Courtney & Brent - Gray House Studio

Dream Big With a Narrow Focus

By now I am sure you have seen our reading nook, industrial library shelves and coffee bar projects that we have completed within the last year. What do all these projects have in common? They were all built in spaces of our home that got little to no use prior and they are our favorite projects to date.

One of our favorite challenges is to take spaces in our home that are blank and bare because either we had no furniture to put in them or decided against using them for their intended purpose (we’re rebels like that) and transforming them into places that not only make us happy but also function so we get the most use of them.

There are several things we consider when we start projects in empty areas of our home and we thought we would share them with you in a new series we are calling Tips for Turning Unused Spaces into Unique Settings. Over the next several weeks we will share suggestions on how to approach tackling those boring spaces in your home that get no attention and making them into an area that defines your style and makes your home one of a kind. First up we talk about dreaming big.

Our first tip for turning unused spaces into unique settings is to dream big. The fun thing about being a homeowner is you don’t have to limit your ideas for a room or a space to what a house should have or how a house should look. The visualizing part is exciting because it can get as grand and detailed as you can imagine.

While it is important to dream big for creativity sake, we feel it is equally essential to have a narrow focus when it comes to choosing which projects to complete. What we mean by this is to choose a specific area in a room, really put thought into what would make you the most happy to see in that spot and then focus all your creative attention on just that one area for the time being. It’s not necessary to makeover the entire room all in one shot. Having a narrow focus helps to guarantee that you won’t feel as overwhelmed and that projects will get completed quicker.

Unless you have a huge budget to spend on house renovations or no budget at all, your home will be a work in progress and that is okay! If you can only do one project a month or every two months but you absolutely love the projects you have done so far and get a lot of use out of those spaces, it is worth it. Taking your time and only purchasing or building items that your truly love and fit with your overall style will pay off in the end to have a home that is truly unique to you. You will also be creating areas you adore rather than having unused spaces just filled with stuff.

In our home we wanted to makeover our breakfast nook because it was bare and uninviting which led to the space not getting a lot of use unless we had company. An idea we had been kicking around was to add a coffee bar to our kitchen and the long blank wall in the breakfast nook was the perfect place. We started the process of dreaming big and rather than just build a standard coffee bar we ended up coming up with the idea to transform this unused little area into our own coffee shop. This idea may be a little out of the ordinary but it made us really excited.

Because we set budgets for our home renovation projects we knew we had to have a very precise scope for this project. We couldn’t afford to fully makeover the entire nook or the kitchen at one time. The floors are going to have to remain tan tile and the cabinets in the kitchen are still going to be white for a while longer.

It is going to look a bit mismatched in our kitchen area for now but as long we design our new projects with the same overall style, which in our case is a blend of industrial, rustic and eclectic, the house will slowly transform into a style that truly fits us. Having instant gratification and unlimited money would be amazing, but for most of us that doesn’t exist so for the time being we just focused all our attention on making our coffee bar wall look exactly like we wanted, like a counter you would see in an actual coffee shop.

Things to Keep in Mind:

1. Dream BIG!
2. Visualize how you would like a space in your home to look rather than settling for what “should” be in a certain room.
3. Have a precise scope and narrow focus when choosing to design unused areas.
4. You don’t have to makeover an entire room all at one time.
5. It’s okay for your home to be a work in progress.
6. Only purchase or build items that you truly love and contribute to your overall style.

Dreaming big is just one piece of the puzzle. Next we will talk about the importance of determining why a space is going unused and how to create an area that solves that problem.

Have you been dreaming big about a space in your home? We would love to hear your ideas! Share them with us in the comment section below.

DIY Ladder for the Library

For Fun, House Courtney & Brent

We are sharing how we built a DIY ladder for our home library to reach the top shelves of our large wall of industrial shelves.

Hey, Brent here. I’ve never said this out loud before but since the internet is the safest place to share your deepest and darkest secrets, I feel comfortable expressing that I fell in love with libraries after watching Beauty and the Beast. I can’t speak for Courtney but I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t inspired to create their own library after watching the feelings of joy sweep across Belle’s face as she explored the Beast’s library only moments after being abducted.

So I got to thinking that it would only stand to reason that a guest that would willingly visit our home might be even more impressed to find a large library in our entryway.

A couple of months ago we shared how we turned our formal dining room into a library by building floor to ceiling bookshelves. We had a lot of positive feedback on our library shelves but two of the most common questions we received were, “What about a ladder?” and “How do you reach the top shelf?”

When we found out Better Homes and Gardens was coming to our home to photograph our library, it was finally the kick in the pants we needed to build a ladder for the bookshelves. Courtney and I have always been on the same page when it came to wanting a ladder for the library so it was awesome to finally make our dream a reality.

Here is the finished DIY ladder with my beauty. Isn’t the resemblance uncanny? Believe it or not I didn’t even have to kidnap her to get her to agree to this photo.

How to Build a DIY Ladder for Library Shelves

1. The design for our DIY ladder is fairly simple. We built it so each rung of the ladder has two dowel rods that extend through the vertical supports. Every other step screws into the vertical supports locking everything in place.

2. The top quarter of the ladder was cut at an angle and glued back together to create a bend. This allows the steps of the ladder to sit at a comfortable incline without extending too far away from the bookshelf.

3. Here is a candid behind the scenes photo of the ladder building process in the garage. Notice the extreme lack of organization that is happening in the background.

This is a realistic shot of what it looks like when you rush to build something between the very few hours of getting home from work and going to bed.

As the project progressed the pile of tools and leftover supplies grew larger and larger because cleaning during a project is not on my list of priorities. The pro to this approach is every tool in your garage is within hands reach.

The con is within reach usually means on the floor or some other inconvenient location for walking.

4. Once the ladder was assembled I got to be the first to test it. I didn’t get a photo of this part because the stakes were really high and I was afraid I might shed a few tears if anything went wrong.

I only had one shot and two days to get the ladder designed and built so it not only looked nice but was also functional and safe for the photoshoot.

Our first thoughts were to make a rolling ladder but then we decided that we would rather the ladder have a minimal design as to not take too much away from the shelves. Since the style of the ladder we built makes it light weight, it is easy to pick up and move to the spot we need to reach.

It is functional and adds character without overwhelming the already large and heavily occupied space. This decision ended up saving us quite a bit of money and the total cost to build the ladder came out to be about $60.

Our library is far from complete but getting closer with each project we finish. The ladder is a perfect addition to our bookshelves and one of our favorite parts of our library.

Don’t forget to check out how we built our large wall of industrial shelves.

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DIY Framed Chalkboard

Decor, House Courtney & Brent

For this simple and versatile DIY decor project tutorial we will show how we made a custom sized framed chalkboard to hang above our coffee bar.

I think it is safe to say large chalkboards have long since moved from being a staple item in classrooms to being a staple item in coffee shops. When looking for inspiration for our coffee bar, we looked at the interior design of lots of coffee shops (both in photos and in person). One of the common design choices we noticed is to utilize large chalkboards to display menus or art.

Having large chalkboards in the home is now becoming more popular as well to keep track of schedules or chores, weekly menu planning or allowing kids to conveniently express their creativity by having a place to draw on the wall (without actually drawing on the wall).

I love this idea because I always had a chalkboard hanging on my wall in my room when I was growing up. I loved to force er… I mean ask my little brother and his friends to play school with me. I was always the teacher of course.

We knew a chalkboard was a necessity for our breakfast nook to capture an authentic coffee bar feel. We just had to decide what form our chalkboard would take. When it came down to it we couldn’t make the commitment to painting the entire wall or even part of the wall with chalkboard paint since we just painted it gray. All the chalkboards we found to purchase were either not big enough or way too expensive.

We decided to create our own 7 foot framed chalkboard. This was the best solution for us because we could make it the exact length of the coffee bar, it would fill up the large wall and we could customize the frame to match the wood on the bar.

*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

How To Make a DIY Framed Chalkboard

SUPPLIES

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STEPS

1. The first step was to make our frame. We used painters tape to tape together two of the pine boards that would be on the opposite sides of the frame together.

We taped the two longer horizontal pieces together and then taped the two shorter vertical pieces together.

This allowed us to make one cut through two boards and guaranteed that the matching sides of the frame would be the exact same size. We made our cuts with our miter saw.

After we cut the four pieces for the frame, we stained the boards with a Kona stain to match the wood on the coffee bar.

2. For the chalkboard surface we used a piece of 4 ft. x 8 ft. hardboard tempered panel.

We chose to use this material because it was really cheap (less than $10 for a 4ft. x 8ft. piece) and it has a smooth finish.

However, with no prep the chalkboard paint would most likely flake off the board. To prevent this, we sanded the entire surface with 120 grit orbit sand paper on our orbital sander.

It provides enough tooth for the paint to have something to grab but it does not make it too rough where the paint surface would look scratchy or bumpy.

3. We planned to glue the frame to the chalkboard with wood glue so we taped off an area of the board with painters tape before we applied the paint.

We knew the glue wouldn’t adhere well to the chalkboard paint so we needed to make sure we still had an area of the original board to attach the frame.

4. To apply the chalkboard paint we poured it into a plastic tray liner and used a foam roller to apply the paint to the board.

It worked really well to create a smooth finish. It took us two coats to ensure that all areas where completely and evenly covered.

5. After we finished painting the board, we let it dry for awhile.

6. When it came time to attach the pieces of the frame to the board, we pulled off the tape and applied wood glue to the unpainted area of the board.

To avoid applying too much glue and having the glue squeeze out from under the frame onto the chalkboard surface, we applied the glue sparingly with a small paintbrush.

7. After the glue was applied to one side, we used small clamps to hold the piece of the frame to the chalkboard while they dried.

The pressure of the clamp can mess up the finish of the wood so as always we place a piece of scrap wood between the clamp and the frame.

8. Once the frame was clamped to the board we attached the pieces of the frame together and the frame to the board with our drill and screws.

This provided extra strength to the bond and made sure everything was nice and secure.

9. After we completed our framed chalkboard we added D-Ring hangers to the back and hung it above our coffee bar.

10. I designed our chalkboard art in PhotoShop first. I have pretty good handwriting but it was going to be nearly impossible with the scale of the chalkboard to make everything straight and scaled evenly.

I wanted the design to be personalized but also fairly minimal and clean. We worked in some common coffee shop phrases like “Served Fresh Daily”.

But I am thinking about adding our additional slogan, “At Gray House Studio Coffee, it’s not made until you make it yourself”. I printed out a copy of our design as reference.

Then we used a projector to display the graphic we designed on the computer onto the chalkboard to trace. I would recommend doing this in a dark room or at night but since we were in a bit of a rush I did most of the tracing in the middle of the day with the sun shining through the windows so it was really hard to see what I was tracing.

If you are looking for graphics you can use on your home coffee bar chalkboard, Creative Market has a lot to choose from! They are my favorite source to buy fonts and graphics for my DIY framed chalkboard designs.

12. We used these Bistro chalk markers and they wrote nice and smooth. The fat tip one works really well for outlining because it makes for smooth, thick lines that you have quite a bit of control over.

I used the thin one for smaller details and smaller text where I wanted to trace over the words several times to make the letters thicker giving it a shaded appearance.

We used regular chalk to do all the shading. Regular chalk gives it gives it an authentic old fashioned chalkboard feel.

UPDATE: We left our chalkboard design for over two years and the chalk marker was pretty much impossible to get off. We had to eventually repaint a new coat of chalkboard paint over it.

I am not sure if that is because the chalkboard markers are meant to be more permanent or because we left it on there too long but while they wrote nice and smooth, I didn’t want to have to repaint the chalkboard after every design.

So now when we create a new design for our DIY framed chalkboard we use Anti-Dust chalk and a pencil sharpener to sharpen the chalk to a point so it is easier to trace.

There is nothing wrong with the chalk markers. If you clean your board off regularly or are looking for more of a permanent solution that won’t wipe off easily when you brush up against it, chalk markers might be the way to go.

However, this is our preferred method now when we redesign our chalkboard because the chalk wipes off very easily but by sharpening the chalk you have more control over the smaller details.

A large framed chalkboard is a fun element to incorporate into the home.

Whether they are intended to be functional, as art or both they bring personality to a room. They are especially perfect for home coffee bars to create that cozy and eclectic coffee bar feel.

We love creating our own framed chalkboard because it really allowed us to get creative both in the size and the appearance of the chalkboard. Having the framed chalkboard span the entire wall of our breakfast nook really catches our guests attention and makes it one of our favorite spaces in our home.

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DIY Picture Frame Planter Box

Decor, House Courtney & Brent

If you are looking for a special homemade gift or you just want to build one for your own home, we are sharing how we built picture frame planter boxes. Plus, free PDF of the plans to help you build!

Brent bought me the cutest picture frame planter last year for our anniversary. It had two tiny succulents that were adorable. And wouldn’t you know I killed one right off the bat.

I am just horrible at keeping plants alive, even little succulents. But I would like to make it known that the other one is still hanging in there, it just looks very lonely.

Anyway, I liked that framed planter so much that I wanted two more so I could hang three in our bathroom (the only place I can keep plants alive).

But I could not find the one he bought anywhere. However after looking at it closer we realized that it would be pretty easy and inexpensive to just build them ourselves.

Then it hit me, I enjoyed getting that picture frame planter box so much as a gift last year that I thought it would make for a perfect Mother’s Day gift. Plus, by making them ourselves we can customize them for each mom.