A lot has happened since I posted last. The two biggest pieces are news are that I’m pregnant with a baby boy! Yay! But also, we bought a new house! A really big house that will grow with our family. It was hard for me to say goodbye to our Tangletown Craftsman, but I think you’ll love our new place. There aren’t any huge renovation projects, but lots of space to decorate and tiny updates to make this place our own. I don’t have a great photo of the exterior except for the listing photo, so I’ll hold off on sharing until I take my own. But trust me when I saw it’s a beauty.
One of the first things I wanted to do was update the breakfast nook. Here is the before from the staging photos! Totally fine, but not my style at all. And I really wanted a built in banquette.
Luckily, I had built a banquette in our old house, using two Ikea cabinets that I figured I could repurpose. I knew they would work, but I really didn’t love how I upholstered the fronts with the faux leather and I wanted go to with fluted look. So I brainstormed and came up with this design.
How did I do this, you ask? Well let me tell you… I headed to Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware and my neighborhood hardware store (shoutout to Stoneway Hardware) and bought every single 1/2″ wood dowel that they had in stock. Then I used a handsaw and cut them down to size. It was a very lengthy process. And it convinced me that I want a miter saw because I didn’t feel comfortable using the circular saw, so the handsaw was my only real option. After my arm about fell off from all the sawing, I glued the dowels to the front of the cabinets. I wanted to keep the dowels their natural stain, but I realized that each store had a slightly different wood grain, so I decided to paint them white. I topped them off with some corner molding so you couldn’t see how unevenly I cut the tops.
And that’s it… the only thing I asked Joey for help with was figuring out the angles for the molding. Otherwise, this was 100% Kathryn, which I am pretty proud of! We eat pretty much every meal here because it’s attached to our kitchen, so it’s getting a ton of use.
I think I’m going to eventually change out the fabric for the cushions because it’s a little too earthy for my style, but that’s a lower priority.
The other thing you might notice is the two giant pieces of art on the sides of the banquette. Those are Joey originals. He used a combination of joint compound and leftover paint for a very abstract, textural look. I am obsessed and they are just the right size.
That was just one of the many projects we have going on, so stay tuned to get more glimpses of our new house.