Barnwood Wall {A Tutorial}

Do you ever take notice of the wall underneath a bar area in a house? From now on, I bet you will. Can you guess what color the wall under our bar was? If you said, Antique White, you're spot on.

Instead of just painting the wall, I wanted to add some texture there, so I decided to create a barn wood wall. I had seen something similar at a shop in Downtown McKinney underneath a register stand. I thought we'd try it out under the bar to see how it looked with the new wainscoting.

Here is how we created this great looking wall for FREE!

We took an old fence Jason found in the dumpster at work. (You know you have a good man when he is willing to dumpster dive for you! Love that man!) Most people will leave old fence on the side of the road for bulk pick up, so drive around your neighborhood to see if you can find these jewels! If not, always look on Craigslist. Many times people will post it for Free or for extremely cheap to have you come haul it away. If all else fails, you can always purchase fence pickets at your local hardware store. 

First Step:

Remove base boards carefully (you'll want to reuse them if possible) and measure. We measured from just under the bar to the floor to find out how tall to make each board and started cutting using a chop saw. 

Second Step:

After all cuts were made, I took a spray bottle and filled it with diluted bleach. I sprayed each board and set them outside to dry. It only took about 20 minutes from them to dry. This step helps to kill any mold spores hanging onto your wood.

Third Step:

Paint the boards any color combo your heart desires! I had about 6 different colors of blue paint samples from testing out wall colors, so I used those. I didn't keep count of how many of each color I was making, because I didn't want there to be a pattern. I wanted it to be a random mix. I also took a cream (Antique White if you will...) and a taupe to pull in the Antique White from the other walls in the room. Also, I left a few planks as they were. I wanted some natural barn wood color in the mix as well.

Fourth Step:

Once the paint was dry, I took my orbital sander and began sanding. I didn't worry about how much paint came off each one. I just sanded over each board about 4 passes, and moved on to the next one. I wanted it to look a bit rustic, but I also did this to smooth out the boards. I have a toddler learning to walk, so he is always pulling up on the walls. I didn't want any splinters!

Fifth Step:

Using a nail gun, attach the boards to your wall and reattach your base over the boards. You'll probably need to touch up your base boards at this point.

Now sit back and enjoy looking at your unique and custom wall! It's a great way to add color and texture to an area below a bar or half-wall. Get creative! You could even do this around your tub. The possibilities are endless!

My True Love Gave to Me....{Wainscoting}

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that the main portion of our house is one great, big room. We only have one hall way in our house. The rest is a completely open concept. In this one large room, we have an even larger ceiling. When building the house, my husband decided he wanted vaulted ceilings to make the room seem larger. This is a great concept, except if made this one wall seem so vast and empty.

On top of that, everything in the house was painted Antique White. Don't get me wrong, I love a good antique white paint - just not on every surface in the house! That is exactly why I started painting as soon as we got married. However, I wasn't allowed to paint the living room at the time. The largest space in the house! Jason said it would be too much of a hassle to paint all the way to the ceiling - 13+ feet high - plus the house was only 2 years old at the time. So, I put painting that room on the back burner for a few years.

Enter Pinterest!

This past year, I saw a picture on Pinterest of how to decorate a small entry space. They simply added wainscoting to the wall adjacent the front door. How simple is that? I showed Jason, and he thought it sounded like a good idea. Then I found the piece that tied it all together. I found this amazing tutorial on how to build door casings. I fell in love with this door immediately!

We have an over-sized door way leading into our hall. Without any trim or molding, the door has always looked so empty. I tried adding a large window above the door to draw your eyes up, but it didn't really do anything for the space. The wall just blended together with the ceiling, creating a dreary space. For months I've had my eyes set on re-creating this door casing from The Charming Nest. You can find their tutorial here.

Finally Jason said yes! Our goal was to have it finished before Marshall's first birthday which was back in October. I'm proud to say we met our deadline!

This is how we started off in our Living Room.

Before:

This is the main wall...

And this is the entry wall....

How we did it

We had MDF boards that were the perfect width just laying around our attic. Since this is a low moisture room, we decided to go ahead with the FREE MDF since there wouldn't be any chance of warping due to moisture exposure. Here is a step by step guide of what we did:

First Step:
Measure out how tall you want your wainscoting as well as how wide you want each square. Don't forget to factor in the width of your cross beams you'll be using. We used 1"x6" since that's what we had on hand. Plus our wall was so large, I thought wider planks would look better for our space. If using on a small wall or in a small space like a bathroom, I would suggest going with 1x4 boards.

Second Step:
We skimmed the wall with a thin sheet of MDF material Jason had left over from a job he had done. We wanted to create a smooth surface, and not have the wall texture showing. We simply attached the sheets with a nail gun. Just be careful to make sure any seams you have will be hidden behind the beams you will be running.

 

Third Step:
Attach the cross beam sections with a nail gun. Try to hit as many studs as you can while nailing. It will help to ensure your wainscoting stays secure. Start with the horizontal beams first. Make those your continuous (non-cut) sections. Then measure and cut your vertical sections and attach.

Fourth Step:
Add the top shelf. We used a 1"x2" board as our shelf, and simply nailed it to the top of the wainscoting.

Fifth Step:
My favorite part - PAINT! We chose a bright white, semi-gloss paint. I wanted it to stand out and also be a different sheen from the wall. We just used Behr Premium Bright White paint. We didn't even use an entire gallon for this one wall. I will warn you if you're using MDF or any non-primed surface, it will take about 3 coats of paint.

Next, we followed The Charming Nest Door Casing Tutorial and added our door casing. The only thing we did differently was change the bottom. We didn't do the extra step-out molding that they did. It was just faster to continue the 1x6 from the wainscoting around the door versus trying to figure out how to tie the step-out molding into the wainscoting.

Finally, I had to pick out the perfect blue to go above the wainscoting. After multiple samples, I finally chose a color I had used before in our house. I went with Behr's Offshore Mist. It's a pale blue with some grey undertones. I love this color! It really brightens up the space, makes the white wainscoting pop, and creates an airy feeling to our room making it seem much larger. What's not to like??

After all of this, we finally ended up with our perfect wall....

Thankful for....{November 6, 2009}

Here in Texas we only have two seasons: Hot and Cold. Why bother naming them actual seasons? However, when it dips below 80 degrees, and we start to pull out our scarves and sweaters, it reminds me of how much I adore Autumn. It's the reason I wanted to get married on this day 4 years ago. Everything seems so peaceful and calm.

Since today is our Anniversary, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite wedding pictures. 

We were married at our mentor couples' home on the lake at sunset. We only had our immediate families and a few close friends attend. We wanted it to be small and focused on the commitment we were making, not about throwing a party. It was important to us because we both believe that marriage is not about love or happiness, it's about committing to someone for life no matter what.

Now a few of my favorite moments from our wedding!

I told you I was from Texas!

 My mother was a little appalled at first that I was going to wear cowboy boots under my dress. But, I think they grew on her by the time the wedding rolled around.

Sist-ors! When we were little I used to pick her up like this to prove I was strong. She's about 6 inches taller than me!

 

This is my favorite one.

 

We heard recently that marriage isn't meant to make you happy; it's meant to make you holy. So today I am thankful for my wonderful husband who stands by my side in this crazy ride of marriage, life and starting a family of our own and continues to help make me holy.

I love you for sweeping me off my feet, being our provider, our spiritual leader and for the wonderful husband and amazing daddy you are. God chose the perfect man for this scattered brain, crazy girl! 

Thankful for....{Nightstands & New Pictures}

Since we're leading up to Thanksgiving this month, I thought I would start off my posts with a few things I'm thankful for in November. Today I'm extremely thankful for a not so broken camera after all! I found out my camera can still take pictures; I just can't see them until I plug it into my computer. I'm hopeful a screen is a cheap and easy fix!

Since my Nightstand post earlier in the week had such horrible pictures of our new nightstands, I thought I'd just do a short post of pictures to give you a better idea of what they look like.

Amazing what sunlight can do, isn't it? Just another thing to be thankful for today...

A Few {Light} Changes

I was out shopping at Marshall's one day, actually looking for a light fixture for a friend. But, of course in my quest for others, I happened upon a fabulous find for myself. (I might need to work on not being so selfish in my shopping endeavors!)

J and I had been talking about sprucing up our living room for a while, but just hadn't taken the first steps to doing anything about it. We really have what most people call a "Great Room". It's just one large open space that counts as living room, eating area and kitchen. It's perfect for making the space seem large, but it causes a bit of a decorating dilemma having to marry all three spaces together.

In my trip to Marshall's I found 3 metal baskets that had a hole in the bottom. Something clicked in my mind, and I thought these would make PERFECT light fixtures for above our bar area. After a little burlap addition, they were perfect! It was the start to our Great Room make over. Who knew a little burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby (my biggest obsession right now) and $12 baskets from Marshall's would cause such a chain reaction? J probably wishes he had told me to return those baskets!

How I Made Them

It was extremely easy! All I did was take the Burlap Ribbon found in rolls at Hobby Lobby and wove it into the basket. I secured the ends together with a little hot glue, and that's all it took! I believe it only took 2 rolls to do all three baskets. If you wait for the ribbon to go on sale at 50% off, you only pay $5 for 2 rolls! That means these are extremely affordable light fixtures that make a huge statement in your home.

I really wanted to replace the light kits with an oil rubbed bronze to go with the baskets a little better, but we have vaulted ceilings. That means we would have to borrow scaffolding to take the lights down, which is a big project. For now, I promised my husband I would live with our nickle light kits.

This is just the beginning! We have plans for under the bar area, a fireplace make-over and an entirely new wall for our living room. I'm getting tired just thinking about all of the work that we're doing!

Here are a few before pictures to give you an idea of what we're starting...

Our fireplace BEFORE...

This gives you an idea of our wall.

Our entry wall.

See how boring and blah they look? Nothing a few scraps of wood and paint can't fix! I'll reveal our wall make-overs next week.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Happy November!

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We're Linked!

Nighstands on Sargent Street

That title is about as scary as I'm going to get this Halloween. Unless of course you want to see the before picture of our master bedroom.

Terrifying isn't it? 

In my husband's defense, when he built the house he did put carpet in our bedroom. But, after being a bachelor pad for 3 years with dogs...need I say more?  As soon as we were married I was itching to get rid of the carpet. One weekend, J decided to go on a camping trip and leave me at home all by myself. This is what happens when I get bored! I pulled up our carpet, and got those floors ready for some wood!

Fast forward to last Christmas...J told me he would build me new nightstands for our room that would complement our new bed a little better than the "whatever I had in the shed" nightstands we had been sporting.

I was so excited! I was going to be able to design nightstands and have exactly what I wanted! While I love finding vintage pieces and refinishing them, sometimes a vintage piece just doesn't cut it. We don't have a huge house, so our furniture really needs to be aesthetically pleasing and provide us with much needed storage. I designed two nightstands that I thought would look great with the direction I was going.

I didn't want matchy-matchy nightstands, but I did want to them to have some similar features. Here is what we came up with:

I am so proud of how well they turned out. I want our room to be sophisticated and calming, and I think these pieces are a perfect fit. (I apologize for the horrible pictures! My camera broke, so I had to use my phone to take these.)

I actually used Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint and wax on these pieces. Since we were painting raw wood, we went ahead and used a primer for the first coat. Then topped it off with ASCP Old White. On the mirrored door piece, I used ASCP Dark Wax all over. On the 3-drawer piece, you can see, I only used it around the drawer molding and the radius corners. I used ASCP Clear Wax on the rest of the piece.

I have a few more smaller projects to work on before the room is completely finished, but I am finally seeing it come together!

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I posted new pictures of the night stands that are MUCH better quality than these. You can find them here. Thanks! 

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We're linked!

Recipe Round-up! {Mexican Rice}

Do you ever dread Mexican night because you can't stand the taste of boxed rice? I know I used to when I was young. My mom would make the Rice-a-Roni Spanish rice. BLAH! I always thought it was so disgusting. I have to say, I even had a hard time getting rice down at Mexican restaurants. Something just didn't taste right.

Naturally, being a Texas girl, I pride myself on my ability to make a mean Mexican dinner. I never attempted rice though, because I thought, "What's the point? I'm going to hate it any way." That was until my good friend, Melinda, convinced me there was Mexican rice worth tasting in the world. She told me tales of her Tia's (Aunt's) rice that was so flavorful you could make an entire meal just on the rice. I asked her to snag a copy of the recipe for me, but apparently you have to be a member of the family to get the full recipe. There was a secret ingredient in her rice that I wasn't allowed to know about. How rude!

It was ok. Our friendship was stronger than a secret ingredient. So, I made it my mission to find the best Mexican Rice recipe that would rival Melinda's aunt's recipe.  Melinda got to be my taste tester, so it was win, win for everyone. This is the recipe I came up with after trying a few and Melinda giving me a few pointers on how to improve.

The basic recipe I found in Food & Wine's Quick from Scratch Chicken Cook Book. It's part of the Arroz con Pollo recipe, but I made a few tweeks to make it perfect.

 

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
Bacon - 4 to 5 strips (I use Turkey Bacon)
1/2 Onion - Chopped
1 Green Bell Pepper
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup hot water
1 packet or cube of Sazon Goya (found on the Ethnic/Mexican Food aisle at your grocery store)
1 can Tomatoes with Green Chiles (Rotel)
3/4 can Tomato sauce
1 cup long grain rice

First things first....chop your vegetables.

Next, heat a skillet on medium-high heat and add your bacon. If you use Turkey Bacon, you will need to add a little Olive Oil to keep the bacon from sticking. 

Once the bacon cooks for about 3-4 minutes, add your onion. Let the onion saute with the bacon for 3-4 minutes then add the bell peppers.

Allow the bell peppers to cook for about 5 minutes or until they begin to soften.

Now add the tomatoes with green chiles, tomato sauce, chicken broth, water and Sazon Goya.

 Last, stir in your rice...notice I might have added a little more than 1 cup. I love this stuff!

Here is what your skillet should look like at this point...

Let it come to a slight boil, then cover and turn down heat. Let it simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, to make sure the rice doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

 Once the rice has absorbed all the liquid your rice is done!

On a side note: The Sazon Goya contains MSG. Boo!! I didn't notice it until this last time I made it. I'm trying to find a good alternative to this ingredient, but haven't found anything yet. If I do, I will update the recipe.

Hope you enjoy this rice as much as we do here at our house!