Painted Wood Paneling

When we first looked at our house I liked the wood paneling in the bedroom, but I knew someday I wanted to paint it white.  It took me about 4 years to get the nerve to tackle this project.  

This is what the room looked like before:

I did lots of research on just how to cover the knots in the knotty pine.  When we painted the paneling in our other bedroom we used shallac based primer which smelled horrible and after a few months the knots showed through anyway.  So, this time I went with an oil-based spray primer (recommended by a drywall guy).

I sprayed the primer on just the knots to seal them.  This paneling has been on the walls for a while so that may effect exactly how well the primer covers, but this stuff did a great job on these walls.

After one coat of the oil-cased spray primer on the knots, I painted one coat of regular latex primer on the rest of the walls.

This picture is after the above plus one coat of paint.  The white we picked was Dover White by Sherwin Williams, which is a nice warm crisp white.

All in all, it took one coat of primer on the knots, one on the walls and two coats of paint.  It only took two coats of chalk board paint to cover that wall.

I am really happy with how it came out.  It has been months since the walls were painted and no knots have shown through, so I would say the oil-based primer did the trick.

To see the full post on this girl's bedroom makeover go here.

Little girl's bedroom makeover...

One of the bigger projects we did in the last year was to paint and makeover our youngest daughter's bedroom.  When we first saw this house, this was one of the rooms that I new I eventually wanted to paint.  It had lots of knotty pine paneling and while I think real wood paneling definitely has its place in an old farmhouse, I wasn't sure a little girl's bedroom was that place.

Here is what the room looked like when we first saw the house:

When we moved in we only had 2 bedrooms, so we used this room as our bedroom for a few years until I was pregnant with our second child.  We figured it was time to build a master bedroom on the first floor.  I didn't have time at that point to do the painting, etc. that I wanted and I thought maybe it would be better to wait until she was a bit older and she could help decide what kind of room she wanted.

This is what it looked like when she was just out of her crib (about 2 yrs ago):

Once we finally decided to tackle this room I knew I wanted the paneling to be white as opposed to removing it altogether.  White painted paneling has so much cottage character which I love.  It took a lot of research and steps to cover all the knots (I will share that in another post).

Ask my 4 year old daughter her favorite color and she will always say "black"!  Crazy, right? No purple, no pink or sparkles...just black!  Anyway, so when I asked her what color she wanted on the other walls (that were previously blue) and of course she said...BLACK!!  So, I thought, well why not chalkboard black?  We ended up painting the largest wall chalkboard black which looks great and Ken made a little wooden rail for chalk out of a scrap piece of wood with a routered out channel in the center.

We also let our daughter choose the color for her vintage spool bed that was mine when I was a kid.  It was originally a dark cherry color and she chose Kilkenny by Sherwin Williams.  I wanted to give it a chalk paint finish so I used a trick that my friend taught me of mixing regular latex paint with plaster to make a home made version of chalk paint (maybe I will post a tutorial on that someday too). 

We also added some new Ikea bookshelves next to the window seat for her growing book collection.  I got some new foam and simple blue fabric to create a new cushion for the window seat and I added pillows that I had made for her room when she was a baby.

I have always thought kids will put their things away if you have a good system for them to do so.  When we were doing this project I knew we needed to add some toy storage, so my husband changed the window seat storage area from a space where you need to lift up the top to open shelves with baskets and bins (which has worked great for a 4 year old).

We also kept the "cathedral window" quilt that my great aunt made as a colorful piece of art for the wall.  

And last, but not least, we moved the vintage pine dresser that we used to have in our mudroom for hats and mittens into her room for her clothes.  We paired it with an Ikea mirror that I might paint at some point.

So here again is a before and after.  We love the way it looks.  It's so much brighter and happier for a little girl's room.  I will be sharing some of the project specifics and sources next week.

A lot has happened in a year...

So, yes, it has been a long long time since I last posted.  So many things have happened in my life.  Lots of house stuff and lots of personal stuff.

First of all, we renovated and redecorated two bedrooms, one bathroom, and rebuilt a porch.  I will be posting about all of that in the next few weeks.

But, the one major thing that happened in my life in the last year was that my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  Although, it wasn't a diagnosis for me personally, it hit me really hard.  My mom is like one of my best friends.  I talk to her everyday (sometimes multiple times a day).  I was so worried about her this past year as she went through turning yellow with jaundice, and testing and attempting procedures that were unsuccessful, and then finally major surgery to remove part of her pancreas, stomach, bile ducts, part of her small intestine, and chemo.

She might be embarrassed with me writing about it, but I am amazed at her strength and toughness.  I wonder if she thinks of herself as tough?...because after this past year, I sure do.

The good news is that she came through all of it with flying colors and hopes to be cancer free for the rest of her life, and the doctors say there is no reason she can't be... which is awesome!

Another things that has changed in the last year is: I have also decided (partially due to my mom's health crisis) to take better care of my health.  I started running again and lifting weights and after about 8 months I am feeling much healthier overall.  I might write some posts on exactly what I did to get back into this type of lifestyle.

So, if you are reading this.  Thank you.  I look forward to sharing tidbits of my life journey again...stay tuned.