Kitchen Mural Reveal | Tacoma Mural Artist

After I built out this laundry room in the awkward corner of our kitchen, I knew the wall wanted to have some kind of statement on it. But dang did it take forever to figure out what that statement was going to be. This design was actually inspired by a tile design where each square tile had a quarter circle on it, when meant you could completely customize the design. So I pulled a pic of this spot into photoshop and played around with quarter circles until I landed on something that felt good.

But my favorite element came later. I had been seeing this orange color around and I knew I wanted to incorporate it into the house. My original plan was for the french doors to be painted black, but then a bell went off in my head and I knew they had to be orange. I grabbed a paint chip (which ended up being the exact same color as Home Depot’s signature orange, haha) and bought a little paint sample (a paint sample size is usually enough to paint a door— and they’re only a couple bucks!). A few hours later the doors were orange and it MADE the space.

It’s so wild to look at the before pic and see that sad corner with the laundry closet. The space planning in this house by whoever built it is down right bananas, folks. Like… was that supposed to be a breakfast nook? It didn’t feel big enough for a table there, but it’s still a lot of square feet of wasted space. Now we have a laundry room with added cabinetry for storage, a more defined rear entry area for dropping keys, coats, etc, and they functionality and flow through the space isn’t impacted whatsoever.

Now… I just have to finish the final details on the inside of the laundry room…

Botanical Kitchen Revival: A Rental Kitchen Makeover on a Budget

Transforming any space is fun, but transforming your lifelong BFF’s space is a special kind of fun. When Frogtape reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in being a designer for their annual Paintover Challenge, it came at the perfect time. My friend, Kristina, had been talking about wanting to update her kitchen in the rental home where she lives with her husband and son, and I instantly pitched her the idea of doing the paintover challenge in HER kitchen. We talked to her landlord, who gave us the greenlight for the proposed changes and we got to work!

This makeover was primarily achieved with paint, with some honorable mentions from a few other design elements. I traded out the old overhead track lighting for a pretty new light that not only looked gorgeous, but offered way more illumination (which is a godsend come those dim PNW winter months). In lieu of taking out the meager tile backsplash and doing new tile (which probably would’ve required some drywall repairs, and a significant budget bump) I opted to keep the existing strip of tile, and add beadboard on top to fill the blank space between there and the bottom of the wall cabinets. Then, we painted it the same color as the cabinets and the walls, for a delicious tone-on-tone vibe. This basil color is super pretty, it feels lush and sophisticated.

The big, unexpected showstopper ended up being her basic old fridge, transformed with a bit of removable stick-on wallpaper! Since we kept the existing cabinet hardware and painted it brass to match the light fixture, we did the same with the fridge handle to tie everything together. I used Rustoleum Vintage Gold spraypaint to paint both the cabinet door pulls and the fridge handle.

Another thing we did was add a whole wall of open shelving to give her a ton more storage. We painted those shelves the same green as the rest of the kitchen, but kept that wall white to give some contrast. Now she has a bunch of space to store all her pretty jars of dry goods, cute mugs and, of course, more plants.

And one more fun little detail: we put a chalkboard area in for her toddler to use! That panel is access for the water heater, so it was just an unfinished wood panel before, so we framed it out to match the shaker style of the cabinets and did the center panel in chalkboard paint so he could draw and have fun!

Projects like this have all the elements of what makes me most excited about design and remodels. Making a huge impact for not a huge amount of money, coming up with creative solutions, and doing really fun and out of the box elements (I’ll never get over that fridge).

I’m so thrilled that Frogtape brought me in on their Paintover Challenge this year so I could do this amazing project!

\\ Sources //

Paint
Spraypaint
Light fixture
Removable wallpaper
Rug

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Eclectic Modern Bathroom Remodel

This before and after still rocks my world a little bit. Truth be told it’s not a true after, there are still projects to be done in here. but, I mean, come on. Are these two rooms even the same?! It’s wild. The layout for this room is strange. I’m really not entirely sure what the person who laid out this space was thinking, but gutting it and rearranging just wasn’t in the budget.

We kept pretty much everything and just reworked it. The vanity is the same, but I put new slab doors on, sanded down the original vanity to its natural oak and then whitewashed it to keep the modern light look that the raw wood had (putting poly over the raw wood would have turned it back into the ugly orangey color of the original bathroom— no thanks!).

For whatever reason, the old vanity had a strange vacant cavity next to the cabinet under the counter. What went there? Who knows. Probably just cobwebs and grime. I added some open shelves there which are perfect for holding baskets with hair product (curly girls represent!), and the bottom shelf is the perfect spot for extra TP rolls.

The large linen closet storage on the left side of the vanity got a slatted upgrade, I just refinished the existing door and trim the same way I did the vanity cabinet, and then added oak slats.

This bathroom is not hurting for storage so the massive medicine cabinet mirror was absolutely not necessary. a streamlined simple brass mirror took it’s place, and the sorely dated vanity lighting got a midcentury modern upgrade.

Dingy white walls be gone! I did a textured wall treatment, giving the walls a plaster-y look to remove the dated orange peel texture, and then painted a moody blue-ish green-ish teal, Valspar’s Everglade Deck.

Obviously the showstopper of the space is the stunning cement hex tile from Riad Tile. I’ve eyed so many styles from Riad for years and this large wall behind the vanity basically begged for a statement wall. I’m absolutely obsessed with how this tile completely transforms the room.

And to replace the old formica counter, we did a poured concrete counter! This whole space was a DIY update, and we did everything we could to do budget friendly updates, use what existing elements we could, and worked around the layout so we could create the maximum update for minimum cost. I did pretty much everything myself, except the poured concrete counter and the floor tile, which my husband took on (though I did cut the floor tile, so we’ll call that one a joint effort).

If you want to see the before images, scroll down!

We’ve got some other big projects in the works so this space is basically on hold for now. It has an ugly ivory fiberglass tub/surround which desperately needs to be replaced, but it works fine and I can hide it behind a pretty shower curtain, so for the time being it stays. A pretty white tub and tiled surround will happen someday! In the meantime, I just bask in the glow of the tile wall.

tile c/o Riad Tile

Rustic Industrial Bathroom Design

Favorite client project of 2020 goes to: this bathroom! It was a small en-suite bath off their master, which had been poorly DIYed by the previous owners and just wasn’t very functional or stylish. Since the space was small we were able to make some really bold choices and elevate the space to a rustic, eclectic modern vibe.

One of my favorite elements that really gave the room a level up was doing floor to ceiling subway tile on the walls of the bathroom in addition to the shower. It’s classic and brightened up the whole space. We grounded the room with large black hex tile, and gave depth and warmth to the space with a gorgeous wood accent wall behind the vanity and toilet.

I’m obsessed with the shower door and I almost feel like that piece is one of the biggest game changers in the space. The old shower was tiled with large, dark grey tile, and then instead of a glass door, there was a shower curtain, basically turning the small 3x3ft shower stall into a claustrophobic dark cave. With the glass shower door, we can now get the natural light from the bathroom window, as well as the bathroom lighting, to illuminate the shower and help the smaller space feel much larger.

I’m super in love with the design we came up with and couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

completed design photos by Michelle Baldwin

DIY Slat Wall Room Divider

I get tons of questions about my slat room divider and I’m super excited to share with you guys how easy it was to put together! It’s also an extremely affordable way to create a defined space without making things feel closed off. In our home I love how it allows the light to come through from the large windows in the dining room, but it still gives the living room a cozy feeling.

Depending on how big your room divider is, you may need to build it in the space, as it will be too large to build and then fit it through a doorway. I assembled mine in my living room. Since we had a little beam going across right where I wanted my room divider to be, I built mine slightly differently than I’m going to describe (I didn’t sandwich the top with 1x4’s, I just put a 1x4 on one side and then used that to screw through into the beam) so that it will look nice attached to a plain ceiling with no beam.

You’ll need:

2x2’s (amount depending on how large your room divider will be)
Six 1x4’s (length depending on the width of your room divider)
1 1/4 in screws
Tools: Tape measure, Drill, Circular Saw/Miter Saw, Table Saw (optional)

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Tools

Circular saw

$39.69

Miter Saw

$179.00

Drill

$99.00

Tape Measure

$16.98

Materials

Screws

$8.99

Kits

All Tools

$334.67

All Materials

$8.99

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1/ Measure the height of your room, from floor to ceiling.Subtract 1.5 inches from that measurement (you’ll be adding 3/4in to the top and bottom later). Cut your 2x2 lumber to that measurement. Check the floor to ceiling height in a few different spots where your room divider is going, just to make sure it’s the same all the way across. You may have some slight variations you’ll need to adjust for since older homes aren’t always 100% square. To decide how many 2x2’s you’ll need you’ll need to determine how far apart you want your slats to be. Mine are 2 1/4in apart.

2/ Cut six 1x4’s the total length of your room divider. Take one and screw your 2x2 slats to it at one end, making sure you maintain a uniform distance between your slats (again, mine were 2 1/4 in apart). I used 1 1/4 in screws and did two on each slat, one at the top of the 1x4 and one at the bottom. Do the same on the other end of your slats. If you want a more clean, finished look, you can use a finish nailer instead.

3/ Flip the slat wall over carefully (you may need a friend to help, depending on how large yours is), and then screw in the other two 1x4’s to the opposite side, sandwiching the 2x2’s in the middle. I put one screw in this side so the screw goes in between the ones you did on the other side. Again, repeat for the opposite end of the slats, so that both ends are sandwiched between 1x4s.

4/ Rip the final two 1x4’s down to 3 inches wide, and attach these two to the top and bottom of the slat wall, creating a top and bottom plate for your wall. (if you don’t have a table saw you can skip this step, the top and bottom plates will just extend 1/4 in beyond either side, since the total width of the sandwiched top is 3in, and a 1x4 is 3 1/2 in wide)

5/ Tilt your room divider up, and screw up into the ceiling in a few places to secure it. If you want to screw it into your floor as well for a more permanent wall, you can do that. I didn’t want to damage my flooring so I didn’t attach mine at the bottom. You can also screw into the wall through the slat on the end too, to secure it more thoroughly.

Watch me build mine below!

DYING TO TRANSFORM YOUR OWN SPACE, BUT AREN’T SURE WHERE TO START, HOW TO BRING YOUR VISION TO LIFE, OR NEED HELP FIGURING OUT HOW TO MAKE IT ALL HAPPEN? I’VE GOT YOU COVERED! HEAD OVER HERE AND LET’S GET STARTED ON WORKING SOME DESIGN MAGIC FOR YOU!

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