remodeling Archives - TaylorMade

Dining Room Reveal (with Photowall!)

January 10, 2021 By Taylor Leave a Comment

I’m so excited to share the first room in our new home that is complete(ish); welcome to the Dining Room Reveal! If you have been following along on my Instagram account (@taylormadecreates) then you know this past summer we bought a house straight out of 1990 and have been working hard to make it our own! My plan of attack was to tackle the easy rooms first that didn’t need as much help, so we started with the kids rooms, Craft Room and Dining Room. I knew I wanted wallpaper in this room so I was super excited when Photowall reached out to me for a partnership! (And it’s your lucky day because I have a coupon code to share at the end of the post!!!)

Dining Room Reveal with Black Floral Moody Wallpaper

It’s no secret how much I love wallpaper and at first glance I knew I was going to love Photowall because they have prints that I have never seen and designs that are super unique (which is also something I love). A lot of the wallpaper companies carry the same lines and designs but these were different (in a good way) so I was in! I was looking for something a little more formal and maybe even a tad moody in here. When we looked at the house I loved the molding treatment on the bottom half of the wall but everything else was pretty dated so I just had to spruce it up. Here is a “before” picture the day we looked at the house:

When we moved in we had the bottom half of the wall painted solid white… painting the molding the same color as the wall it is on makes it a little more modern in my opinion so we started there then I headed to Photowall to pick out the wallpaper for the top half of the wall. This room has 3 full walls then the 4th wall is just a few feet as it’s open to the entryway. We wanted to wallpaper all 4 walls and the way Photowall prints their wallpaper it made it perfect for this room… more on that later!

I spent a few days looking for the perfect wallpaper then I narrowed it down to three. Botanical Morning (left), Budgies Offwhite (Center) and Stunner Peachy (right). I loved all of them and honestly the two I didn’t choose felt a little more “me” but I wanted to choose something different and the black background with florals checked all the boxes! The flowers are a little unexpected the way they are all laid out and y’all know I love unexpected! The second picture down below is the wallpaper on the actual wall so it’s even better and more vibrant in person!

They always offer free shipping and it was super fast… but now to the best part! Photowall prints their wallpaper like no company I’ve ever worked with… when you choose your wallpaper you type in your wall’s width and height, so in my case I had the same height for all 4 walls (above molding to ceiling) but then I added the width of the 4 walls together. They then print it panel by panel, so for example we had 28 panels, which were all already the correct size! This is so smart because you don’t have to worry about measuring and accounting for the drop on the pattern or account for any waste. Each panel is clearly marked for you and you can just cut where the cut line is and line each panel up next to each other, one after another. Here is a picture of the top of a panel that is marked.

I had a few rooms that needed wallpapering so we hired an installer but the instructions and the way the panels are printed made it seem like I totally could have done it haha!

I really love the way it turned out! It’s a tad dramatic and still fun and eclectic and so perfect for the space. Speaking of perfect for the space… I’m very obsessed with the light fixture! I will link everything at the bottom of this post :)

And for making it to the bottom of the post you get a reward!!! I have a coupon code for 25% off any wallpaper, mural or print at Photowall! You can even print your own photo or artwork so the possibilities are endless! The discount code is taylormadecreates2021 and if valid on everything for 30 days! Special Thanks to Photowall for partnering with me on the Dining Room! Let me know if you have any questions (or need helping picking out your wallpaper ;)

Wallpaper: Botanical Morning from Photowall

Table: World Market

Rug: Amazon

Light: Lobster Plus

Candle Holder and Candles: DIY Inspired by Sugar and Cloth and Candles are from Amazon

Shiplap Wall Tutorial

January 13, 2019 By Taylor Leave a Comment

First post of 2019! I finally got around to organizing my shiplap photos to share our Shiplap Wall Tutorial! You all probably have a shiplap wall in your house at this point haha, but for those who don’t, This is for you :) This treatment is so pretty and looks so put together but it’s actually really easy!

We have 10 foot ceilings and this wall is about 16.5′ wide so that is the area we are working with here. We went to Home Depot and got the super thin 3/16th” plywood (which my husband said is sometimes called paneling). We did the math and with our area we purchased 6 sheets and that worked out perfectly for us. A sheet of plywood is 8′ x 4′ so, we had it cut into 8″ strips (longways) because that way you don’t have any waste and you get 6 long boards out of one sheet. Don’t forget that hardware stores will cut your boards for you! We could have done it at home very but it’s free and why not just have it done before you even get home, right?! We found a super nice Home Depot employee and on their fancy machine it took him 10 minutes!

So, like I said with our 6 sheets of plywood that we had cut into 8″ strips that left us with 36 boards. You will have to do the math depending on your wall size but it should be pretty easy to figure out… each board ends up measuring 96″ x 8″. We started our boards at the top because if we had to cut anything to fit later on in the project it would be the part that is hidden by the couch. We used a nail gun and used two nails on the right, two in the center of the board and two on the left side.

I wanted it to look a random but that also took a little planning. I wanted to make sure that no seams ended up right over each other but also not “perfectly” bricked either.

Please excuse the terrible, badly lit cell phone pictures on this project. We had to work on this after Bryan got home from work and after the kids were fed and bathed. Get it in where you can fit it in right? Here are a few pictures I shared on Instagram stories. We used the “nickel method”. When we started a new board we each held up a nickel on both ends of the board then butted the new board up against the nickels. We did that on the horizontal gaps but not the vertical gaps.

Once we got going, we got into a grove and it came together quickly! We did have that corner angle and two electrical outlets that we had to cut around.

Then it was time to paint. I don’t love painting but painting one wall is doable for me haha! We had to stop for a few days in between for kids activities and Bryan actually loved the raw wood, I on the other hand could not wait to paint it white! I used Sherwin Williams Pure White.

These boards were super thirsty so I had to do 3ish coats.

Because of the “nickel” gap in between the boards the paint started filling in the spaces in some spots. I used business cards to go between each space and clean the paint up.

Finally after 3+ coats it started coming together! Before the shiplap was installed I always has a gallery wall over the couch but wood isn’t nearly as forgiving with holes like sheetrock is and I move pictures around a lot. So, I decided we needed some picture rails over the couch so we could move things around easier.

I drew the rails out and this is what Bryan came up with. We used 1″x4″ boards which are 8 feet long. He stripped down a little ledge into a 1″x1″ for the front of the rails. It looks like 2 rails but there are actually 4 rails that are just hung right next to each other. Again, our wall is a little over 16 feet wide so the two 8 feet rails fit almost just right. There is about two inches on each side of the rails.

Overall I LOVE how it turned out! It took a few days but the work was easy once we got going. It actually makes the room look so much bigger too, maybe with the help of the picture rails. We have a pretty small living room (or cozy as I like to call it :) so we have to utilize all the space.

Let me know if I left anything out or if you have any other questions about doing a Shiplap Wall. I will link sources down at the bottom :)

Sources:

Couch – Ashley Furniture – Loric Smoke Sectional

Rug – Rugs USA

End table – Tutorial HERE

Small Lamp – Target

Floor Lamp – World Market

Big watercolor art – Emily Jeffords for Minted

Letteroard – Letterfolk

You are loved sign – Bonnie Christine

Rainbow wall hanging – my mom made it and its so beautiful!

Kid’s Animal Room

October 24, 2018 By Taylor 3 Comments

You guys… this animal might be my favorite room makeover yet! If you remember a few months ago (on Instagram) I mentioned I was going to split the boys apart this school year. They are very close but I wanted them to have their own space and we had the room. Their previous room (HERE) is now just my oldest son’s room and my middle got to move into his own room. His one request… “I want an animal room.” He is 7 which is still little but I didn’t want it to look to juvenile or like a nursery. This room is an actual bedroom but up until now we had been using it as the playroom (link is HERE if you want to check that out!). I had already painted the chalkboard wall a few years ago but being the only wall that the bed would fit on, I didn’t like the idea of chalkdust on the bedding all the time. Neat freak problems. That and the idea of painting over the chalkboard didn’t sound fun so that is how the animal “wallpaper” idea came to life :)

We have a local vinyl store in the area so I went and got 2 sheets of every single color they carried which ended up being around 30 different colors, so 60ish 12×12″ sheets. Then, in my Silhouette software I created 6 different pages of animal silhouettes. I just google searched random animals and used the trace feature until the page was full. I did that until I had 6 pages of different types of animals in different sizes. I had the kids help me think of both common and obscure animals. Then, making sure we didn’t have two colors of the same animal sheet, I fed them all through and cut them out making approximately seven billion stickers… kidding. But there were A LOT! Fun Fact: because I only had 2 sheets of each color and made sure not to cut the same page in the same color… no two animals on the wall are alike!

When I started placing the animals on the wall I made sure to spread out the big animals so I started with those and filled in with little animals as I went. I also ended up cutting some of the vinyl stickers in half on the edges of the walls and door (both horizontally and vertically) to make it look more wallpaper-like. Once I finished the big animals that needed 2 hands the kids pitched in and helped. Who doesn’t want to spend a Friday night applying 800 stickers to a wall am I right haha?? But honestly it was very easy and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out… and I love that it was all under $30!

I knew the wall would be the bright focal point of the room so I didn’t want to go too crazy with the accessories, I tried to stay as neutral as I could :). I DIYed the “mexican pancho” pillows from an old costume we had lying around and I found the Otami pillow on amazon. I will link all sources at the bottom of this post.

I’m really in love with this bed too! It has a vintage feel but it’s brand new (from Walmart of all places). It was super affordable but it’s very sturdy and seems really well built… I highly recommend it!

This room has a funny layout because of where the bathroom door is on the wall so I was left with one more skinny area and a huge open wall. Besides animals my son’s other loves are legos and art. He is very creative so I thought a long skinny desk with a pegboard wall would be a great use of space.

My father in law cut, sanded and finished the wooden top piece of the desk for us. Then I just got two little end cabinets and the board is just siting on top of them. He also framed out the pegboard and painted it white for us. I got most of the pegboard accessories from Amazon and Ikea. The desk is a huge hit, in fact all three kids love it and they are often all in there coloring or drawing together! I should have bought 3 stools instead of 2 haha.

I needed something on the left of the pegboard wall so I drew my son’s favorite animals (inspired by some prints I had seen on instagram) on my iPad Pro, sent them to a local print shop and had them printed in poster size.

The last little area was all I had left for a small dresser so I was so happy to find one that fit the dimensions I needed! I’m telling you, this room design is weird. It had to be shallow enough to fit behind the closet door but short enough to fit under the window sill… tough job! I also left the Ikea book rails up from the playroom days because I still love them!

I found this rug at Target and although it’s a little grown up for a boy’s room I thought it went really well in here. One good thing is it camouflages stains well haha!

Of everything I spent time on in this room, these lights right here are my son’s favorite part of the room! We leave them plugged in but they have a remote, so you can dim them or turn on timers etc! They really are so pretty… I guess the saying is right, it is the little things. Speaking of… I love his personal touch that he left on the door :)

Needless to say, he is LOVING his new room. I secretly think it’s the coziest room in the house (honestly this “cheap” foam mattress we got him is heaven). I will link all the sources below but let me know if you have any questions about where I found something :)

Sources:

Wall: DIY

Bed: Walmart

Mattress: Walmart

Duvet Cover: Walmart

Pillows: DIY and Amazon

Rug: Target

Fairy Lights (on headboard): Amazon

Desk: DIY and Target

Brass Desk Lamp: Target

Pegboard: DIY, Ikea and Amazon

Dresser: Amazon

Woven Basket: Target

Curtains: Ikea

Metal Stools: Target

Throw Blanket: Amazon

Kitchen Remodel (with sources!)

April 26, 2016 By Taylor 11 Comments

Guess what I have for you today…our kitchen reveal… FINALLY!! We had our kitchen remodeled last year (BEFORE PICTURES HERE) and I am just now getting around to posting all the details! To be honest living through a nine-week remodel with two active boys, a nursing baby and two dogs was about all I could take! So, now that we have lived in it for almost a year and broken it in, I’m sharing some photos and sources, yay! We pretty much knew what we wanted a few years ago but struggled a bit with our countertops so I wrote a whole post about those HERE. Kind of boring to read a whole post about countertops but trust me when you are in the market, it will really help!

On to the (very.photo.heavy) kitchen AFTER! Here she is :) We love her!

Here is a lovely before and after picture, my favorite kind! We kept the same layout because the shape made perfect sense for our house. One of my favorite things that we did was lowering the back bar and extending it out by about 14″ so it hangs over the barstools now. We also took the cabinets all the way to the ceiling which I think made the biggest impact. We were originally going to have the exsisting cabinets painted and an additional box built on top but surprisingly the cost was pretty close to the cost of building all new custom cabinets so we went with that. We went with shaker style doors instead of beveled and I love them! The carpenters did an amazing (and quick) job with that part.

My friend Ailee came over a few months ago and helped me take a few pictures and she also gave me some pointers on taking more photos in my kitchen. Our kitchen is in the very center of our home which I love but there are no windows, cozy but a photography nightmare haha. Thankfully Ailee is talented and helped me out, if you live in the Houston area look her up!

photo by Ailee Petrovic

One of my favorite things are the floating shelves that we have on the side wall. I move things around up there very often, typical me. Another one of our favorites are the floors.. which are faux wood tiles. We wanted the wood look but it’s not practical for the amount of spilling we do haha! I highly recommend these for a kitchen!

We are so happy with the countertops. Like I said, I have a whole dedicated post for them because it was the only hard decision for me, hopefully it helps someone else in the same boat, you can read about them HERE. So far we have spilled everything possible on them and they still look great.

One of my favorite things is our chrome bridge faucet :) I am so in love with it… when it was first installed I was thinking “this is too fancy for us” haha! It still makes me happy every time I look at it. It’s also perfect for our farmhouse sink… those two were made for each other.

I still love the sink and I’m super happy that we went with it but it does get little grey marks on it really easily. It happens when we put anything stainless steel or metal in there… mixing bowls, spoons, cookie sheets. At first I thought it was scratched but the markings actually come off with some elbow grease… thank goodness. I have been using “SoftScrub with Bleach” but I hear bar keepers friend and baking soda work really well too. Let me know if y’all have any other cleaning tips!

Because we decided not to go with the marble countertops, I thought a marble backsplash would be perfect! While I do love some classic white subway tiles, I was afraid it would be just too much white. I’m really happy with the marble hexies. My husband was the most skeptical about this decision but as soon as it was installed we knew it was perfect. We put it behind the vent hood and the floating shelves because I loved it so much! They almost sparkle in the light.

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

Speaking of needing to add color, I wanted even more contrast so we went pretty dark on our island. I loved the richness of Bermuda Turquoise by Benjamin Moore and I picked it out sight unseen haha! We were out of town the week our contractor painted and he called us five states away to make sure we chose the right color haha! I had only seen it online and I said “lets go for it”. It turned out to be the perfect mix of green and blue for me.

I also wanted another little splash somewhere else and I found these jadeite milk glass knobs. Fun fact, the shape also mimics the backsplash :) I got the same milk glass knobs in white for the island. I went with chrome cup pulls for the drawers.

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

There is a little section to the side of the kitchen that used to have a low built in desk which no one ever used but we got used to using that as our family mail and office workstation. So, we had our contractor built four huge drawers for office supplies and files. We keep all of our mail and school info there too. I love the little label pulls, I haven’t labeled them yet but that is on the list :)

With all of the open space came the problem of things being left out on the counter so my husband built these custom hook bars just a few weeks ago. We have already gotten so many compliments on them! He stained them to match the dining room table in the next room.

Lastly, our favorite spot… the bar! The kids sit here more than anywhere else in the house. We eat breakfast here, sometimes lunch, after school snacks, arts and crafts, homework… you name it! I love the overhang they added, it makes the countertops look really deep right when you walk in which I love. We also added two pendant lights and I love them so :)

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

Overall, we couldn’t be more happy with our amazing new kitchen!! We are so lucky and thankful that this is the center of our home… we cook in it multiple times a day and it’s the hub of our family! Remodeling is expensive and can be stressful at times but it was so worth it for us. We will enjoy our happy space for years to come! I’m going to leave all the sources after all the photos so me know if I left anything out anyone has any other questions and I will add them to the post :)