----> The Office: Board and Batten and a Big Fat Makeover

The thought of redoing our office had been stirring in my mind for a looooong time before I had the courage to approach the husband about it.  Mostly because he's a busy man and I knew this would require a lot of his help.  He's been really awesome at supporting my refinishing madness that has taken over the garage/house and I didn't want to push my luck by asking for his help when he already has so much going on.

Somehow, the Memorial Day Behr paint rebate at Home Depot put this whole thing in motion.

honeyisn'titironicthatthepaintcoloriwantisabehrcolorandrightnowthey'rehavinga

rebatewhereyougetfivebucksoffagallonofpaintathomedepot. thiswouldbeaperfecttimetostarttheboardandbattenintheoffice,don'tyathink?

Eyes rolling:

 "why can't you just do one project at a time??"

Here is the office before.

Quite embarrassing, actually.

It doesn't always look this awesome.

I caught it on a good day.

I had no idea what board and batten was until my discovery of Pinterest and then I was seeing it all over the place.  Everyone does it a little bit differently and it's totally up to your taste so I searched pictures and found the one that I liked and then read just about every blog post on the ins-n-outs of putting it up yourself.  Learning from other people's experiences saves your life.

THIS is the one I liked the best and I loved that she included a list of board sizes she used.
 MDF?  No clue what that was either.  A quick trip to HD solves that though.

I chose:

5" x 10' primed MDF for the wide top board

2.5" x 10' primed MDF for the vertical "battens" (which is also the top shelf)

First, I started by measuring the distance from the ceiling to the floor to see how far up the wall I wanted my battens to go.  I knew I wanted it higher than the middle so I decided on 60inches.  This worked out great for my ten foot length boards because I could cut one in half and get two battens from it.   

Then I started painting.

The grey color on top is Creek Bend by Behr. 

The white is a mystery gallon from the garage.  There aren't any labels on the can and to be honest I think it's white trim paint - but it was perfect and the gallon was almost full...so I used it.

 Skis?  ;)

 We angled the bottom because it would have hung over quite a bit and replacing baseboards to match was not on my list of things to do.

Caulking every crack and spackling every nail hole was probably the worst part of the whole process.  By this point you're just excited that it's almost done and having to do the little stuff is a pain and time consuming!

*Before pictures of the decor*

Mirror: got off KSL for $25 and sprayed it with Krylon Coral Isle and glazed black

Curtain rod:  PVC pipe sprayed glossy white

Black curtains: got off KSL for $10; sewed the top down for the rod to go through instead of the loops

Metal trays: found at D.I. for $2/each - sprayed with Coral Isle

I found a black IKEA desk with matching white drawers on KSL and was so excited.  I was worried it'd take awhile to find one that matched but I found it before I even had time to get rid of the old one.

I posted the old desk online and it was gone within a day.

Hallelujah!

 The cords to the computer were distracting from the overall cuteness of the room so I took some black and white polka dot fabric and nailed it to the back of the board that helps hold the desk together to hide it all.

DRUMROLL!!!!!!

Hahaha, just kidding.  But here it is!

I had the matching black frames from before - now I just need to find the perfect prints for them.

The rug was the final touch and I just got that at Target the other day.

I'm trying not to feel tween-y right now, but I think it's perfect and goes great with the black/white/grey/coral color scheme.  I wanted a bold rug and I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any bolder than ZEBRA.

 Oops, I forgot the before picture of the calender holder.  It was gross brown.  Five bucks.

 I was surprised at the length on these curtains - they are perfect.



The. End.

Goodnight!