Family room details and sources

Hello there! If you haven't seen all the inspiration at this month’s before and after link up, go check it out here. So many great projects already!

I’m back today with a few more photos and details about the family room renovation I shared last week. If you are just joining us on this project the back story is that we took down a wall between my office and our family room to open up the space. My office was a small room – ten by ten – but it made a HUGE difference!

Because I had installed board and batten on the walls of my office years ago, I realized I was going to have to keep going with that around the room. It was going to be too big of a pain to take down all the boards and repair all the drywall. I had been wanting to add some kind of wall treatment in the family room anyway, so it worked out well:

I think the room strikes a nice balance – I feel like it’s a little more sophisticated than before but still warm and cozy. The board and batten really helps keep it from getting too stuffy.

I get asked about that mirror all the time – I KNOW. It’s a beauty. It was from HomeGoods a couple years ago and there’s no identification on it. I so wish I could help source it!

One thing about board and batten, or really any wall treatment – is that it’s hard to figure out what to put above it. It’s harder than a normal wall because of the height. I went back and forth with a bunch of ideas in that corner above. The mirror used to hang above the old fireplace and I really wanted to keep it in here but it looked weird above the trim. So I went half way and had to rig it up – I put an anchor in the wall (no need if you have a stud) and cut a couple blocks of wood the same thickness as the trim around the top of the batten:

I used a really long screw to anchor those into the wall, then a smaller screw to hang the mirror. So far so good! Hope that makes sense to those of you who asked about that!

The other wall is a very small gallery of the Bub’s artwork that I took from my old office:

Those are just Goodwill frames – I had a bunch of them painted white in the office. I wanted some balance with the black dresser so I sprayed those black and I love how it all turned out!

I really wanted to complete the room and not have much left on my to do list down the road. So I went ahead ripped out the old window sills and added the new trim all around on the two windows in the corner:

I shared a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this here.

It’s a subtle difference but you can see how the window sills looked before here:

Love that you can see the passage of time by the leaves on the trees. ;)

The boards never butted up to them well and I just love the look of the thicker trim at the top and bottom! Four windows down in this house…a LOT more to go. :)

I did the same trim on the doors in the room:

Love those sconces – they are from Target! I bought one for our master bedroom earlier this year then got another one thinking I would use them on the fireplace. I had to go searching for that second one – I don’t think they are in the stores anymore but I did find them online.

I had the second one ready to return and then realized they would look great on those little walls. The candles are fake ones on timers. :)

Speaking of the fireplace, it’s my pride and joy:

It was a long process to get this baby to completion. The guys who helped with the construction part of the reno helped to make my dream set up a reality. I did all the finishing work including the trim work and color, tiling the surround with the herringbone tile, planking the wall above (for $13!) and then finishing out the cabinets on the sides for storage and electronics:

Those babies are good old inexpensive kitchen cabinets you can get from most big hardware stores. We tweaked (I almost wrote twerked) them to make them to allow for air circulation for the electronics. And yes, the remotes work through the metal screens!

I got a lot of questions about the étagère in this photo:

I got that from Joss and Main earlier this year – it was one of my only purchases from there and I am really pleased with it. It’s called the Brookfield Étagère and I got it for $40 with some credit I had there – awesome!! I plan to share more about it when I’m able to finish up the wall behind it with the board and batten – still waiting on the new back door to get finished up before I can complete that part of the room. It’s technically the kitchen now anyway. ;)

The spool chair came from HomeGoods and I can’t find any brand name of any kind on that either:

I have seen others on Instagram finding the same chairs so I know there’s more out there. It is SO comfy and so beautiful – I think it’s my favorite piece of furniture in our house right now.

I forgot that I did get a couple other small pieces for this room as well – many asked about the side table and that is from World Market:

It’s their large laptop table and it’s the hardest working piece we have in here – I use it as my desk during the week. I worried that I would miss my big desk and I have to tell you, I don’t one bit! It’s actually quite nice to be able to put it “away” for the evening.

The foyer table that used to be our sofa table that is now our hall table (whew) is the Everett foyer table from World Market:

I’ve told you of my love for that store before – they have some beautiful and unique pieces and that table is another favorite in our home. Love it. I think those green lamps are asked about more than anything in our house (other than the mirror above) and they are from…just guess…HomeGoods again. ;) It’s a sickness. I found those years ago though and haven’t seen them since.

The large mirror was a DIY project I shared here. It got the same gray color as the fireplace and built ins across the room.

I did get one other item for this space that I forgot about – the $20 coffee table that I made over months back:

It underwent quite the transformation and I LOVE how it turned out. I had issues with the wax and have been meaning to sand it down and fix it – but I’ve been too busy with other stuff. So I’m pretty sure it’s just going to stay like that forever. Adds character. ;)

Whew!! I can’t tell you how good it feels to have this space completed! Again I so appreciate all your kind comments about this room. We are thrilled with it! Hope I answered any questions you had – let me know if there are any I missed.

Other than art

Hey there! Thanks to all for linking up and visiting the party yesterday – so much inspiration!

Because I’m getting closer to finishing up the family room I’m at the point where I can start hanging some art again – but I think art is hard, always have. Especially with our high board and batten, only certain configurations look good.

But in general I think filling wall space is a difficult aspect of decorating. That and accessorizing – both of those are things that hurt my head and once I figure them out I leave them forevaaaa. I’m always trying to think up ways of making the best use of wall space, sometimes without using actual art and always without breaking the bank. These are some of my favorite projects doing just that.

When I made over my son’s room years ago I had two large walls to figure out. On one side I framed out large art above his bed and on the other side I used trim and paint to make three frames make a bigger impact:

The three frames would have been fine for sure, but I wanted to take up a little more visual space. The molding and white trim do that for sure!

Years back I used some inexpensive canvases (use coupons or wait till they go on sale!) and covered them with wallpaper to fill the large wall over the bedroom fireplace:

You can see how I made the texture of the wallpaper stand out even more in that post. If you have a huge wall you could go way bigger with your canvases! This is a great option for renters as well. (Fabric wrapped around a canvas works well too!)

Our staircase has HUGE, tall walls and I copied an idea I saw in the model home -- using molding of course:

I think that was my first attempt at trim work ever – and you can totally tell when you get up close. ;) I used the decorative squares for the corners so I didn’t have to make any mitered cuts. I painted the insides of them a darker color for even more impact when I installed them all those years ago but lightened that up years back when we had these walls painted.

There are BIG plans cooking up in my head to change up that wall but for now I still love my squares.

I needed something large enough to fill those squares and my DIY wood shim mirrors fit nicely:

They are quite large and crazy cheap to do too.

If you have an odd wall in your house you can always make it more interesting with some chalkboard paint:

I have since taken those frames down and we just use it as a huge chalkboard now. I think every room needs some black in it and a chalkboard wall is a great way to incorporate that! Remember you can do almost any chalkboard color you want now too.

I’m still obsessed with our wood planked wall in the basement stairway too:

It adds a slightly industrial touch and some warmth to the space as well – I LOVE it. And out of all of the things in our house that little wall is the one that gets the most compliments.

Now that I’ve used the underlayment for the new fireplace planked wall I am going to experiment with using stain on that – it would be even cheaper than the tongue and groove pine I used in the stairway!

If you have an IKEA nearby they have HUGE canvases that fill large wall space too. I had always loved this huge map and was excited that we had a perfect spot in the basement for it:

Of course I had to add my own little touch with the frame that matches the wood wall in the background. :)

There you go – a few of my favorite ways to fill large walls. And you can’t find most of them in a store, which I love. Each one is unique to our home and the most expensive one is the store bought map. ;) The rest cost $50 and (way) under.

If you have an awkward wall in your house I think sometimes it’s better to do something dramatic to it instead of trying to make it disappear. Have you done anything different to decorate a wall in your home? If you have feel free to link to it in the comments!

I’ll be back with some fall touches tomorrow!

Knock off wood art, take 2

Hello there! First of all, thank you all for the suggestions on the kitchen post last week – I’m still reading through all of them but have a few ideas in mind from what I’ve seen so far. Also, thanks for the ideas on the family vacation spots in my last post – I’ll be checking them all out!

So I’m not a big art-from-the-store kind of girl. I love having pieces in our home that are one of a kind and better yet, reflect us personally. I’ve purchased plenty from stores so it’s not like I’m an art snob, I just prefer to create pieces that are just right for certain spots in our home.

There was a spot in the “old” family room that needed large artwork so I decided to knock off some wood plank art I saw on the Pottery Barn website:

Back then (I can’t believe that was two years ago already!) I was using a lot of blue tones and some pops of red in the family room, but I’ve gone to a more neutral pallet since.

I’ve had that art hanging in the room even with the softer colors in the room and it’s stuck out like sore thumb to me. The red and aqua colors were too much, and I wasn’t a big fan of the dark wax look anymore. I wanted something simpler and cleaner, but loved the look of the wood planks.

So. I decided to repaint the whole thing, but to do that took some time (more time than I imagined). I started by sanding the whole thing down really well:

The dark wax I used won’t take on new latex paint well so I tried my best to get every surface as sanded down as possible.

The wax gummed up my sanding pads quite a bit so it was a job to get it prepped:

I wiped it down really well with a wet cloth before I started taping off the strips. I used painter’s tape to tape off each board:

Taping them off really doesn’t take that long, especially the first couple of colors. If you don’t get the line perfect early on it’s easy to paint over down the line with a later color.

The time in this process came in the sheer number of those little bitty wood pieces and the drying time. Gah. SO. many. pieces. I don’t remember this taking this long when I first made this thing!

Once you get the first color done you’ll want to be careful taping over what you’ve already painted. For the next couple of colors I used a mix of regular green FrogTape and their yellow delicate tape:

Both work great – I actually use the delicate more than the regular over all because it works so well. I know I don’t have to worry about it pulling up any paint.

I did have a few spots lift up but those were areas where I hadn’t sanded well enough and there was still wax. I had a few of those. ;)

A couple hours later (that drying time dragged this project out longer than I thought it would take) and five colors later and I had finished artwork in much more soothing tones:

I used paint colors I had from previous projects for the whole thing – hoarding paint pays off folks! ;)

The colors are Agreeable Gray (from the powder room) for the light beige boards, Rhinestone (lightened 50 percent) for the nearly white ones, Whitestone (from the master bedroom) for the light gray, Marina Gray (from the basement, lightened 25 percent) for the mid-gray and Storm Cloud for the darkest one. I’ve had that color so long I have no idea what I first used it on. I just grabbed what I had and I love how they look together!

I plan to hang this in the family room again but with the trimwork it may not work vertical like that. I actually like it better horizontal anyway:

I left the nail holes on purpose – I kind of dig them. I plan to take a toothpick between some of the boards to get a more even look…but I couldn’t get to the toothpicks in the kitchen. ;) More on that in a minute.

Here it is hanging horizontal just to show how it looks – I LOVE the colors! It went from country looking to a lot more updated:

It’s hanging too high in this spot, but it’s the only open wall I could get to today – our house is a total disaster. I’m not like, oh, ha ha, our house is a disaster! I’m like, seriously, never before has it been like this ever EVER disaster. The reno is coming to a close this week!!

Over the past week the floors in the family room and kitchen were patched, sanded down and then restained.

This is what’s really like behind the photo:

That isn’t even the half of it. :) Tonight we can start moving things back into the room and by the end of this week all the contractors will be DONE. Whoohoo!! I’m hoping to paint a fireplace this weekend!!

So there’s how I reworked one of my DIY art pieces – it took longer than I thought but the result was worth it! It looks totally different!

A touch of black

Hello there! Hope you had a GREAT weekend! The weather has been so lovely here – this week it’s supposed to get really hot for the first time. I’ve loved it so far.

So I wrote a to do list on the blog two (ahem) years ago and I just finished up one of the things on that list this weekend. Are you surprised? I am not.

Of course that little DIY turned into changing up a few more things. Are you surprised? I am not. :)

I’ve shown you the gallery wall on our stairs numerous times over the years. It’s an oddly shaped wall that I made work by hanging photos of the kids. It’s always been one of my very favorite parts of my house. Here’s an old (and dark) photo of the stairs:

I loved that saying on the wall (the best things in life aren’t things), but when we had half the house repainted years ago that vinyl had to come down. I’ve had an empty spot where that was and finally got around to filling it.

Those frames are from Michael’s and are called floating frames. The photo goes between two pieces of glass so there’s no mat – the color of your wall shows through:

Last week they were 40 percent off so I picked up one more 8x10 and a square 14x14. 

I used the square one in the middle and just printed out a quote I found online:

All of these photos are in black and white and I print them right off our home printer onto regular paper. Our printer was low on ink when I printed the quote so it didn’t come out perfectly, but I actually kind of liked the effect so I’m leaving it. I may print it again on nicer paper eventually. Or not. :)

This wall has always had photos of my son and stepdaughter, but now that the grandson is here it is time to add him to the wall of love as well:

I’m running out of space so the kids just need to stop being so cute. 

The one other small change was painting the railing black. It’s been a brown color for years but I have been craving a classic black for awhile now. And the railing on the upper part of the stairs was never painted (that to do item that I finally got to), so now they match, three years later!:

I have big and little plans for the stairs in the future – the big stuff may not happen this year but there are a few details I want to fix on the molding and I’ve been planning to restain the stair treads for years now. You can see here how red they look compared to the hardwoods:

I can’t wait to get that done! But it’s obviously not a huge deal to me or it would have been done two years ago. :)

I totally dig the black railing with the black frames – I think every room needs some black in it. It’s classic:

Here’s another look at the darker version years ago:

And how it looks now. Buh bye pink walls!:

Do you have a gallery wall in your home? I love them down a long hallway, but as I mentioned last week we have none – so this is my “hallway.” :)

To see how I made the DIY starburst mirrors go here. To see how I added the trim along the stair wall go here. And for more on how I tore the carpet off my stairs and finished them, go here. This transformation is one of my favorites and cheapest!

Easy art knock off

Hey hey! Happy Friday! I have a quick and easy knock off for you today! I’ve been thinking more about what I’ll be hanging on the walls in our master bedroom…after I finish painting all of them. Who knows how long that will be. Could be years. But whatever.

It’s the one room in our house with a TON of wall space – and it’s hard to figure out what to put everywhere. I struggle with making all the walls work together.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of this art at HomeGoods and it always catches my eye:

Over the past few months I’ve seen a bunch of these at two different locations and I love them. I picked up some coral art for the room at Target months back and these would look great with it. But I didn’t want to $40 on one, especially when I knew it would be so easy to recreate. :)

So that I did! I picked up a square frame at HG for $8:

The look was exactly the same, it’s just about eight inches smaller on each side.

I wanted to pull in some color so I cut navy blue scrapbook paper and taped it to the back of the mat:

I’ve had some shells for years that I knew would work in the middle. I tried out a few and liked both of these:

 

But ended up with one a little simpler – a sweet little starfish. :)

I ended up spray painting the frame white, but then changed direction and threw some more color on there with a navy blue again. (I blogged about my blue spray paint taste test here.)

It was quick and easy and cost me $8. Not too shabby!:

Once I get the walls painted (a light gray) and get that small gallery wall going I think it will be a great little addition! My version doesn’t have the glass on top, but I have a plan in mind to make it look more like the inspiration art. (More of a shadow box look.)

I’ll let you know if it works when the wall is put together! First up…painting the room! Good times.

Have a great weekend my friends!

Making waves

Hello my friends! First of all, thanks for all the suggestions on my last post! I’m checking out all the links for the rugs. You guys rock! I’m back with a quick little project I finally finished up for my son’s bathroom. I shared my plans for this room a few weeks ago and your comments were so helpful as always! I’m looking into a window for the room right now. I have to special order the size I want but I found someone to put it in. SO excited.

The rest of the big plans will come later, but for now I want to at least do a few little things to start updating the space. My boy is a baby no more and he needs a slightly more mature space. The little leap frogs must go.

CRY. WAIL.

I found a ship’s wheel at HomeGoods years ago – knowing the direction I wanted to go in this room even back then. It’s been sitting under his sink for all those years. I actually forgot about it till I cleaned out the cabinet late last year. Awesome.

I held it up on the wall and it felt a little sparse all by itself, so I decided to add a little somethin’ behind it. It started with some scrap wood in the garage – don’t they all? I don’t throw wood away and this is why.

I cut it down to 24 by 24 inches using my jigsaw. I’m horrible at cutting straight lines but I’m getting a bit better. To get a good line to follow, I measure my distance every few inches along the wood, then use something long and straight (like scrap wood) to make my line:

 

If I take my time I can get a fairly straight line with the jigsaw:

Not perfect like a table saw would cut, but decent. This is why they invent wonderful things like caulk. :)

This is more of a particle board than a nice finished wood but it’s all I had in the right size, so to smooth it out a bit I sanded it down and then used some spackle to fill in the bigger divots:

I didn’t fill everything because I didn’t mind it having a slight texture. After another sanding it was ready for primer and paint. I did one coat of primer and two coats of the almost white color I used in the mud room. It has a ever-so-slight grey undertone to it but if you just look at it, it looks white. I’m planning on using this color in the bathroom since I have some leftover.

I wanted to add some fun so I picked one of the FrogTape® Shape Tape™ options to use. I haven’t used the wave design yet and I thought the bathroom would be the perfect place! I started by putting the first length of the tape right in the middle of the board. Then I measured about two inches down for each one, but I wasn’t crazy particular about it:

The goal was to make them the same distance from both the top and the bottom.

I made sure to press the tape down really well – I was a little nervous about this wood and it’s rough texture and potential seepage. After it was sealed well I gave it a few coats of a blue color I’m hoping to use on the vanity in the bathroom. Usually I like to pull up my tape when the paint is wet, but when you have to do multiple coats you just have to wait it out. It’s SO hard to wait to see how the lines look! :)

Thankfully they were PERFECT!:

I added some lattice wood around the edges as a “frame” of sorts and then laid the whole thing on the floor to see where I wanted the wheel to sit on the board:

And I LOVED it! So preppy, so fresh! Love that blue too, it’s a definite for the vanity.

Here it’s hung with a nail but I later went back and put a little cleat on the back of the wheel instead. That nail was bugging me. Details. :)

I went ahead and painted the one wall (the wall I may knock down much later) and was surprised at how much better it looked without all that yellow. The yellow tone wasn’t doing any favors without any natural light in there.

I hung the wheel on that wall and it was a perfect fit!:

I just think it’s adorable, really. The waves totally make it.

Have you done any fun projects like this lately? This one will set the tone for the whole room – now I can’t wait to get started!

Have a GREAT weekend folks!

 

P.S. The annual Earn Your Stripes™ painting contest is going on now! If you are interested in entering a project, check out all the details here. The projects last year were AMAZING. And all entries will receive a roll of Shape Tape! :) Fun stuff.

I received compensation to complete this project for using FrogTape® products but use them anyway. :) All opinions, projects and ideas are based on my own experience.