Whew!! What a crazy past few days it has been! The Haven Conference went wonderfully and we couldn't have been happier with it. If you were there I'm so glad you attended and hope you came away with new friendships and tons of information!
I got home yesterday and in my head I only had a few more things to get the living room bookcase done, but it turned out I was totally wrong. Ha! I worked most of the day on it…and it's finally done and beautiful! Oh my, I love it.
First up, I'll take you from where I left off last week with the process. Because I had taken down some molding, I had to patch up a few spots where the caulk pulled up bits of drywall on the back wall:
This stuff is excellent for that, I love that it turns white when it's dry enough to sand down:
Then I finished up all the trim. The trim is what makes it look SO much more finished. Most of my projects look pretty awful up till trim and caulk -- both make the world a better place:
I "faced" the whole thing with my favorite lattice trim. I use it all the time. Seriously, you'll find it on almost every built in project in this house.
It's wider than the wood so it gives it a nice, finished look. Next up was getting a piece of wood cut down for the top. I used a piece of birch wood for this -- it was expensive ($50) but I knew I wanted to stain it so I wanted something nice. If you are painting you could go much cheaper! I do have a TON left for other projects though, so the $50 piece will go a very long way.
I cut it down to size -- I had to cut out a part with my jigsaw:
I literally cannot cut a straight line with my jigsaw. I've tried. It doesn't happen, but don't fret if you're like me -- again, caulk is your BFF.
I sanded the whole thing down very lightly, nothing intense, and then applied a pre-stain conditioner. It helps to prep the wood for stain and really does help. If your stain projects don't have a consistent finish you'll want to try this:
Within minutes you can apply the stain. I used some leftover Jacobean from our floors.
After I was finished with the top, I cut down some more lattice, stained that and then attached that to the edge all around:
This is a much cheaper way of giving the look of a nice, thick piece of wood. Eventually I do want to replace this with thicker butcher block, but for now (it will be awhile), this works great!
I've always done this and it's the less expensive "cheater" way, but I've seen the same done in high end homes with a super glossy poly on top too. It looks great!
I used a wipe on poly this time and I'm not thrilled with the coverage. I'm going to add another gloss coat with my regular brush on stuff soon. Here are the products I used:
I love love LOVE this built in! It was a few days of work but so worth it. Oh my:
This corner has always been a bit awkward -- nothing was ever quite right over here. This is quite right. ;)
I grabbed decor from around the house to fill up the shelves. I really love how it came together for as quickly as I did it!:
My husband and I sat out here last night and both said it's another one of those things that looks like it should have always been there. That's always a home run in my mind:
I didn't expect this, but it also makes the entry feel more grand. It gives the feel of even more separation from the front door, which I love:
You may remember from the last post that the end of that cabinet used to look like this:
I wanted to make that look like all one piece from the end, so I cut a thin board almost the size of the entire thing then attached it. I trimmed it out on the sides with more lattice. I'm bummed because I could have sworn I took a picture of the end before I painted, but I can't find it!
The goal was to make it look like one big built in and finishing off the end really made that happen:
It was pretty darn easy as far as a built in is concerned and it the price was great! I spent about $125 but $50 of that was just for the top, so if you want to plan the whole thing I'm guessing it would be well under $100. I had a few pieces of the trim in the garage so that helped, but overall this was a really inexpensive project for the impact:
I'm already dreaming up what we'll do for Christmas, not gonna lie. ;)
If I didn't answer any questions about the process, please let me know! I absolutely love how it turned out. Did any of you guess right about this project when I mentioned it a few weeks ago?
