Saturday, September 28, 2013

Wall Transformation

I might spend a little too much time on Pinterest. I love getting ideas for our house, but sometimes the number of ideas is overwhelming and most of what I pin, I never even go back and look at let alone do. But one Pinterest inspiration caught my eye well over a year ago and I have not been able to let it go. I actually planned to start in the dining room, but we have this back hallway that was not designed with mudroom in mind. The problem is, that it is the garage entry and therefore the one we use more than any other. It's where coats, purses, diaper bags, backpacks, shoes, etc end up getting dropped. It's super crowded and kind of drives me a little bit crazy. So, that area is where I decided to try my inspiration out with a faux board and batten wall treatment. Once I decided to do it, I spent forever looking at tutorials before I had the courage to actually spend money on anything. I'm always so afraid of messing things up and have to go through quite a bit of self talk before I will even get started. Darn perfectionism!! We don't have wood working equipment and neither of our home improvement stores do precise cuts in wood, so I had to spend a bit more than I would have liked to get boards that were the width I needed. I did purchase a cheap miter block and saw, so I cut things to the length I needed with that. Sawing by hand was not easy! Maybe someday we will have some grown up tools. So after I primed all the boards, installing them was pretty easy. Then came the caulking. Not my favorite part of the job, but well worth it in the end. I love how it turned out and can't wait to get some hooks on the wall for coats and backpacks, as well as a couple of hanging baskets for hats and gloves. Perhaps this area will feel a little more functional! For now though, I'm just loving the character that the treatment adds to the walls.



 I actually considered myself done with the picture above. I was pretty nervous about trying to cut a piece of molding with a hand saw and doing the corners made me really nervous too. But as much as I liked it, it just didn't feel done. So I went for it and did the decorative molding. And I love it. Cutting the corners by hand was a pain and they are not perfect by any means, but it just adds so much character to the whole thing. Plus, purchasing, cutting, hanging, caulking, and painting only took me one extra day of work. Definitely worth it!



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