After I made the bench I figured that I would put it in my backroom but it looked a little out of place being on a blank wall in a huge room with the dog crate, back door and a lonely little old book shelf. When we moved into our home we had no idea what we would make out of the back room. It's a decent size back room that leads to the basement, the garage & the back yard. So, needless to say, there's a lot of traffic through there! We thought about turning this into a family room, den, office space, etc. but then it dawned on me that this room is really going to get a TON of traffic. Then I bought a puppy (SURPRISE!) so the puppy needed a spot to sleep and make home (home meaning a mess room where he eats, slobbers and keeps his bed, haha). So, we... (we meaning I) decided to take initiative and design this room myself because let's face it... It was driving me crazy and I needed to keep busy on a new project! Here it is! PS. It was SO, SO, SO easy!
The beginning steps included going to Pinterest, of course. I pinned so many ideas of paint colors, benches, organization ideas, etc. Then I decided to add them all together and start drawing. Look here at all of my ideas - My Pinterest Board. Then, I measured the wall to make sure my bench would fit in between my molding and plugs, and baseboards. Here's my plans... Of course they aren't perfect but my measurements were right, that's all that counts.
Wall Space - 50"
Molding - 60" Tall on each side
Shelf in the middle - 50"
Bench (already made) - 42"
I went to the basement and searched for spare crown molding and wood to make a shelf with! I came across a great piece of molding that was 121" long (perfect for my two 60" pieces for the wall) so I cleaned it up to make sure it would work. PS I picked the top piece, it was thicker and had more design to it that I liked and it's the molding that's used throughout the house on the trim so it matches.
I framed in the wall to leave a 48" gap in the middle. I chose to do 48" because my bench is 42" and there was a plug on the left side of the molding so I couldn't really go much bigger. The walls back here are wood paneling which usually sucks for projects but I went to DIY Network website to look up some great ideas to make this work. Once I learned how to properly attach and secure crown molding to the wall I made my shopping list and then went to Home Depot.
My Home Depot list consisted of:
Liquid Nails
Caulk Gun
2 1/2" Framing Nails
Painters Tape
Coat Hooks (4)
You'll also need (I had at home):
Measuring Tape
Hammer
Circular Saw
Sand Paper or Electric Sander (works better & faster!)
Primer & Paint Color of your choice (if you want to re-paint the backsplash)
Wood for the shelf to build in the middle (2 pieces)
I framed in wall space after cutting & sanding the molding to 60" and making sure the edges are smooth. Use the 1/4 hole cut on the liquid nails bottle and zig-zag the liquid nails using the caulk gun on the back of the molding. Press the molding firmly on the wall and hold for about two-five minutes or until it doesn't easily move anymore. (The liquid nails may seep out but you can wipe it down and sand it off the wall later). Then take your framing nails and nail three nails in the molding (top, bottom and middle of the board), more isn't necessary unless the board is bigger than 60" and you want more support.
After the wall is framed in you'll want to paint it BEFORE adding the shelf to the wall. It's much easier and I had to paint the shelf white anyway! I primed the wall with white crown molding paint, it's thicker and durable for all the traffic and dirt this wall will encounter. I also lightly sanded and put a fresh coat of white on the molding because there were some scratches on it.
See those two blocks at the top of the molding? I found them in the basement too and they match the rest of the finishing on the house so we added them here for extra design.
After the white paint was dry I decided to paint the wall teal. Why am I so obsessed with teal lately?
It looked great and really brightened up the room! If you looked at my Pinterest page for my mudroom ideas you'll see that eventually I want to paint the entire backroom a light yellow. The teal and yellow will go great together and match my bench too! This Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint from Home Depot ROCKS and I wouldn't ever use anything else on my walls in my house. It's a primer & paint all in one.
(Let's take pictures of paint drying...)
Once the wall was dry I had to touch up a few spots so we got the paint back out and decided to add our own special touches to the wall in our home. Here's hubs painting our initials next to our handprints! (Don't worry these are eventually covered with the shelf).
^ This picture looks green, it's really teal. Weird!
When my shelf was drying I had some free time so I found some more wood in the basement and made a sign for Luke's little corner in the mudroom. It matches... YAY! (I love finding projects in my basement).
Here's the wall with the wall dried, shelf ready to be hung up and bench in place! I was so excited to get it done, I couldn't help but take a pic of the almost finished wall.
Sorry, I didn't get a photo of the shelf making process but it was really simple. Take your two pieces of wood, whatever width you choose as long as it's long enough to fit in-between your molding, and use liquid nails to hold them together then framing nails to secure it. Once it's dried and then painted, add hooks with pilot holes (instructions for that is on the packaging for the hooks. I think the pilot hole needed to be 5/64 bit) and then use 2 1/2 screws to screw the board onto the wall. We found two studs behind where the shelf was going to be so we used larger screws for the hooks than the ones that were included because we wanted it to be more secure to the wall. Sometimes you just have to improvise.
& it's DONE!
It's amazing, so useful and looks great in the room. We are eventually going to get a cute rug for under the bench and add a couple of baskets for shoes and the hats/gloves. The door to the right is the garage door and across from that is the back door so it's the perfect spot for this.
PS - I have to give a ton of credit to my hubs for helping with this project. It went so much quicker having his help but ladies, you can totally do this 100% on your own! :) Have fun!
XO, K.
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