Week Two!
Admittedly, I don’t have much progress to share this week. We are slowly working on finishing up caulking and cleaning the tile in the kitchen and prepping the open shelves for finishing/installation. I’m hoping to get a lot of trim work done this weekend so I can start caulking all of that which I estimate will take me approximately 3 years and 47 days.
Since I don’t have much progress to share today, I thought I’d share a couple of mood boards and a little more detail for the two spaces so you guys can see how they work together.
First up, the dining room:
The main elements in this room will be the green board and batten wall treatment and the orange grove wallpaper. The green color we chose (Behr Northern Glen) isn’t showing true to color on this screen but the shots on my Instagram are pretty close.
We’ve also decided to purchase this IKEA Billy bookcase to replace the dresser we’re using now (which doesn’t look like it’s going to hang in there much longer anyway). Here’s a shot of the dresser (and a sneak peek at the wallpaper and green together); it’s just a cheap Target dresser that we’ve had probably as long as we’ve lived in this house. What you can’t see is the severe bow at the bottom of the dresser from the weight of all of our crap.
We’re planning on building the bookcase out a bit and trimming it so that it looks built in. We’re going ahead and splurging on this for two reasons: 1) it gives us even more storage than what we have now which is never a bad thing and 2) it keeps us from having a seam in our wallpaper. Since this paper is meant to be hung vertically, I don’t think we’d be able to match the pattern and blend the seam. The bookcase will go about where the dresser is now and then there will be wallpaper on each side of it.
Right now we have a chrome light fixture that I really like but I want to use some more natural elements in the space so we’re going to install this World Market chandelier that we purchased for our bedroom in here instead.
We’re also keeping our existing dining room table for now which we built using plans by Ana White. Eventually, we’ll get a new table and put our farmhouse table outside but for now we’re using what we already have since the table I want is $1,000 and ain’t nobody spending that on a table right now.
There’s really not much to talk about in the kitchen and since we’re making our own counters, I didn’t include any on the mood board.
We replaced all of our cabinets with these Lowe’s Project Source drawers and painted them the same green we used in the dining room. We also carried the same laminate floors from the rest of the downstairs into the dining room and kitchen.
As for the tile, we installed the white penny tile counter to ceiling on both cabinet walls which was a major labor of love and a learning experience. For instance, we learned that our kitchen isn’t square but to be perfectly honest we probably could have guessed that one for ourselves.
The black and white tile is majorly out of my comfort zone. I tend to get tired of patterns really quickly (ask Kyle how many bedspreads we’ve gone through since we moved in) but I just really wanted to do something bold…because I guess green cabinets and wallpaper with giant oranges on it aren’t bold enough? ANYWAY. Kyle (AKA the one who makes my house dreams come true) built a custom hood frame and then I tiled it with the patterned tile. It’s probably one of my favorite projects we’ve ever done and once it’s all clean and caulked I will post about it (there’s already a picture on my Instagram feed of it before grout if you can’t wait until next week).
This space has been partially finished for SO LONG now and I’m really ready to get it wrapped up. Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish at a bare minimum this weekend:
- Finish installing shelf rods
- Drill holes in shelves
- Sand shelves
- Oil shelves to match counters
- Caulk tile
- Continue cleaning tile (do as I say, not as I do: DO NOT let grout haze sit for weeks on end because it will have gotten nice and cozy and will not want to leave)
- Trim out the doors to the deck
- Trim out the wall next to the counter by the family room
- Trim out the garage door
- Add additional trim to the window
- Fill nail holes
- Start caulking
Be sure to go check out what the other guest participants are up to right here!
Elizabeth says
I can’t wait to see how this turns out! Loving that wallpaper- reminds me of Florida ??
Jess says
Thank you! I’m usually not one to use such a bold pattern and I’m not the biggest fan of wallpaper but this one is removable so I feel better about it in case I end up hating it down the road.
Bari says
Wonderful plan! It’s going to be gorgeous!
Jess says
Thank you!
Betsy says
Is a house even a home if it doesn’t have a Billy bookcase? There are two in our living room 🙂 Love love love that wallpaper!
Jess says
They’re so popular! And they’re saving us a ton of time and money. Thank you!
Marcie Millholland says
I love the wallpaper!!
Jess says
Thank you! I’m excited to get it installed.