This will keep us busy for the next few weeks—but priority #1 was to get the studio situated.
I’ve been using the desks from my old studio, which work fine but things were just a bit cramped…
The large cutting desk has a shallow drawer that pulls out and the chair was right in the way.
Fortunately, I was able to find the exact same table tops (Linnmon) that were 6″ shallower. Not a drastic change, but when you cut your studio size almost in half, every square inch counts.
These desks were narrower but longer, so we had to trim them down to the same length with a table saw.
First we cleared everything out…
Then brought the first new table top in:
We were able to reuse the same legs so it was a pretty straightforward swap.
Here’s what we ended up with, after the second desk went in:
I still need to re-trim the cutting board desk which will happen in the near future.
I’m glad we got this out of the way so now I can focus on the final decorating touches!
We also decided to address this empty wall which is on your left when you walk in:
The shelf ledges from my old studio were the perfect fit. We brought them in and secured them to the wall using walldogs (best invention EVER… took less than a minute per shelf)
And now I have a place to set my ready-to-ship prints:
Ignore all of the disorganization going on in these photos—I’m ditching the blues & greens and going for something a bit cleaner and more monochromatic. There will be a big organization post coming as soon as I get the motivation.
I also finally got around to spray painting that gold light, and hanging the DIY sign I made last year:
I also found a place inside the closet for my brocade wall file (purchased a few years ago from the Container Store):
And there you have it, the current status of the studio. It’s about 83% done right now… here’s what’s left:
-Repaint/relabel/reorganize console table storage -Hang art -Build floating shelves for extra storage in the closet -Buy/hang window shades -Attach a fabric “wall” to the front of the cutting desk to hide the storage underneath -Build a large storage bin for underneath the desk to hold shipping supplies
The kitchen will be taking up most of our time over the next couple months, but hopefully I can squeeze in a few of these updates in between our bigger projects.
Speaking of the kitchen… we have a new door handle:
I considered a silver one for a second, but ultimately went with ORB because 1) it matches the cabinet hardware, and 2) I bought identical replacements for the front door and garage door at the same time so I could have them all keyed to fit the same key. I decided to make them all consistent throughout the house, and I’ll be ordering the same style for the interior doors in the future.
I think the oval shape is different and fun.
Also, ou
r very last appliance—the dishwasher—is finally in!
Anyone have any suggestions for a good stainless steel cleaner??
Did you notice I replaced the bulb in the pendant light?
I found this vintage style bulb at Lowe’s for $6. The color is warmer than the recessed lights which I’m still not sure about, but apparently that’s standard for these types of filament bulbs. I think it’s worth it—hopefully our electric bill won’t go up too much!
So now you’re all caught up to the current state of our house. Tonight I plan on ripping into some Ikea boxes to build the pantry. Oh, I can’t wait for this one. Please send some good furniture assembling vibes our way…
We took a break from the kitchen this weekend to focus on this wall…
It has been the biggest eyesore in our home and, after a few weeks to rest from planking the studio, we decided to just get it over with.
I won’t go into a lot of detail here since I’ve covered the planking process when we did our kitchen ceiling, kitchen wall, and studio, so here’s a quick rundown…
First, I decided I wanted a light fixture on this wall. The living room currently has zero light sources (we hope to add recessed lighting in the ceiling one day) so for now, we needed something in there ASAP.
There was an outlet in the corner which was controlled by a switch at the top of the stairs, so Brad tapped into that by running a wire up to our new light box location…
Luckily, it didn’t have to look nice because it would all soon be covered.
Then it was time to get down to business!
We started on this edge since the boards all needed to line up even with the wall. We’d make our cuts at the other end where the measurements didn’t have to be exact since they would be hidden behind quarter round trim.
I expected this to be our most challenging planking experience and I was right. This wall was not straight at all because of the cutout in the center. There was a lot of prying and hammering and forcing into place. Several of the boards had to be screwed in to get them to stay up against the wall, but it was nothing a little putty and sanding couldn’t hide.
Once we got to the light, Brad cut out a hole to fit and mounted the box.
We worked on it over the course of a few nights.
For the stairs we made the long cuts with a table saw and short cuts with a jigsaw.
After night #2, all of the wall planks were done. Whew!
But it wasn’t just this wall… it had to wrap around to this little wall on the left:
This is the first thing you see when you enter our home so it’s quite important. But we had a problem—the original door trim wasn’t thick enough:
So out they went…
We decided to reframe it the same way we framed out our windows—with 1×3″ and 1×4″ boards. They are actually 3/4″ thick so they line up flush against the planks.
Blank slate after removing the trim:
This part is always the easiest—took no more than 5 minutes!
Then we chopped the boards to size and mounted them right up against the boards on the other wall. This part went fast too.
Done!
Then it was time to build the ledge to finish off the top. We used cheap plain ‘ol 1×2″s and nailed them right into the planks…
I mitered the corner for a nicer finish.
Next up was the L shaped corner piece. You can pick these things up super cheap at Lowe’s/HD, and they are pre-primed and lightweight.
Next up was the baseboard. I used the same style as my studio—I bought enough for the rest of the living room which will be replaced soon.
And finally, the quarter round in the corner went up and the trim was done!
Then came the tedious, time consuming part…
Spackling, caulking, patching, sanding, taping, prepping. This part takes almost as long as it does to plank the dang wall in the first place.
To address the seams where one plank met up with another, I first used some lightweight spackle, let it dry, then we went over it with this beast of a sanding machine:
This is seriously the key to seamless planking. It would never work sanding by hand, because it’s rare that the planks are perfectly level. And if they aren’t perfectly level and smooth, you will definitely see them.
But this thing works wonders…
I wish you could feel how smooth this seam is—actually, reach out and touch it on your screen and that’s what it feels like. You can’t even tell there’s a seam. I love you, belt sander.
After the surfaces were prepped, we taped it off and it was ready to go! We didn’t bother taping the walls because they’re about to be painted over anyway.
Let’s get right to it…
After 3 coats of Kelly Moore’s Swiss Coffee (in satin, same as the kitchen)…
I wanted this in black, but it was the only one I could find online and the price was right ($48 shipped) so I bought it and spray painted it black.
I’m digging the rustic/industrial look it brings to the space, and it ties in nicely with the cage pendant light we installed last week in the kitchen.
It’s lonely right now but I have a vision for this space… as soon as I can find the right pieces!
We decided not to put the hand rail back on, but we’re definitely planning on reinstalling the railing on the right side of the stairs (we’re redoing it so it isn’t quite as 70’s).
Looks much better when you walk in the door!
And I’ll leave you off with the view looking down from the kitchen…
It’s a little plain and unexciting with it being empty right now, but it’s the perfect backdrop for what I have planned.
And beige walls—your days are numbered. We’re going to have to hire this paint job out because the walls at the highest point are just way too tall (even with an extension ladder), and they’re over a staircase so there’s no way we’d be able to get in there. One step at a time!
Yes, we’re happy campers because after weeks of anticipation, our counters are in!
Before I show the results, a quick breakdown:
We purchased them at Lowe’s six weeks ago (they didn’t measure for them until 3 weeks ago, so the production time was really only 3 weeks).
They are both Silestone Quartz. We chose ‘Marengo’ which is a deep gray for the island, and ‘Blanco Maple’ which is a speckled white for the sink area, both 2cm with an eased edge. We needed 51 square feet, and the total including installation came to $3254.
Why quartz instead of granite or any other type? Well, Brad had strong opinions on this. I mentioned butcher block or concrete, both of which I love the look of, but Brad was not a fan of wood and we both agreed concrete might be too much of a hassle. I also really wanted white against the gray cabinets.
There were a couple granite options we liked but the quality ratings and ease of maintenance were a bit better for the quartz, and they weren’t that much more expensive so we went for it.
Here’s the Marengo up close…
It reminds me quite a bit of concrete, but it has the durability of quartz which is great.
Here’s the Blanco Maple:
This one is my favorite. I love all the little flecks.
Back to the island…
With the counters in, we were able to get our new cooktop installed as well!
It still needs to be wired up, but I can’t wait to start cooking on it (let’s just hope it stays clean…)
Now we can also set up our faucet. It’s a Price Pfister “Cagney”, purchased online at Lowe’s.
The plumber should be here to hook everything up in the next couple days. For now I just placed it in to get a visual.
We ran into an issue though—when we installed the electrical box, there was a stud right above the center of the sink, so we had to either push it back or move it forward. I was concerned about it being too close to the window, so we moved it forward.
But if anyone over 6′ tall wanted to use the sink, they’d bump their head if they leaned forward. Not ideal.
Luckily, the light came with different sized rods, so we just used a shorter one…
Much better!
I plan to replace it with a more suitable bulb… something vintage like this would be amazing:
I’m loving the industrial touch it adds to the space.
One last photo…
Next up for the kitchen is to get the dishwasher/garbage disposal/faucet and cooktop functional so we can finally cook and clean instead of going to my parents house for every meal (as much as they love having us over 24/7).
We’re going backsplash shopping on Saturday, and our Ikea delivery is scheduled for next week, so that’s when the real fun begins…
But before any of that, we have another plank wall to ins
tall…
This one should be our biggest challenge yet. Hopefully I’ll have results to share on Monday. Better get to work!
In my last post I showed a photo of our new door pulls and knobs. I had my heart set on the cup style pulls paired with simple round knobs, and found these great inexpensive ones on Ebay. The seller was having a free shipping special so it came to just $38 for 25 pieces… can’t beat that!
They were exactly what I had hoped for in person, and the knobs went right in.
But then we got to the drawers and found an issue… they are double layered so the screws were too short (this one had 3 layers!)
Nothing a quick trip to Lowe’s couldn’t fix. Once we had our 2.5″ long screws, we built a jig out of scrap wood since the pulls had two holes and they had to be positioned exactly the same every time.
After centering it on each drawer, we drilled our holes (using a drill bit larger than the screws so they could just slide on through).
It worked like a charm, and now we can actually open our doors!
I’m especially fond of the black finish against the white cabinets.
While we were on a roll adding touches of black to the kitchen, I figured I’d tackle something I had been wanting to do ever since I laid my eyes on this…
I am obsessed with this photo. I found it while browsing Pinterest and it has become one of my biggest kitchen inspiration photos for this remodel. There was no hesitation—I was painting my door black.
Of course I needed to paint the wall too, and that horrible plastic swamp cooler.
I painted the walls in the same barely there gray as my studio, then moved on to the door. I had to spend a good amount of time prepping—scraping texture overspray, scrubbing, taping, patching, sanding, caulking, before it was ready for paint.
I picked up a gallon of Valspar’s best exterior paint in Dark Kettle Black (not exactly cheap, but highly recommended). It’s a soft smoky black in semi-gloss.
I was a little nervous after the first coat—it had a slightly different consistency than what I’m used to, and didn’t seem to cover that great (of course it’s black over white though…)
But the second coat changed my mind.
Three coats was all it took. I painted the outside as well.
Here’s the first coat again for fun.
While that was drying, I moved my attention to this eyesore.
I had to address the inside part too…
I debated on whether or not to paint it the same white as the trim, or the wall color. In the end, the white won out.
Plastic isn’t easy to paint (with latex paint and a brush/roller, at least). It took many coats.
And this part was a nightmare. It didn’t go on smoothly so I had to just keep piling the paint on in hopes it would eventually cover the beige.
In hindsight I could have spray painted it, although the whites wouldn’t have matched—so it’s really a toss up.
Finally I decided it was good enough and I’m happy that everything matches now. We still need to shorten the wire before plugging it back in, and replace the baseboards so ignore the unfinished parts.
Here’s the whole wall:
Don’t worry, I’ve already ordered new door hardware to replace the polished brass.
I love the contrast against all the white & grays.
I bought enough paint for the front door, so that’s next!
Also, I have a personal update…
If you follow my instagram, you may have seen this video from Saturday.
This cat has been meowing at our door for the past week now. While I was painting the kitchen door, she came up and started meowing “Hewwo? Hewwo? Hewwoooo?” (seriously, that’s exactly what she says). So I said hello back and gave her some food. She devoured the entire bowl in seconds and I knew she didn’t have a home.
She wasn’t feral—very affectionate and wanted to be inside so I have a feeling she had a home before and was abandoned. Our neighbor said she has been around for a while and didn’t belong to anyone—we think she’s been living underneath our house (our subcontractor said he found evidence of a cat living there a couple months ago). My heart broke for her.
How could we say no to this face?
So, now we have Biscuit.
Biscuit hates Susie.
It has been a kitty stand-off in here all weekend. Susie is more curious than anything, but Biscuit is used to defending herself in the wild so it makes sense that she has an aversion to other animals.
Biscuit is still going to be an outdoor cat—we’ll let her in when she meows but I feel so sad for Susie. First we uproot her and put her in this strange house and then we add this other animal to the mix, who eats her food and makes her uncomfortable in her own home. I’m trying to give her extra love and attention so she doesn’t feel betrayed.
We did make some major progress though…
They’re on the same bed! Brad brought Biscuit in and pet her while I pet/calmed Susie—and even though there was a stare down contest and lots of growling, neither one jumped off the bed when we left the room.
They still have lots of issues to work through, but I hope they can become BFF’s one day. Any advice on how to make cats not want to kill each other?
Back to house stuff—I think this week we’ll try to tackle this living room wall…
Stopping in to wish you a happy day of love! I’ve been devouring these all morning…
I just realized the other day that we’ve owned this house for 10 weeks now and I still hadn’t made a House Tour! Bad blogger.
But I fixed that this morning—take a look at my updated House Tour page, now with “Before” and “In Progress” shots of our current home (some never before seen):
It feels like things have been moving slowly lately, but when all the photos are lined up, it’s really exciting to see everything coming together. We’ve barely scratched the surface though, and I anticipate this journey will take years (it took almost 3 for our last house, which was 1000 sq. ft. smaller and there weren’t any major renos like we have planned for this one).
I’ve got an afternoon of fun in the kitchen lined up… first, this back wall and door are getting a paint makeover:
And check out what came in the mail yesterday…
Can’t wait to get these babies installed so I can finally open the doors properly!
All that to come in the next post.
Before I go, one last update. As some of you know, I’ve been working on a sequel to my Jenna Sue font for a very long time now. After a final push of motivation to get this thing done over the last few months, I’m thrilled to announce that it’s done! D-O-N-E! It feels so good to write that.
Here’s a little preview…
This free digital print will be included with the font download!
I’ll be sure to announce the official release, coming very soon. I’m so happy with the way it turned out and can’t wait to share it with you all. Get excited.
Time to get back to work. Check in for a kitchen update this weekend…
It’s our fourth night here and I’m still pinching myself—this is our home now. We spent Friday afternoon packing and moving most of the boxes, and had a friend come up Saturday morning to help with the heavy stuff.
It was cold and pouring rain the entire time, but we worked fast and got it all done in a matter of hours.
We waited until everything was out of the house before bringing Susie over. She walked around in circles for a solid minute before retreating to the closet where she hid for hours:
My poor baby. She’s doing much better now that she realizes we’re here to stay.
Dad & Brad having a celebratory drink after it was all over with:
While I got straight to my favorite part—organizing the kitchen…
Did you notice something new?
Our farmhouse sink is in! The faucet is shown in the box above it.
And check out our new countertops! We decided to skip the quartz and go for a more economical, rustic/unfinished look:
Just kidding. It’s the plywood underlayment. Our counters should be installed within a week.
But we did get the oven in!
We still need to build a shelf for the microwave to fill that gap.
We put our old dining table in here for now, but sadly once the new one is built, we’ll have no place for this and have to get rid of it.
This was one of my first furniture refinishes so I’m sad to see it go.
All of our dry/canned goods are sitting where the future pantry will be (counting down the days until the Ikea delivery!)
Now let’s look at the studio… the printer was wheeled in first, and then we started setting up the desks:
It looks pretty rough right now, I know. This is all temporary.
Well, the layout will be the same, but the two smaller desks will be replaced with narrower ones so I have a little more breathing room. It’s a little bit cramped right now.
But at least all my supplies fit nicely in the closet. Still working on the layout, it’s purely functional right now.
Hopefully within the next couple months I’ll have everything in place.
Next
up we have the living room…
We basically just threw our furniture in there.
The lamp, ladder, chest and bench will all be gone soon, we just haven’t had a chance to relocate those yet.
I wanted to put the TV by the fireplace but realized that the cable box is by the windows (there’s not even a place for a TV there… not sure why they did that), so the furniture is in this configuration.
But I do like the couch facing the window instead of the fireplace, so I’m not sure what we’ll end up doing. Thoughts?
Let’s head downstairs…
There’s a small room just on the left, which I originally thought would be used for storage, but it ended up being the perfect space for Brad’s office. The back area will be used for storage so it’s a dual purpose space.
Clearly it still needs tons of work.
The main downstairs room has our Ikea daybed parts spread out everywhere. We need to download the instructions and reassemble them (I’ve been putting it off).
Back upstairs, we’re currently using the guest room for unpacked boxes until we have time to sort through them.
And finally, the master bedroom…
It’s a big barren box with too much white at the moment.
That will all change in time.
I’m keeping an eye out for a nice antique wood dresser to replace this one from Ikea:
There is one good thing about the room—this closet.
Brad’s using the guest room for his clothes so it’s mine, alllll mine!
Just for fun, here’s our sad little bathroom:
It’s about the same size as the closet and in desperate need of a complete gut job and remodel. This will probably be on the agenda next year.
My favorite part so far? Spending my day in front of this window…
There was a storm passing through yesterday and it was just breathtaking. Reminded me of our trip to Costa Rica…
And the sunrises… oh man. Worth getting up at dawn every day just for this.
Alright, that’s enough for now. But before I go, a quick business announcement: I’m excited to announce that I’ve teamed up with TouchOfModern to offer posters of my top cities at 20% off!
It’s a 5-day flash sale ending this Sunday and limited quantities are available, so act fast! Here’s your personal invite.
And with that, I’m off to Pinterest-land (my nightly ritual) to daydream about future projects. Another kitchen update coming in the next post…
Hello from my new studio! We moved in yesterday and spent our first night here. It feels pretty surreal—I’m so happy and content right now.
I’ll post details about the move soon, but in the meantime you can check out this little instagram video I posted this afternoon for a glimpse of our cozy, rainy Sunday.
But first I’m dying to share our brand new kitchen beams with you!
Wood beams were high on my wish list when we were house hunting. They’re actually pretty common in this area, and I was able to look past the lack of them in this house knowing I could build my own. This is one of those huge bang for your buck projects.
When I searched for faux wood beams online, I found so many awesome options and styles from all over, like this rustic “hand hewn” beam…
The only problem? They were over $400 each! The sizes I needed would have run me nearly $1200. And I’d still have to install them myself and wait 6-8 weeks for delivery. Um, no thanks. Time to DIY.
Let’s get the basics out of the way—tools you’ll need for this project:
Lumber (I used the cheap whitewood from Lowe’s in 1x4x10s, 1x6x10s, and a 1×8 we had to rip down—but you’ll only need two sizes for the top/bottom and sides)
Nail gun and nails (my favorite is the Bostitch 16ga, but you can use 18ga)
The size can be whatever you’d like, but I went with 1×6″ boards for the sides and 1×4″s for the top and bottom. For reassurance, I checked online and found this tutorial which is exactly what I had expected.
Feeling confident and prepared, we headed to Lowe’s to stock up on our lumber:
I chose three beams for the layout to cover the seams where the wood planks met—two were identical and 20′ long, and one was 10′ long because it ended at a shorter wall. The total ended up at around $200 including our stain and a box of screws.
The first step was to run the top 1×4″ along the ceiling, screwed into a stud every couple feet. This board had to be solid because it would be supporting the entire beam. We used extra long 4″ screws since it had to go through the 1×4, wood planks, drywall and the stud.
Half of this shorter beam ran along a wall, so we had to line it up with our wood planks and make sure there was enough space (3/4″) to squeeze in the right side board so it would hide the exposed edges you can see in this photo:
For the two longer beams, we had to use two 1x4x10’s since they don’t come in 20′ lengths. We just butted them right up next to each other—this board would be hidden so it didn’t matter.
One board at a time…
Done!
After that was out of the way, it was time to have a little fun.
I wanted these beams to be distressed, so we pulled out a random assortment of tools and banged away.
The stain really picks up every dent & ding and makes them stand out (as you’ll see in just a sec….)
Then came the toughest part: building these things.
I enlisted my dad’s help for this—it’s definitely a two person job.
I tried to find the straightest boards I could (always double check them before you buy!) but they’re never perfectly straight, so there was a lot of forcing/persuading to get them to line up.
I ran out of wood glue so I ran a bead of liquid nails where the boards met. I held them in place so the edges lined up while my dad used the nail gun to secure them every several inches or as needed.
There were some gaps (a clamp would have been helpful) and it wasn’t perfect, but that’s why I’m all about the rustic/farmhouse style—imperfection is a good thing!
We ended up with five beams—(two 10’s combined to make 20′, and one 10′).
Then the stain came out and things got real.
This was my favorite part… watching it come to life with depth and color.
After the first short beam was ready, the boys attempted to hoist it up and install it:
But the sucker wouldn’t budge.
They hammered and pushed and shoved, but the gap we left for the right side to slide in was just too small.
So Brad had to cut it away with the jigsaw. It would be completely hidden, so it was all good.
Finally it worked—first beam down! (or should I say up?)
The next four were easier. Luckily this wood is soft and easily pliable, so they could just wiggle the sides in place around the 1×4.
We skipped the liquid nails and used standard 18 gauge finishing nails along the edge.
The beams are pretty light and they aren’t going anywhere.
Then we got to the middle…
I was just going to wait and see how they looked at this point. If the seams fit tightly and everything lined up and it wasn’t too noticeable, I figured I’d just leave it like that.
But there were gaps. It looked fine from far away, but close up, not so much. I had a solution though… we’ll get to that in just a second.
Some boards were extra stubborn and left a gap at the ceiling, so we used a car jack to push it in place while we nailed them in.
Totally worked.
Now, back to those gaps.
I figured it would happen, so the first thing that came to my mind were beam straps…
To complete the look, I decided to go with a strap on each end along with the two in the center over the seams (so three on each long beam, and two on the short beam for a total of eight).
Most of those online faux beam places sell rubber straps made to look like metal, but I was impatient and cheap and figured I could make my own.
I spotted these metal strips at Lowe’s for $10 a piece and grabbed two:
They were perfect.
First we measured the dimensions of our beams (ours were 5 5/8″ tall and 5″ wide), made marks on the straps and used metal snips to cut them:
With our piece cut to size, we took it into the garage, lined the mark up with the edge of a hard 90º surface, and hammered it into place.
This metal is pretty thin so it bends relatively easy.
Once both bends had been shaped, we drilled a hole into each end using a drill bit so we could secure it to the beams.
Fits like a glove!
Ignore the gaps in the corner, still need to add trim!
Two of the beams ended at a wall, so we only had to make a two sided strap for those:
After all eight straps were prepared (this all took less than an hour), it was time for paint!
I used an oil rubbed bronze can I had leftover from Florida.
All dry and ready to mount…
Simple as screwing them into the wood…
Done!
To be honest, I didn’t want to add the straps at first—I thought they would mess up the flow and simplicity of the beams.
But I’ve changed my mind. I love the character it adds.
Would you agree?
View from the living room (I can’t wait to get rid of this railing…)
And there you have it—the first finished part of our kitchen!
Actually, that’s not even true, we still have bulbs to replace and pendant lights to hang. But the overall feeling you get walking into the kitchen has really changed… it’s amazing how much $200 in materials and a day of work can transform the whole vibe (especially when the factory made alternative is $1000 more!)
Hopefully this inspires you to get out there and tackle it yourself. It’s one of those things that looks pretty intimidating before you do it, but then when it’s done you’ll want to do your whole house (I’m eyeing you next, living room…)
That’s all for tonight, I’ll be back shortly to talk all about our big move and what our house looks like now with the furniture in. Exciting stuff!
While we counting down the days until move in (two!), I thought it would be fun to go over our shopping trip to Ikea a couple weekends ago.
I had originally planned to go to our closest Ikea (Sacramento) which is 100 miles away, but they didn’t have what I needed in stock, so we had to go to Emeryville (San Francisco) instead which is 120 miles (plus Bay Area traffic).
When I say “we”, I mean we had to bring along my parents to help push all of the carts and boxes through the store. It was definitely a four person job for what we had to buy.
Since before we even closed on the house, I’d been scheming on exactly what to buy. With the distance making Ikea an all-day event (plus their delivery fees), I wanted to get as much as I could at once.
So I made shopping lists…
This was my “Accessories” list.
I put a few notes on some items to clarify which rooms they are for. I’m dying to get sheepskin rugs for our bedroom, but Ikea’s were too small for what I had in mind so I crossed them off my list.
The four Ekby shelves are for the kitchen. There will be two in this empty space on the right (above the base cabinets, between two windows):
And there will be two in the future bar nook (on the far right):
I chose them because none of their other shelves fit quite right and these are adjustable—you can cut off the ends and hide edges with the brackets.
In addition to what you see above, I picked up some extra cushions and pillowcases (for the home theater room), plants and pots, kitchen accessories and a couple other small miscellaneous items that are impossible to resist when you walk by.
Now for the big ticket items (the furniture)…
Let’s start from the top.
I found this Sandby sofa and thought it was perfect to put under the window in our bedroom:
The look, size, color and price were right.
Unfortunately Ikea doesn’t keep it in their warehouse, so it’s a special order delivery item. Not a problem since we were having all of our other furniture delivered.
After we had gone through the store, checked out and were arranging for delivery, I asked about the sofa and they said I was supposed to order it back in the showroom… at the very beginning of the store. By this time we had been there 3+ hours, the place was jam packed, and it was getting late so I had to leave without it .
The Linnmon table tops are for the studio. I had to come up with a whole new arrangement to maximize the space. The desks are the same as I have now, just longer, and I’ll have to cut them down to fit.
I’ll be using two different Akurum kitchen cabinets for our bar area. The combination of sizes was just the perfect fit to leave an opening for a wine fridge. For the top I plan to build a simple wood plank countertop.
Then there’s the Akurum top cabinet designed for refrigerators…
I picked up seven of these to use as my bench seats.
There will be three in this size to attach to the back of the island for our dining table seating.
And four in this size which will run along this wall from the edge of the cabinet (on the left, you can barely see it) to the plank wall underneath the window, just for lounging:
I plan to go into tons of detail once we tackle this project, it should be an interesting challenge!
I bought two in this size and all of the components separately, including the Bergsbo doors.
They will fit inside this nook we built in the back corner:
For whatever reason, the shelves and wire baskets that were on my Shopping List have been deleted. I tried looking them up today and they are off the website completely, so I guess Ikea is phasing them out?! I don’t get it, because Pax is one of their more popular items. How are you supposed to buy shelves to fit now?
I had a total of 8 Pax shelves on my list when I went there. The website said they were all in stock, but when I arrived there were only six left—and two were damaged on the edges. Knowing I wasn’t going to be back anytime soon, I just bought what was left and hoped it would be enough. Good thing I did since it looks like they are gone forever. Anyone have the 411?
I knew right away that a built in pantry would be the perfect addition to this corner, and a quick Google search of “Pax Pantry” confirmed this for me:
To save on costs, I opted for the Komplement wire drawers shown in the first photo (no longer available apparently, BOO!) instead of the wood drawers, and basic shelves. We easily fit all of our stuff in a pantry half this size in our last house so I’m sure this will suit our needs just fine.
And that pretty much covers it. I really wanted to buy new chairs for the dining room and living rooms, but I didn’t want to rush into something out of convenience and end up regretting it. So I’m going to try out the spaces for a while and see what we really need.
Oh yeah… I was so focused on trying to shop efficiently and not overwhelm myself that after we checked out, I realized I completely forgot something huge… two more Pax wardrobes for our bedroom!
This was another one of those things that I knew I wanted right away.
The size of our back bedroom wall is ideal for two wardrobes flanking our bed… like this (except with a bed in the middle)
Between forgetting these and my sofa, unfortunately this means I’ll need to take another trip there sometime in the near future. And pay another $240 delivery fee… grrr.
All in all, it was a pretty successful day. We all came back home alive and in one piece—just $2,416.93 poorer. Such is life when you’re remodeling (and doubling your house size…)
I’m on my way to Lowe’s right now to pick up lumber to build our beams for the kitchen ceiling. Hoping they are finished by the time we move in. If all goes well (fingers crossed) I’ll be back with a reveal on Friday!
Last week while we were hard at work planking and painting the studio, the cabinet guys were installing our new cabinets!
I talked a bit about our kitchen design back in November—you can read about how we decided and planned it all out in this post.
Here’s a quick recap: it was between Ikea and Lowe’s. We originally figured Lowe’s would be way too expensive, but after all of the sales/rebates and the fact that they would do everything for us, eliminating most of the headaches and reducing our timeline, we decided it was worth paying more (maybe if Ikea was a lot closer we would have reconsidered…)
Their 3d drawings were fun.
Back to the install…
It took two guys around 10 hours or so (over two days).
We love it.
And then the floors went in!
Remember my first post about the floors and how we were disappointed to discover that a ton of it was unusable? Well, unfortunately there was so much waste that we had to buy six more boxes to complete the kitchen. We called them up and they agreed to send the replacements at no cost, we just had to pay the shipping charge of $170. Still worth it.
Check out this bad boy!
I’m going to have so much fun organizing it.
We bought all of our appliances at Lowe’s on Black Friday, with the exception of this microwave we found on Amazon:
I plan on building a shallow shelf for it to sit on so there’s no gap.
Here it is in the island—the oven and cooktop will be in the gap to the left.
The oven opening is actually too small and needs to be cut to fit our oven—we didn’t know this until our electrician went to install it last Friday, so now we’re going back and forth with Lowe’s to try and get it resolved. Hopefully it’s taken care of before we move in Saturday!
Just to the left of the oven is one of my favorite parts…
I’ve always wanted a slide out garbage—I feel so grown up now.
This knife block is awesome too. My cutlery drawer is always a mess… not anymore!
Here’s where the sink and dishwasher will sit. The counters will need to be installed (~2 weeks) before they can go in.
And speaking of the sink… Brad wanted to use the free stainless steel one that came with the counters, but I protested for a farmhouse sink.
And I won.
It was definitely a big splurge at over $400 (still cheap for a farmhouse) but I totally would have regretted not going for it. And I need to break up all the stainless steel.
I’m looking forward to filling these deep drawer
s… we’re going to need to buy more cookware!
We had to fill a small gap between the sink and corner cabinets, and this pull-out spice rack was the perfect fit:
Unpacking this kitchen might actually be enjoyable… imagine that. I’ll be sure to follow up after everything is all put away and organized!
I’ve already picked out our door hardware, now I just need to order it before I get caught up in the million other things we have to do and forget.
We started on this room this past Sunday and have been there every day since working on it. It took a whole week, but I can finally rest my achy back because it’s done!
Here’s how it looked 7 days ago:
The back wall is the first thing you see when you enter our house, so I wanted to give it a little extra something special.
And I can’t think of anything more special than… you guessed it: wood planks.
But first we had to address the issue with a pass through to the living room.
Taking it way back in time here (the only before pic I could find from this angle)…
Because this room is much smaller than my last studio, I really need to maximize the space. That open railing wall was completely unusable and I need to put desks there, but I still liked how it was open to the rest of the house, so I decided to build up a half wall.
The simple solution was having two sheets of 3/4″ particleboard cut to fit.
We screwed the boards right into the railing and they sit nice and flush with the wall.
We just repeated the process on the other side.
For the top, we cut down a 1×7″ strip from an old shelf and used a nail gun to secure it into place and serve as a ledge.
Then it was time for planking, woo!
Again, I’ll spare you all the details—take a look at my ceiling plank and wall plank posts for more in depth tutorials.
We originally started at the top (just like we did with our kitchen wall) but realized that would leave a very tiny strip (like an inch) above the window and that wasn’t gonna fly.
So we decided instead to set the first board right on top of the window, have the gap at the top and hide it with crown molding.
Sometimes you just gotta improvise.
The sides of the windows went pretty quickly…
We did have to make a couple notches around the window frame. We’re pretty good at this by now.
We also had our electrician run light boxes for wall sconces. These are the lights I bought:
I love the library style swing arms and thought they’d be perfect for the studio. For $50 shipped, I couldn’t pass them up.
The rest of the install was pretty straight forward…
Instead of wasting a new board by ripping down a strip that will just be hidden at the bottom, we used pieces we had leftover to form a base to attach our 4″ baseboards to.
Then it was time for the half wall…
Same process here. Just had to notch around a couple outlets.
There were some gaps along the edges because we used pre-cut boards we had leftover from the kitchen so they wouldn’t go to waste. I had planned on using 1″ trim around the edges so the gaps didn’t matter.
After all the boards were up, it was time to spackle the seams.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with this unfinished edge. We had planned to put chair rail along the top but it didn’t work out how we wanted (it was too thin to hide the top edge of the planking) so instead we cut the plank to line up with the row on the adjacent wall.
Then I came up with an idea… remove the ledge, cut it down to the width of the wall, and run a 1×2″ along the top of the plank so there would be a small ledge all the way across.
It was the perfect plan!
With that out of the way, we finished trimming out the edges. We ripped down a 1×2″ long piece in half and used one on each side (vertically).
Then installed the crown:
And the trim was done! Ready for caulking and sanding.
My dad came by with his belt sander again to smooth down the seams while I taped everything off.
And at long last, the most exciting moment when the brush rolls on for the first time…
Absolutely loved the color, and loved the coverage. Valspar Signature never lets me down.
I went with Ocean Storm for the planks (in eggshell this time, just because)…
And decided on Montpelier Madison White (in flat) for the walls (this will also be the living room wall color—it’s a super subtle gray). Pics of that in a second…
No in progress shots of the painting process—I was a woman on a mission. Two hours and two coats later and I was in love.
Brad even installed the lights for me.
Ignore the light colored screws, they’ll be painted black soon.
I didn’t waste any time on covering up those beige walls.
Here’s the Montpelier Madison white in the can (I wish it had an easier to remember name!)
I was nervous it was too white at first, but compared to a true white—it was just what I had in mind.
Even though it took just one coat to cover, this room was a nightmare to paint. I’m one of those people who has recurring nightmares about falling off cliffs, and this vaulted ceiling situation did not help.
It’s taller than it looks.
Brad and I took turns and I hated every second of it.
Fortunately, we managed to escape death or injury and I survived to paint another day.
That day was today, when I painted the trim…
While my dad installed the baseboards.
And finally, after seven laborious days, this room is officially Move-In Ready.
Don’t mind the hanging light, I still need to remove and spray paint it white.
I love how this gray makes the floors look muc
h warmer.
I plan to warm it up even more with natural textures and fabrics.
And I’m excited about my little work lights.
They’ll be perfect for working at my desk when I’m not in production mode.
And that about sums up our week. This is the one room in the house that absolutely had to be ready before our move in date (next Saturday) so it’s a relief to cross it off our list.
Of course, the journey here is only halfway done… we still have to set everything up and decorate which is the most exciting part.
I’ll have a kitchen update for you in just a few days. We’ve had another setback so it’s not going to be as ready as I’d like, but the floors and cabinets are in and I can’t stop staring at it. You’ll see why very soon!
