Reading Nook Inspiration

Our little guy's room has this funky little alcove carved into one of its corners and I've been dying to turn it into a little reading nook for him.

Originally I had just planned to have the hubs build a little bench for reading with some built-in storage underneath. Something like one of these...

Source: Everything Lovely

 Source: Good Life of Design  

                            

 Source: Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss

 Source: Thrifty Decor Chick

Source: The Boo and the Boy

 Source: Pretty Handy Girl

But then Jacob had the brilliant idea to turn the alcove into a reading loft, since our little guy loves his brother's bunk bed so much. So we're in the planning phase right now, but are thinking of something a little like some of these...

Source: Ana White

Source: Design Sponge

Source: Apartment Therapy

Once the loft is built, I think it'd be pretty cool to add some fun privacy curtains too. Like these...

Source: These Moments of Mine

 

Source: Ashley Ann Photography

Source: Dylan Kyle Architecture

So that's the plan for now...

With 3 three-year-olds running around, it's a little hard to actually get much done around here!

Adding Character to a Small Space with Beadboard

Since our little guy’s bedroom is so small, we wanted to give it a little something extra.  We wanted a little architectural interest coupled with a place to display pictures and other accessories.  To achieve this, we installed beadboard paneling with picture ledge trim.

The project went a lot faster than we anticipated and did wonders for giving the room some character.

We started the project by deciding how high up the wall we wanted our beadboard panels to extend.  We were sure to keep in mind where our light switches and window ledges were.  Since we wanted to keep the project as budget-friendly as possible and we knew the panels were sold in 4’x8’ sheets, we decided to keep the overall height under 48” so that we could get 2 pieces out of every sheet and minimize waste.

We bought the pre-primed 4’x8’ beadboard panels at our local home improvement store and had the professionals there cut them down to size for us, which saved us a ton of time!

We removed all of the outlets covers before installing any of the paneling. We highly recommend that you also remove your existing baseboards.  Unfortunately we did not do that until after we had started putting the panels up and learned that our baseboards were not level!

You will also want to locate and mark your wall studs so that you can securely nail your panels into the studs.

Before we began attaching the panels to the wall, we cut holes for each outlet. To do this we measured where each outlet was located on our walls, mapped out where the outlet would be on the back of the beadboard and then used a jigsaw to cut out the rectangles.

To install the panels, we spread adhesive on the back and then used a nail gun to attach the panels to the wall studs.

Panel by panel we worked our way around the entire room, cutting out around outlets and window sills as we went.

Once all of the panels were up, we reattached the baseboards. In hindsight, we should have had our beadboard cut long enough so that it would extend all the way to the floor behind the baseboards and then reattached the baseboards over the top of the panels. That would have given it a more polished look and gotten rid of all of the gaps we had.

For the picture ledge trim along the top we used primed pine 1”x3” boards, 1”x2” boards and decorative shoe molding.

The first step was to attach the 1”x3” boards along the top edge of the beadboard using a nailgun (again nailing them to the studs).

Then we added the 1”x2” boards on top, nailing them from the top into the 1”x3” boards.

To cover up imperfections and give the trim a custom look, we attached shoe molding over the joint where the two boards connected.

Since the beadboard in the corners of the room did not match up perfectly, we covered the cracks with cove molding to hide the imperfections.

For the finishing touches, we patched all of the nail holes, caulked all of the cracks and painted everything with 2 coats of a semi-gloss super white paint.

The addition of the beadboard in this room not only gave the space some character, it also provided the perfect ledge for framed artwork and decorative accessories.

We are thrilled with the outcome and our little customer couldn’t be happier with how his room turned out. In fact, he discovered that the ledge is a great place to line up his little cars.

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Blue Stripes in the Big Boy Room {with stripe painting tutorial}

While it's been slow-going, I have ever so slowly been chipping away at decorating one of my big boys' rooms.  

The bedding was purchased and we set up a headboard that Jacob's dad made a long time ago when Jacob was a little lad...

I painted a nightstand and added a "popsicle lamp" (as my little guy calls it)...

The curtains were hung (Henny Cirkel panels from Ikea)...

And then I added some painted stripes to his walls...

If you've never painted stripes before, here's what I found works best for straight, crisp stripes...

Step 1:  Paint the entire room or wall the lighter base color. I made the mistake of starting with the darker color on the entire wall, which meant that when I painted the lighter stripes on, I had to use more coats.

Step 2: Measure out how wide you want your stripes to be (mine were 10 inches). If you want your stripes to cover the wall from floor to ceiling, you will have to measure the height of your wall and divide that by how many stripes you want. We plan to add beadboard to the bottom half of our space, so I only did the stripes on the top half of the walls.

Using a ruler and a level, draw your lines on with PENCIL (pen is a pain in the rear to get off the wall. Trust me, I speak from experience!) A laser line level would have made this step a lot easier than dragging the level and tape measure around the room, but I was trying to work with what we had.

 (the white lines in the above photo were added in Photoshop for illustrative purposes since the pencil marks were too faint to see in the picture)

Step 3: Using a painter's tape with edge-lock (see what I used below) to tape along your lines.

Figuring out where to place your tape can get a little tricky.

Mark which sections you plan to paint and place the tape on the outside of your pencil marks. See illustration below.

Step 4: To keep your paint from bleeding under the tape and making your lines all wonky, seal the tape by painting over it with the same color you used for your base. I used a small foam roller for this step.

Step 5: Once the paint is dry, use your second color to fill in the darker stripes (or lighter, in my case). I let my stripes dry for about 10 minutes and then I peeled all of the tape off. You don't want to keep the tape on too long or it can rip the dried paint off with it.

Step 6: Either wipe off or erase all of your pencil lines. I have yet to do this step!

P.S. If you are wondering what colors I used...the darker color is Benjamin Moore's Misty Blue, but it turned out a little too purple so I had the paint gal add a few more drops of blue and black to it. For the lighter stripes, I used the same formula as the darker color, but had the colorant reduced by 50%.

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