Design Dilemma!

If you've read any previous posts, you know that we haven't lived in this house for very long.

Around 3-4 months.

In that time, it seems like we've made a lot of progress.... but I still find myself looking around at bare walls and 'emptiness' and feeling like our progress is slackin'...

We've stayed busy since moving in, but it's this 'new' stage that I'm just not liking.

It doesn't feel home-y yet.

Not enough memories have been made here. We've not had any major milestones here, yet.

My oldest son (4) is still asking me when we're going back home.

Part of the reason I started this blog was to not only watch the progress of this house... but to watch the progress of our family as a whole, here in this place.

And I feel like it's my job, my sacred duty to turn this 'house' into our home. To make it a place my husband loves coming home to, a sanctuary for us, a place of comfort for our children.

When I 'decorate' I'm not just hanging pictures and painting walls... I'm pouring my heart and soul into every detail of the place that holds the people dearest to me. Because, to me, without the love that goes into making a house a home, this is just a building... nothing special.

And it takes time to mold it into what we as a family and as individuals need.

This whole spill may seem completely out of place, but I felt it necessary to let you know why I do what I do.

And now you know :)

........................................................

Okay, enough of the heavy!

I'm in a design dilemma, for real!

I'm getting ready to spruce up our foyer and hallway, and I can't seem to get it together.

I thought I knew what I wanted to do... but I keep wavering between a few different ideas.

First, let me show you 'said' foyer/hallway. 

Plain. Boring. But a completely clean slate.

I'm craving life in here!

Now, let me show you a few different design directions I'm considering

:)

Stripes

From Katelyn James Photography

Okay, so stripes aren't a new concept, far from it...

But they are classic and simple and stunning. Period.

I want to add warmth and life in a subtle way... and allow my accessories to be bold without being too busy. 

This room is fabulous and tasteful.

I'm a fan!

Faux Bois

Vintage Revivals

I love faux bois... and this painted concrete floor by Vintage Revivals left me in awe.

So I thought about doing something similar to our foyer's walls.

Hand painted by me... with a soft ivory background and bold gold lines.

In keeping with our cottage-y feel, I think this would put a modern twist on things.

Planked Walls

No matter what we do... our foyer will never be this awesome.

Our foyer wishes!

This one is probably my favorite.

But the way our foyer and living room are made/joined, we want to have our living room completely finished before adding planks to the foyer. Just to avoid any future complications.

That's vague, I know. But when the time comes, you'll understand :)

So this is what our foyer wants to be when it grows up.

But probably won't be happening for a while.

In the meantime, I just want to add a little bit of interest for a temporary fix.

Is that crazy?

Probably.

That's okay :)

................................................

So, within the next few days I'm going to come to a concrete conclusion and get to work!

And you know I'll be back, to show you how it turned out!

Ceiling Makeover (Noah's Room)

So that was Noah's room before ^^^ There it is, in all of its 'before Mom had the best idea EVER' glory.

I just don't like plain... I don't care for 'well enough.'

I aim for awesome.

Before we even had everything moved into our home, I knew I wanted something done to our boys' ceilings. The textured ceilings... those 'boob' lights. Yuck.

I just didn't know what I wanted to do to them, yet.

But once I figured it out, there was no stopping me, or talking me out of it. My mind was made up.

So, let's talk beadboard. Have you heard of it? Well if you have, I hope you've discovered the many wonderful things you can do with it to add some extra texture and charm to just about anything!

In this case, we added it to our oldest son's ceiling! And just so you know, we are total professionals and didn't have any problems whatsoever during this project.

Ha, right!!!!

 Actually, we are total amateurs and had one thing after another go wrong! But in the end, we pulled it together and it was all so worth it. 

So much better right?!

Originally, the ceiling was supposed to be beadboard only, without the addition of any crossbeams.

But lemme tell you, we had the worst most impossible time ever trying to hide the seams until we finally realized it just wasn't gonna happen.

And I wasn't about to have this ceiling showing seams left and right. 

At this point of the project, we felt like total failures. What were we thinking?! Why did we assume we could do this?!

Well, that was mainly how I was feeling. My husband on the other hand, was calm and collected ( as always) and confidently told me we would figure it out.

He's awesome like that.

After his boost of confidence, I came up with the idea of the crossbeams! Which in the end, I wound up loving even more than the beadboard alone.

The above picture was taken before we caulked the seams with paint-able caulk, because I forgot to take a picture of that. But it really didn't look much better than the picture you see.

The seams going along side the beadboard (running the length of the beadboard) were easy as pie to hide... it was the dreadful seams running in the opposite direction of the beadboard that were so impossible and super tacky looking.

Something had to be done. Further measures had to be taken. And it still had to look adorable.

In my humble opinion... I think we nailed it :)

Now, I'm probably not the greatest at giving instructions...mainly because I get sidetracked way too easily...and because I feel like we honestly didn't have a clue what we were doing when we started this... But I'm going to try my best to give you a simple run down of how we achieved this look.

What You'll Need:

Beadboard (Lowe's & Home Depot sell them in sheets)

Crown Molding (this room didn't have any before)

1.5" MDF planks (for the cross beams)

Nail Gun

Paintable Caulk (we got ours from Lowe's)

Sand paper (or an electric sander)

White Trim Paint

Tape Measure

Skill Saw

Jigsaw

Stud finder

Instructions:

1. Prime the backside of the beadboard with a paint primer. This will help the beadboard stay in place during weather changes (which can cause the boards to shrink and expand.)

2. Measure the room's ceiling. Also measure any openings that will need to be cut out with the jigsaw (air vent, smoke detector, light fixture etc.)

3. Once you have all of your measurements and have all of your beadboard cut to size, you must find all of the ceilings studs. (you will need to find the wooden studs in the ceiling because that's what you are going to nail the beadboard to, otherwise it will not hold.)

4. Install the beadboard with a nail gun, this will make the process much much easier.

5. Once all beadboard is installed, add the molding. (this is more of a preference, I think molding makes the outcome much more polished and put together.) Cut your molding to size and attach it with a nail gun and/or liquid nails.

6. Once all of your molding has been installed, it's time to add the crossbeams.

7. Time for a little math. We took the ceiling's measurements, decided how big we wanted each square to be, did a little math and came up with how many squares that would give us. I'm terrible at explaining this part, but I think it's pretty self explanatory (I hope!) And they don't have to be square like ours, the design possibilities are endless!

7. Once you have the measurements for the crossbeams, cut the MDF accordingly.

8. Install the crossbeams, with the nail gun.

9. Caulk all seams and fill all nail holes.

10. Once the caulk is dry, sand it down smooth and wipe it clean.

11. Paint it all (molding, crossbeams and beadboard to give it a unified look.)

12. Install light fixtures, air vents, smoke detectors etc.

DUNZO!

I hope that was explained well enough! This is definitely not a job for one person. I would at least have two people working on this... and 3 sure wouldn't hurt! 

I'm in love with the end result!

                           

We still have a looong way to go in this room... but it's getting there!