a week in an effort to stop the tumour from growing. Needless to say, William’s health condition and ongoing medical care are tough on William and his family.

We originally planned to give William’s bedroom a makeover. But when we asked his mom Lindsay what room she’d like to have done, she asked if we could do the basement. We loved her idea, because the basement is a room the whole family can enjoy. And it’s actually in good shape – no demo required, the drywall is all done, and the Greers have already bought and started installing laminate flooring.

I don’t want to give too much away in case Lindsay or William’s grandma Bev read this blog post :-) But I can show you a few teasers…

These are some of our inspiration pictures.

Contemporary Kids by Brooklyn Architects & Designers CWB Architects

Image via Rabbit Runn Designs

Eclectic Basement by Frankfort Home Builders Gander Builders

Contemporary Kids by San Francisco Interior Designers & Decorators Lizette Marie Interior Design

We’ve had such an amazing response to our requests for donations – so far, we’ve raised over $6,400 and we have lots of great companies onboard providing products and services.

Sebo Woodwork is creating custom cabinetry for four areas of the basement.

PARA Paints is donating all the paint – have I mentioned lately that PARA Paints rocks?!

Tonic Living in Toronto has donated all the fabrics for our project. These are two of my favourites. I can’t tell you what this is because it’s a super-special secret project, but we’re thrilled with how it’s coming together :-)

Custom Home Interiors is donating two fun pieces of furniture that will be perfect in the play area.

Thanks to Euro Tile & Stone in Ottawa and AFC Surfaces Inc. in Stoney Creek, we’ve got two big surprises in store for the Greers!

Neo Vintage Furniture Inc. in Cornwall has donated some fun accessories that the kids will love :-)

Montreal artist Andrada Anghel is creating a  painting especially for the Greers :-)

And yes, another top-secret project being done by Rodrigues Upholstery here in Ottawa.

Randall’s has donated five throw cushions that match our colour scheme perfectly :-)

Lilipad Creative will be taking “after” photographs of the basement makeover and doing a special family photo session.
Thank you to Karma Creative Solutions, Our Homes, and Coyle Publishing for supporting us and helping us to spread the word about our project.

And thank you to The Ottawa Citizen, Metro & Metroland Media, and Daytime Ottawa on Rogers TV for sharing The WillPower Project with your readers & viewers.

We’re aiming for the big reveal on June 27th. There’s still a lot of work between now and then, but I’m sure we can do it! If you’d like to follow our progress, check out our blog and Facebook page.