51 Shades of Grey

Thanks in no small part to Pinterest, Which I love, and a lot of work, and I mean A LOT! This is how I have been spending the lions share of my days recently.
We are lucky in our house to have a second kitchen.... that I have been meaning to renovate for a very long time. I was just waiting for the right inspiration to hit me. Well having my 'Happy Place' right beside this kitchen means that for me, the logical jump was to make it a coffee niche working kitchen and  art sink area. Here is the photo lineup on how that is evolving:

We bought an older home, so the walls and floors are not always level or even. This wall was such a mess after tear out, that I decided rather than patch it, I would make a feature wall out of it. This is the lathe work to help even up the surface. The drywall patches are for the tiles that will bank the sink and stove area.

For the feature wall, I am using new pine tongue and groove board. Using the vinegar and steel wool recipe, I applied that to the back of these boards, not the smooth front. On the pinterest samples, it was suppose to turn a lovely shade of grey. Enough said about that! So in the top photo is basically a time lapse of 4 boards. Left to right bare board, first swipe, 2 minutes in then final dry result.

They are a nice shade of 'brownish red' so they will have to be used as accent. Yeah successful pinterest adventurers. Perhaps it depends on how long you leave the steel wool in the vinegar, or the type of wood....Anyhow NAILED THAT ONE!

Seriously, I did not want a red wall, so I had to resort back to milk paint and other leftover, watered down paints from previous projects. This is a watered down white with the vinegar steel 'grey' ha ha ha on the edges.

Gray Milk paint-  Who knew grey could look so different...?



 Watered down dusty teal from the kitchen paint leftover.

Robin's Egg Milk paint, I had to layer this one several times to get it to pop with color, it just kept sinking in. Note the 'grey' edging on the bottom boards.

 

This is the lineup before installing it was a bit of a think game to work out a pattern that when completed would look random. But, not like a badly hung set of colored Christmas lights....I know you know what I mean.

The total foot print is small , the length of this wall is under 8 x 9 feet.

This is as far as I made it.

Still needing to be done to finish this wall

 

~cut board lengthwise to finish top and bottom

~sand all boards

~distress again with either white paint wash or dark- I haven't decided yet, but am leaning towards white wash

~seal wall with wax or clear coat

~get tile work done {I do have the tiles, off white 4 x 12 subway and edge trim}

~finish cleaning the double basin antique iron and porcelain sink you can see just in this photo. It is a real treasure, can't wait to have it as my art sink!

~ paint the freshly dry walled, walls and extended area
~install new light boxes for new lights
~finish ceiling, also using tongue and groove board. But in natural or real grey, not the previously mentioned 51st shade of grey.....
~decorate with some the Canadian Pickin finds  that I have been amassing
~place appliances
~install sink
~set the library back up {photos at a later date}
~Dust entire house down....should be spring by the time this is ready. No point in dusting now.

Bet you are tired from just reading that post! So in case you think I haven't had time for doing what I love to do, sometimes I go down and access the amount of work and veer off to the other rooms:
Adding the latest page from the Enchanted Harvest Kit Read more about that and purchase this and the newest kits  from Scrapendipity HERE