Room Recipes Feature - Update #1

I was on the tour for Room Recipes last month. I absolutely loved this interior design book! You can read an interview with the author/designer, Tonya Olsen, and my review here. Tonya went a step further and designed a recipe for my entryway, which you can see here. I really love the design!

I finished the first stage of the redesign and would like to share what I've done so far. The pictures don't really give the space justice, but they'll do for now.

First, here are the before pictures:

    

Now, the first thing I did was to paint the ceiling a grayish taupe. (You always want to paint from the top down since gravity pulls paint that direction.) The paint color I settled on was Studio Taupe, PPU5-7, Behr brand from Home Depot that you can see here. I only needed one quart to cover this area.

Then here is a picture after I painted the ceiling, which I absolutely love by the way! I would have never thought of painting the ceiling and coming down a third on the walls, but it makes the entryway feel like its own space instead of just part of the living room.

Next, I painted the bottom 2/3 of my walls (below where I finished the ceiling and top 1/3) a white. I also pained the moulding and trim. I didn't want to have to worry about taping off my walls to paint the mouldings once they were up and I only needed to do a light second coat once everything was nailed and caulked. 

The white is just a shade darker than the brightest, but it isn't cream or off-white either. You can see the color here. It's the Valspar Homestead Resort Jefferson White, #7006-1. I didn't choose a Behr paint for the white because I was already at Lowes, but I have decided that I like Behr more. I felt that it covered much better and didn't drip as easily. 

Then I worked on the board and batten. Originally I was going to go with what you would normally use for this, which is wider, but it was going to be more than I wanted to spend. Tonya shared a link to a DYI post where they used trellis boards instead, which is much cheaper and the way I decided to go. I ended up using ten boards and three mouldings. They are spaced about 11" apart. The boards are so skinny and light that the painter's tape held them up just fine. :) 

I measured the lattice boards, taped and then nailed them in. I used the tip that the link above had about using a board to measure in-between boards. That worked really well. Then I used caulking on all the edges, let that dry, and then painted the boards and seams.

Here is the board and batten after it is all finished:

 

Finally, I painted the closet doors to match and put them back in.

This means my walls are all finished! No more painting (well, at least not on my walls)! My family was so happy it was done and my body thanked me for the rest. ;) Although it really didn't take that long - just most of a Saturday and a couple of hours for two more days.

 

Here are more shots of the ceiling (excuse the ladder that's still up):

 

I love it! Now I can't wait to put the hooks in the walls, pictures up, and anything else I end up doing. I have some more work since I'll be reusing some things I already have. I'll post another update when I've done some more on the space. I may finish everything and then just post a final update, but we'll see.

Thank you Tonya, again, for a great room recipe!!!

What do you think?