Moulding | Changing My Destiny

If you happen to have today off for the holiday, I hope you are having a great long weekend. My twitter feed is filled with pictures of BBQ food and beach days, you’re all making me jealous.Tomorrow is my first day back to work after a glorious week off and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. So I figured I should catch you up on another project that has been crossed of the list.

If you remember back to this post, I recently built the bookcases for the foyer library. It was economical to use IKEA Billy bookcases since I already had a few at home, but they look like IKEA bookcases. Not bad, just unfinished in a way which was not the look I wanted. I could actually get past classic IKEA look, but I couldn’t get past the the view as I was going upstairs.

Awful…and that has nothing to do with the amazing amount of dust on top. My original hope was to have the bookcases look like built-ins and the unfinished bookcase tops made them look horrible. I considered painting the dark brown bookcases white (and I still might in the future), but that would not fix the look of the tops.

Instead I decide to build a simple topper to not only give the bookcase a finish look, but also add some ‘built-in’ moulding.

Construction was very simple. I took a piece of pressed MDF from Lowes and cut it down to the size of the bookcases. I then added a simple moulding to the side and part of the front. I couldn’t add the moulding to the entire front of the board because it wouldn’t accommodate the door. Above the door I added a piece of 1/2 round to give the board a finished edge.

A little wood filler, primer, and paint finished off the look. The greatest part was that they fit right on top and don’t need to be adhered to the wall or the bookcase. Easy.

Since I had the moulding and 1/2 round already on hand from another project, I only had to purchase the pressed board. I chose the pressed board because it was cheapest option. The boards are precut 2’ x 4’, so I was able to cut it in half and fit both bookcases. Overall this project cost me less than $10 for the pressed board.

I also did a little organizing (and cleaning) so it’s looking better all around. I can’t wait to see how much better it looks once I’ve refinished the hope chest and added some art.

Just one last look…

Before.

After.

Excited doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this room reveal. When I moved into my first home a little over a year ago, I didn’t even know what to do with a formal dining room. I dreamed of having large holiday dinners in there, but otherwise it’s been a bit of a dead space. And since I don’t yet own a dining room table, I won’t be hosting any large dinner parties for a while. Currently I eat at a pub table in my kitchen and use the dining room for…well nothing really.

However, that is all about to change, because I’ve finished a big TO DO item on my list.

First, let’s take a little trip back in time…to when I bought the house. A dining room was not on my wish list, but I lucked out and got one that has a very open feeling. The floor plan is a little wacky, so I’ll have to share a full post on a home tour soon, but the dining room opens to the first floor so it is literally very open.

Before… (gotta love that green carpet and walls – I’m slowly trying to get rid of it)

About 6 months ago I decided to do a chair rail and had visions of a pretty grey on the bottom separating the top with crisp white moulding. I also found those incredible sconces at Homegoods and snapped them up right away. The white wood blinds came with the house.

The grey turned out a little funky, but I left it alone because I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I also purchased some curtains from IKEA (that need to be hemmed).

I ended up loving the sconces and curtains, but the wall color looked awful with the dark grey curtains. Why does every grey paint I pick out look purple or blue? Anyone have recommendations for a shade of grey that doesn’t have bruise like undertones?

I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to replace the wall color so I kept going and added my Knock Off Pottery Barn Bar, built by my dad. As well as a few accessories.

After a bit of Googling and DIY research online, I settled on installing moulding along the bottom of the wall. I purchased 8 foot boards that were 1/4 inch thick. They ran about $8 a board which was more than I wanted to pay, but I had to have 1/4 inch thick which is difficult to find. Why did I need 1/4 inch boards? I have very simple baseboards and I didn’t want to remove or replace them. The 1/4 inch boards are the exact thickness for the baseboards so they butt up against them perfectly.

I purchased 13 boards (only used 10) and 3 – 8 foot lengths of a simple chair rail.

After measuring out the proper height, I started installing the top moulding. I’m incredibly paranoid about moulding falling off the wall so I used both Liquid Nails and finishing nails to secure them to the wall. There is no way these boards are coming down…sorry future homeowners. I hope you like it.

After the top piece was secure, I added the chair rail using Liquid Nails.

Once the top board and chair rail was installed, I measured out the distance between the vertical boards. I settled on 14 inches which meant that I didn’t need to cut around any of the outlets. Yay!

This whole process would have been much easier if I had a electric saw, but instead I used a miter box and handsaw. Honestly, it was a total pain and I finished the day with my hand in blisters. But I wanted to use what I had and not go out and buy equipment on a whim.

However, now my Christmas list is filled with tools and other equipment.