Today's Mini Makeover Challenge is probably one of my favorites to date! I challenged Nicki from Sweet Parrish Place to participate and she has wowed me at what she accomplished without spending a penny.
In case you aren't familiar with the challenge, here are the rules:
*Makeover an area of your home without spending a penny! Using items you already have on hand, create a fresh look for your space.
*Shop your home and yard for items you love.
*Choose a space to makeover. Could be a reading nook, bedroom, foyer, anything you want!
* Remember, you can't spend one penny!
Take it away, Nicki!
Hi all! My name is Nicki, and I blog over at Sweet Parrish Place. I am so thrilled to be guest posting today at Cultivate Create, and I hope you enjoy the project I am sharing! If you like it please, hop on over to my blog and take a look around. I love to DIY, and share my projects, so I would love to have you! A Couple of months ago, I was invited to participate in a Mini Makeover Challenge by the lovely and talented Amanda, who is the voice behind the blog Cultivate Create. For this challenge, I was required to make over an area in my home without spending one penny, and I had to use things I already had on hand. As soon as I received the invite, I knew what my project would be, and exactly the spot in my home that was going to receive a makeover, my upstairs hallway! I am happy to report that I succeeded in this challenge. I did not spend a penny, I used all materials that I had on hand, and I made over my hallway. I completely transformed the look and feel of my hallway with this project, and created character where there pretty much was none, so it was a big win in my book! Behold, my DIY rustic wood wall that I made out of salvaged fence posts! Here is the hallway before my makeover.
And as you already saw above, here it is now! I am so psyched about the end result! I could not be more pleased, so I want to share with you how I did this, because you can easily do this in your own home!
Last summer, my next door neighbor tore down a section of her fence that was in need of replacement, and of course, when I found out she was going to do this, I begged her for the posts. Now, LC (my blog nickname for my husband- you can read more about that on my about me page) was none too happy that I wanted these old things. But I persisted and forced him to help me collect them, and we piled them up out back for some unknown future project. I knew I wanted to use them on a wall, I just didn’t know where in my home they would end up. I think this wall in my hallway is the perfect place for them, because when you turn to go down this hallway, which leads to three bedrooms and a bathroom, the rustic wood makes a huge impact. There is no way you can not take notice of it!
So the pile of wood sat out there for about a year, until this summer I finally had time to get to them. The first thing I did was to measure the wall to find out how tall and wide it was. Next I measured the fence posts to make sure I had enough. I decided to use one fence post per row, and to just go from top to bottom. That seemed to be the simplest thing for me to do. Before I started cutting the fence posts though, I needed to clean them. I laid them all out flat in our driveway, brushed them off really well with a broom, and sprayed them down with a power washer on both sides, then I stood them upright in my garage over night to dry. That is all the prep I did to them. I loved the way they looked after they were dry, and I went with that.
After some debate in my mind, I decided to paint the wall before I hung the wood so that it would be less noticeable if there were any gaps. And I have to say that I am so glad I did. I did not purchase any paint for this part, I just used paint that I had on hand in the closest color that I thought would disappear beneath the wood. This color happens to be on an accent wall in my bedroom. I actually hate the color now, but that is another story. I only painted on one coat, and I did not trim out around the edges. However, when I started to hang the wood, I regretted that I did not trim out, because it was noticeable beneath the wood, so I paused and went back and trimmed it all out. I even took a tiny paint brush and trimmed out in the places where I had already hung the wood.
I received a circular saw from my dad for Christmas, and this was the first time I have used it. The wood was a little too wide for the circular saw, so I had to make two cuts on each piece to go all the way through the wood. This was not difficult. I just made my first cut, turned the wood over to the opposite side and made one more cut. As luck would have it, this wall that we were hanging these on did not have any studs, can you believe that? But these posts are not heavy, they are very thin, so we thought it was fine to go ahead and hang them. We started out by using four nails- 2 on each side, but because some of the pieces are warped, that didn’t work out for every piece. So we ended up using jut two nails on the warped pieces, one on each side- right in the middle. Thank goodness I had LC to pound all of the nails in for me, because that was the hardest part. I cleaned and cut the wood, he nailed it all in for me. You could use a nail gun for this part, which would make it much simpler, but unfortunately we don’t own one. I am adding it to my list of things I need though!
Here is a close up of the wood, and you can see the nails on the left, and how some of the wood is cracked and warped. This did not bother me. It only added to the character in my opinion.
I debated back and forth whether to remove the white trim and take the wood all the way down to the floor or not, and I decided to leave it. That is a personal preference, you can do whatever you think will look best. I am glad I left it. When I got down to the last piece, it was a little too wide, and I did not have any power tools that I could use to cut it, so I simply measured how wide I needed it to be, marked on the wood with a pencil, and used a chisel and a hammer to split the wood to the right width. This was very easy because the wood was very brittle. You can see the wood right at the trim below. It worked out perfectly.
We finished this project shortly before we left to go on vacation, and when we got home, I was taken aback yet again at how much the rustic wood wall adds to the character of our home!
There was one dilemma though. How to hang the white mirror back up on the wall. We couldn’t just hang it on the wood because there are no studs in this wall, so the wood is not super secure. And remember, for this challenge, we were to use things we already had on hand, so I couldn’t go out an purchase anything special. We decided that no one would ever see what was behind this mirror. Even if we decide to remove it one day, we will replace it with something else, so we used a drill to drill a hole big enough to fit a drywall anchor, and we then hung the mirror back up. Easy solution!
This rustic wood and wicker box is not a table. It is actually a laundry hamper. And it is a necessary object because we don’t have a lot of space in this house. So this is where we throw our dirty towels and washcloths that are used in our master bath and the boys bathroom. It works.
Have you noticed yet that there is handwriting on the white mirror? I wrote some of the words to the song At Last by Etta James, using a white paint marker. This is a meaningful song for LC and I , because it was played at our wedding in Riviera Maya, Mexico. It is not super noticeable in pictures, but much more so in person, and it just adds a touch of meaning and interest to the mirror. I like having a mirror on this back wall because it reflects light. This hallway tends to be on the dark side, especially because both of our boys like to keep their bedrooms closed most of the time.
The vintage vanity case that is sitting on the hamper was a Trashtastic Tuesday project of mine last Fall. It has moved around my home several times since I painted it.
So, what do you think? Huge impact in this little space, right? I hope you enjoyed this makeover! If you have any questions that I did not answer in the text, please ask away in the comments and I promise, I will answer! Thank you so much for having me today Amanda, it was a pleasure to participate in this mini makeover challenge! I love a good challenge to get my butt in gear!
Isn't that quite a feat, given no money was spent? Amazing! Be sure to go check out Nicki's blog! You won't be disappointed. Thanks so much for participating, Nicki!
Want to see more Mini Makeover Challenges? Check these out!
