Hi, my honeys! We are coming down to the wire with the One Room Challenge, and week six had me busting a tail feather to get some projects done! I accomplished two big projects this week and that was our staircase makeover. and trimming out our kitchen peninsula! To make a kitchen feel custom and put together, the devil is truly in the details!
When I thought about renovating our kitchen, I knew I wanted to include our stairs in the makeover because we have put bandaid after bandaid on them for years--literally. We used removable wallpaper on our stair risers until I finally said it's time for a runner and to get rid of all the orange oak wood! They are right next to the kitchen and in plain view when you walk through our front door, so I felt it was important to make sure this space looked just as polished as the rest of our kitchen!
Here's what the stairs looked like when we moved into our home:
Here's what the stairs looked like with my bandaid of removable wallpaper on the stair risers and painting the sides white:
To start, I removed all of the old wallpaper from the stairs and cleaned them up really well. I then sanded the stairs a bit to prep them for paint! I used a primer plus paint on the stairs in a bright white finish, then sealed the paint with a polyurethane coat. I recommend doing this coat of polyurethane to protect the paint, but use a satin finish if you don't plan on adding a runner because semi-gloss or gloss could be too slippery.
Once the stairs were nice and dry, I added my Mika Stone Ivory rug runner gifted by Loloi Rugs to the stairs. I scoured the internet for weeks to find the perfect runner for our stairs that would compliment the tones in the kitchen but also be busy enough to hide dirt and cat hair. Cyrus from Loloi recommended the Mika line for its durability, and he was so not wrong! The rug is so textured and durable, and we've already had a couple cat messes that cleaned up perfectly! I highly recommend this rug collection for high traffic areas! The pattern is also so beautiful with a vintage flair!
To add the rug to the wood stairs, I used my WORKPRO tools electric staple gun, which worked like a charm. You just want to make sure you are pulling the runner nice and taut as you go so you don't end up with any bubbles or an off-center rug. I tried to staple in the areas that are less seen, but the staples really don't show much with the busyness of the rug pattern. If some of the staples are too visible for you, you can always use a paint marker in an appropriate color to hide them.
I then added my gorgeous new artwork pieces gifted from Minted. I could not be more impressed with the selection of gorgeous art prints at Minted, and the quality of the artwork I received is unbelievable. I chose their Riley and Awaking prints for my wall, and I just adore them together. The Awaking print I had float mounted for unique layered look, and the Riley I had framed in Minted's gorgeous gilded wood frame. They were super easy to hang, and then I added a sconce from Frederick's and Mae for an extra elegant detail.
I also installed a new light fixture for the hallway to match with my kitchen pendants! It was gifted from Crystorama and is from the Fulton collection! I love it so much!
My second major project for the week was tackling the trim work on my kitchen peninsula. When we moved into our home back in 2015, the peninsula was left pretty much unfinished. It was primed but not even painted to match the finish of our cabinets. It has been one of those projects I knew I would get around to eventually, and eventually turned out to be six years later during the One Room Challenge, haha!
I wanted to add some board and batten but with a little twist! When I saw my friend Erin from Kismet House post her wall trim in her latest bathroom makeover, I knew I had found my plan for my peninsula!
Erin did a standard board and batten trim, but then she added shoe moulding on the inside edges of all the boxes for a cross between traditional and modern! I love this look, and it seems so custom! Now, I had never done this mitered shoe moulding on the inside of board and batten before, but hey, there's no better time to learn! I started by installing my board and batten trim as normal.
The math problem for this is as follows:
Width of the space you are trimming out - mine was 91.25"
Then, decide how many equal sized boxes you want to do across. I decided on 4, which means I'll need three 1x3 primed MDF boards cut to the height of my peninsula. Each 1x3 is 2.5 inches wide and. when you add them together you get a total width of 7.5 inches.
91.25" - 7.5" = 83.75
Now take that number and divide by the number of equal sized boxes--in my case I chose 4.
83.75/4 = 21" wide sections.
That means I will have a 21" gap between each of my three inside 1x3" boards.
Installing is pretty simple with a miter saw and nail gun. You just want to cut them to height and nail them in with your brad nailer and the appropriate sizes brad nails. I used 1 inch nails for my project. Once I had all of my board and batten installed, I then started trying to figure out how to miter cut my shoe moulding. I could go into detail on this, but it's sort of hard to explain via a blog post. Instead, I'll just said I had to do some trial and error to figure out which way my shoe moulding needed to be facing when making cuts on the miter saw. Once I figured it out, though, it moved pretty quickly.
When I had everything nailed in, I filled in all the nail holes and caulked any cracks or seams to prep for paint. For the paint, we color-matched our cabinets with cabinet paint at the hardware store, and I did about three coats of an enamel cabinet paint and it turned out perfect! I am super proud of how the peninsula turned out, especially since I had to learn a new skill of mitering shoe moulding for the project!
Now that the majority of the large projects are done, it's time for me to finish up the small details and start styling the kitchen space! I can't believe how far this kitchen has come and how close we are to the big reveal! Make sure you're following me on all my social media @peonyandhoney to see this space come together! See y'all next week!
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