Archives for April 2017

Barn Door | Week 4 | One Room Challenge™ Spring 2017

Modern Barn Door
One Room Challenge™ Week 4

Welcome to week 4 of the One Room Challenge™ hosted by Linda from Calling it Home, where designers and bloggers makeover a room in their home in 6 weeks. For those of you just tuning in, you can go back and follow the progress by reading Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3. This week I’ll be sharing this Modern Barn Door we’ve added to the space. We had planned on building our own door from plywood and molding, but when we factored in the time and cost, we decided that buying this ready-made door made more sense for us.

I had wanted a barn door for a really long time but I have a smaller home and a more open concept main floor. Meaning, there was no room anywhere for a barn door except in this room. When we were deciding on how to make this room more functional, we realized there was so much junk in our tiny walk in closet that we couldn’t even shut the closet door! However, we had to utilize as much floor space as possible in this closet, so a barn door was just what was needed! You can use all the floor space without having to worry about a door being swung open or shut. It was the perfect solution and I got my dream of having a barn door!

If you remember my mood board, I had wanted this room to take on a Modern Coastal Farmhouse vibe:

So that meant along with some cozy pieces and texture, it would also have some clean lines and brass finishes. When we decided on the barn door, I wanted it to have the same aesthetic. Instead of going with the black hardware that I had always thought of having on a barn door, I chose this clean steel hardware. I had wanted hardware that incorporated brass, but that was difficult to find, so I came up with my own solution.

The brass hardware is to tie in with the brass mirror and light fixture that are coming. I spray painted the two pieces that attach the door to the track, a soft gold using Rustoleum Metallic in Pure Gold before we hung the door.

I also found this clean lined and modern door handle from the Home Depot and spray painted it in the same finish. It really tied it all together. The door is painted Benjamin Moore’s “Simply White” along with the walls.

Our old door is still attached in there! Lol. The closet will be cleaned out and the old door removed this week. You may have noticed that I didn’t leave the space by the ceiling empty, but brought the stencil as close to the ceiling as possible. I didn’t mind it in the room at the time, but after seeing it on the blog last week, it looked too unfinished to me so I filled it in this week. I’m still loving that watercolour look!

Thanks for stopping by to check out the progress. It’s hard to make these update posts exciting when you’re only showing little bits at a time, I know. Stay tuned though, only one more progress post and then the final reveal! Don’t forget to follow along with the other participants here!

Blessings,

Kim

Wall Stencilling How-To | Week 3 | One Room Challenge Spring 2017

2:31 pm by kim 58 Comments

Wall Stencilling How-To

Well it’s week 3 of the One Room Challenge and oh how the weeks have flown by! This week I’ve added some colour and pattern above the board and batten by using a stencil. I’ll share a little wall stencilling how-to but first let’s look at where we’re going. If you’re just tuning in now you can follow the progress by reading week 1 and week 2.

Here is the mood/inspiration board for the room:

If you notice, the board and batten as well as my stencil treatment above it aren’t on my mood board. I still hadn’t decided at the time what kind of a treatment to add. I knew that I wanted a modern coastal farmhouse look thats much in keeping with the rest of my home right now. Once I decided on the board and batten I knew I wanted to do something above it. Wallpaper can be pretty pricey even for a relatively small space so I decided on stencilling. There are so many gorgeous patterns out there now and when you add the colour factor, the possibilities are endless! I decided to go with Royal Design Studios Stencils for my stencil and chose the Floral Fireworks allover stencil 21″x 23″. I had the paint colour already and had been waiting for a chance to use it. I used the Fusion Mineral Paint in “Liberty Blue”.

I have to say that I love the way it turned out! I’m still deciding on wether or not to finish the very top as I’m kind of liking the somewhat scalloped looking edge. I guess you’ll find out on the final reveal! 😉

Wall Stencilling How-To

Let’s start with what you’ll need:

You’ll need a stencil of your choice
A small roller and/or a stencilling brush
Good quality painter’s tape
Lot’s of paper towel
A small paint tray or a styrofoam plate will do
A level
Measuring tape
Spray on adhesive for the back of your stencil (optional)

1.Using your measuring tape, find the centre of the wall. Affix your stencil to the top and centre of your wall. Check to make sure that your stencil is level.

2. Load up your roller/brush with paint , enough to cover the entire thing evenly.

3. Remove most of the paint by off loading it onto some paper towel. This is important as you don’t want excess paint to bleed underneath the stencil. Less is better when it comes to stencilling!

4. Begin to roll out over your stencil. You can lift up the corner of the stencil to make sure you’re not applying too much paint and bleeding through.

5. Move your stencil over to the the next position. Your stencil will have registration marks that will guide you to the correct placement. I found that the paint was dry enough to move onto the next placement without disturbing the previous paint.

6. Once you come to a corner or edge. Apply your painters tape to protect the edge and the adjacent corner.

7. Place the tape on the side of your stencil that you will be stencilling. In this case the left of the corner. Don’t tape the right side down as this will need to be flexible. (In the above pic. The right side is taped just to hold the stencil up while I photographed the pic, otherwise that side should not be taped) Using your roller to paint into the corner by pressing into it.

8. When doing edges and corners, you can use your roller to press into the corner/edge and then use your fingers to press your stencil down into the corner/edge. You can continue to roll at this point or use a little stencil brush to get right into the edge. I just continued on with my roller.

9. Continue to go around the room until you have finished. You may have to stop and clean the excess paint buildup from your stencil. I did this once and placed it in my bathtub to clean.

Royal Designs Studio has some great how-to videos and instructions on their site that I would encourage you to watch if you’re thinking of trying this out.

If you look at my walls there are lighter and darker areas. I actually love this as it gives the appearance of water colour. I also found that in places near the corners and edges where It seemed that I made some major “out of the lines” mistakes, the pattern was very forgiving. If there are areas that you feel you need to address, you can simply get a little brush and use the base colour to help clean up the lines. I thought I was going to have to do a lot of cleaning up of the lines but it seems to blend in and has just become part of the pattern.

So here is a little peek into my Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom. If you look to the right of the photo, you’ll see a peek of something else we’ve been working on! 🙂 Thanks so much for joining me on my first journey with the One Room Challenge and stay tuned for more projects on the way! You can follow along with others on their journey as well right here!

(This post was done in collaboration with Royal Design Studio Stencils, all photography, thoughts and opinions are my own.)

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 2 | Board and Batten

8:54 pm by kim 46 Comments

One Room Challenge | Week 2 | Board and Batten

Welcome to week 2 of the 6 week One Room Challenge hosted by Linda of Calling it Home! Well, the madness has begun and I’ve dragged the hubby into it as well and we tackled the walls in our little…wait for it, it’s a mouthful…Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom. Lol. This is the mood board I created to steer me in the direction I want to go with in this room:

If you remember in Week 1, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of treatment I was going to apply to the walls. I knew I wanted it to have a coastal farmhouse vibe but done in a modern way. I love shiplap and have used it in a few rooms on the main floor, but I wanted to try something different this time. After searching through my Pinterest pins and other sites, I finally decided on board and batten. I thought it would add character and charm to my little room and to be honest, it looked like it required less work than I was used to with shiplap!

I think it turned out great! It seems to fit this room perfectly and I’m wondering why I didn’t do it before. It brings such character to this little 9×12 space. I think that Jack approves too! I’ve added a bit of greenery to break up the white a bit so you have a better idea of how the space looks.

Below are the tools hubby and I used to complete the project:

(This post contains affiliate links, I only share products I know and love)

We used:

Pre-primed already cut MDF boards that were 3.5″ wide. We removed the old baseboards and used these as not only the boards but for baseboards too. We wanted a totally even and cohesive look with all the seams matching.
Nail gun with 2″ nails. we didn’t use PL glue on the boards, although you can if you’d like. We just nailed every couple of feet and didn’t even worry about hitting studs as each piece is fairly lightweight on it’s own.
We used a level to make sure each board was straight, so important as your own eye can fool you! You can also use a laser level to level your top boards. We have one, but it was lost in the abyss that is our garage so we did without it.
Caulking, to caulk all the seams, I even do the bottom where the baseboards meet the floor. I think the attention to finishing details can make the difference between a “diy” and a “professional” look.
We used wood filler to fill in all the nail holes and the seams.
A sander to sand all the wood filler off. I love my B & D mouse sander. This fella has seen a lot of action!
Painter’s tape. I use this when I am painting the baseboards to avoid getting any paint on the floor.
Lastly, you’ll need the paint of your choice.

The only difficult part of this application was figuring out the math! Our walls were all different widths so the width between boards on one wall may be different than the widths between boards on another. We did the math calculations and stood the boards against the walls to test out what would look best. Once you’ve figured out the spacing and marked where your boards will go, the project moves on fairly quickly. We placed and nailed the baseboards down first then we put up our vertical boards and left the top horizontal ones till the last. While my husband was nailing in the boards, I was right behind him applying the caulking and wood filler, so we were a quick efficient team. As with every project, always measure twice and cut once!

Once again, I’m so happy with how this project turned out. If this is something you’ve been thinking about doing, I would say do it! It’s a small amount of work for a huge impact and would make a great weekend project. Thanks for joining me for week two, stay tuned for week 3 as it only gets better from here. We’ve got some great projects planned. You can follow along on Instagram too as I tend to share there first. To receive our blog posts as soon as they’re posted hit the subscribe button and they will be sent straight to your inbox! And don’t forget to go visit all the other participants too, you can find them here.

Blessings,

Kim

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 1 | Our Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workspace

11:26 pm by kim 17 Comments

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 1

It’s time for another project! This is my first time to join in with Linda of Calling it home who hosts this biannual room makeover series called the One Room Challenge (ORC). Twenty featured design bloggers are chosen to participate as well as 200 plus guest Participants to make over a room in six weeks! So much decor inspiration to check out on the ORC site….And so the madness begins…

For this challenge, I’ve chosen my office/workroom to makeover. Some of you may remember a pic I posted on Instagram last spring of my office, it was light bright and pretty. (Although the pic is a little yellow, I took it with my iPhone!) But it has slowly turned into a place where my extra bits of everything go to die.

It was pretty and comfortable but lacked the proper design to make it a real workhorse of a workspace. I need this room to be both functional as an office, where all the home administration happens and also as a workroom, where I can sew, store fabrics, keep photography equipment and also use for blog product photos etc.

Now don’t judge… but this is what my darling little office has turned into!

BEFORE:

Where did my pretty little office go? A combination of too much stuff and lack of proper functional storage. I know that most of us have that one room that holds the overflow of our decor but I want that room to be back in my basement, underneath the stairs where it belongs! To be honest we had a magazine come in a and do a video interview and tour of our home, so this room became the “catch all” of all the extra bits we weren’t using. But it’s time to get this room ship shape! So lets go with the plan.

Mood Board

So here is my Mood Board for my Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom.. I know , it’s a mouthful!

If you’ve been around my blog and Instagram for very long, you know this mood board is very much in keeping with my decor style. I’m loving the white and wood with shots of blue and brass.

Plan of Action

Declutter everything that’s in the room, including the closet. Empty the room of everything.
Add some cosmetic changes to the walls that will be a surprise (because I still haven’t decided yet! lol)
Add a rug that will anchor the room and add some colour and texture.
Find a good desk chair that is not only pretty but enable me to work in comfort.
Change out the lighting. Although I love the little chandelier that’s there now, It’s too small. A hit of brass will add a more modern feel to the room.
Change out the large mirror for a round one with an antique brass finish.
Find proper storage. I would like to add these sideboards so that the clutter will be behind the doors, making the room more streamlined.
Add some wicker baskets to help with storage and to add texture.

I’ve got so much to do, so lets get this party started! I hope you’ll drop by the blog next week to see the progress. You can also find me on Instagram and Pinterest. I’ll need the encouragement by then!

Blessings,

Archives for April 2017

Modern Barn Door One Room Challenge™ Week 4

Wall Stencilling How-To

Wall Stencilling How-To

One Room Challenge | Week 2 | Board and Batten

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 1

Mood Board

Plan of Action

Kim

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Modern Barn Door
One Room Challenge™ Week 4