For those who are new here, we purchased our first home in my previous post here!
Our new 3 bed 2 bath tudor home was built in 1930. It was beautiful outside as it was inside when we toured and knew right away this was the one. We fell in love with its exterior facade of brick, and half-timbering. Luckily for us the previous owner kept some of its original attributes. It still had the charming characters like the cathedral/gothic shaped front door, arched doorways, the hallway telephone nook, a built in shelf, and the glass door knobs! The house was given a great amount of interior updates before it was put on the market, we only needed our little touch to finish and make it our own. We wanted our home to accommodate our modern minimal taste but at the same time keep and respect tradition.
Adam and I agreed once we were moved in we wanted to work on one room at a time. First up, was our living room. Makes sense, it's the first room everyone will see and where we'll spend most of our time in. Since I've had a place of my own, I've always relied on Pinterest to give me ideas (who doesn't?!), this time wasn't any different. For the most part, we've always had an accent wall. Before it might have been a bold color, or some kind of pattern/abstract painted on the wall. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do that here. I knew this time I wanted to do something different. During the closing time period, I saw an "accent wall" which I found out later is called MODERN WAINSCOTING. Loved it so much I was ready to do it week one at the house.
We had already done minor things to the house, painted the fireplace and updated the scones (check out the fireplace facelift here!), and made a new house number. The accent wall needed a tad bit more time to plan and collect a couple materials. We've never done a project like this before so we were also learning as we go.
List of materials and tools used:
pencil
measuring tape
wood (pure personal preference)
miter saw
level
nails
hammer/nail gun or power drill
caulk
sander and/or sand paper
paint
paint brush/roller
Unsure of what size or how many pieces of wood we needed, we just grabbed a bundle of 1x2x8s (you can also use wood panelling). We didn't spend too much time picking, it was packed and we just wanted to get out of the store. Apparently this was the time everyone decided to work on their houses as well during the pandemic.
Steps:
PLAN: Once we had everything we needed, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do — a grid, herringbone, random pattern. I drew up over a dozen different variations on a picture of the wall on my phone. We ended up deciding to just decide/do it as we go.
CUT WOOD AND ATTACH TO WALL: The Miter saw was ready to cut the needed angles for each piece. During the first one going up, we found out the wall is plaster... it was VERY hard to just hammer the wood onto the wall. The nail would just bend after a few hits, there were a lot of curse words during this time lol. To make it easier, Adam started drilling the hole first before putting in a nail and it was downhill from there.
FILL HOLES/CAULK: Adam is very particular about his work no matter what, he wanted to fix minor imperfections even if it's not very noticeable. The drying time took the most time, after that was sanding.
SANDING: This was my least favorite part. Sanded down uneven parts, and smoothed everything out. It was everywhere- as you can tell by the terrible pictures I took during. I recommend doing this with open windows, and a mask. When I finished, I wiped down the wood, cleaned up and it was ready to paint!
PAINT: We couldn't decide on the color until it was finished. We both considered black but I thought it would have been too much. Plus our current sectional is a dark grey and I didn't want it to get lost in the color. We stuck with the current color to keep everything lighter since some of the furnitures coming in were going to be black.
TIP: We avoid outlets and light switches. It will save you time and possibly keep you from getting electrocuted lol. Again pure personal preference!
Our living room is still unfinished. We need to still update the main light, mount the tv/hide wires, and then put up some art on the walls. I will post a reveal once it's ready. Let me know what you think of this project and/or my current living room!
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