Pepper Design Blog

Kitchen Additions: Breakfast Nook, Part 6 – Finished!

The new artwork is up! The tufted bench is finished! And the breakfast nook has a table and chair(s)!

It’s really wonderful to have this empty area of the kitchen finished and ready to go. Now walking into the kitchen space feels pretty complete, minus just a few additional updates (such as adding molding to the end of each side of the kitchen island and replacing the white door to the far left which you can see in below photos).

The space before:

And with all of the updates:

Which include new bench seats and cushions (a duo pair so we can move the seats around the kitchen, like we did when we moved them to the end of the island), a DIY tufted bench backing (revealed here, but here’s a link to the tutorial), new Craigslist table and thrift store chair and an over-sized chalkboard to cover up an ugly plywood repair (that we are waiting to fix this summer). Here’s a link to the calendar art that I DIYed last year that’s just to the right of the nook, I love that the art and fabric work so well together.

More to come on building that giant chalkboard, but because it was assembled from two pre made frames, it wasn’t a horrible task. I might use it for notes to share with the family, or maybe a few beautiful sepia photos on white mats to keep it a bit more organized. I attempted three layers of magnetic paint under the chalkboard, but alas it didn’t work out and a magnet won’t stick even if its life depended on it (and I threatened).

Prior to the chalkboard, I had attempted a faux window curtain, some sort of cool fabric art and a few other ideas… but the chalkboard ended up looking the best.

Here’s the other side of the kitchen for full perspective:

Have an awesome weekend and see you back here Monday for the full tufted tutorial post.

PS More on the breakfast nook transformation here: part 1, the inspiration, part 2, the bench, part 3, the cushions!, part 4, the ugly wall design dilemma, part 5, revealing the tufted bench

Kitchen Addition: Breakfast Nook, Part 5 – A Tufted Bench

Sorry for the lull around here! We’ve all been fighting off terrible colds and crossing our fingers that the flu doesn’t arrive at our doorstep – but it feels as though it might. We’ve all been a bit down lately.

I did get an awesome project finished before the horrible sniffles and headaches hit though, and I can’t wait to share with you. AND found a great Craigslist breakfast nook table that fits the spot really well!

There she is! A newly tufted back to the breakfast nook bench seat. It makes a world of a difference.

Previously the space felt bare and the cushions weren’t substantial enough to make a big impact.

Now the bench feels a little more permanent (even though we assembled all of the pieces so that it can move about the kitchen, backing and all) and it really fills up the space well!

Love the detail and the deep tufts, more on DIYing this project very soon.

But that’s not the only breakfast nook update… I found a Craigslist table and a thrift store chair to match:

Initially I was on the hunt for a table in a contrasting color – perhaps something dark or something that I could paint a bold ‘pop’ of color. But finding a table that was neither too small, too big or too expensive was a challenge. So when this bad boy came up in my Craigslist search, I jumped on the chance to check it out. Turns out it matches the cabinetry almost perfectly and is just the right size.

I’ve played with the idea of painting it because I’m not too crazy matching sets (see how the table looks like it almost belongs to the bench seats?), but it’s in such great shape that that decision can sit on the back burner for a little while.

I also played a bit with making my own table – that is, hunting down a neat pedestal and then getting a little creative with the top. Ahh well, sometimes these things fall in your lap and you take ‘em and run!

The first chair I spotted for this table was actually a bentwood from a thrift store that salvages pieces from the local junk yard. It’s in pretty bad shape and I scored it for $1. Then I found this matching guy at a local furniture consignment shop for $19:

The $1 version needs some love before she’s allowed inside. But hopefully a pair of chairs is in this table’s immediate future.

And hopefully some artwork, too! Thank you, thank you for all of your excellent suggestions on how to temporarily cover up that plywood window we’re hiding until summer, and as you can tell from my photos I’m on to an idea… as oversized as it may be at the moment.

Still loving my new tufting! My favorite upholstery project to date.

This bench area is now a great spot to snuggle up in while reading the morning paper or to enjoy a quick bowl of oatmeal before the day starts. The thick, soft backing is just what this space needed.

Working on pulling all of the images together now for a little DIY post on how I made the stand alone bench back (it’s not connected to the actual benches) and finished the tufting.

More to come.

Hope your home is staying sick-free and keep us in your no-flu thoughts! We are all hanging on…

PS More on the breakfast nook transformation here: part 1, the inspiration, part 2, the bench, part 3, the cushions!, part 4, the ugly wall design dilemma

Also, a big thank you to iVillage for featuring the dipped play table legs project in Liv’s room in their 2013 trends to watch!

Liv’s 2nd Birthday: Invitations

We recently sent out Liv’s birthday invitations and I must say, I’m pretty smitten with how they turned out. They are both pretty and super simple, and that is what I love most!

After falling in love with these wedding invitations (which I also pinned here), I sought to recreate that beautiful ombre effect on my own. But after much deliberation on how to make my own hand-dipped paper or some sort of watercolor background image to print out, I began perusing Etsy and was lucky enough to discover this talented artist. In the end, I was so excited to have partnered with Katrina on this little party detail, and the nominal fee of $12 for several proofs and the pdf to print out the invites myself was well worth it.

I cropped a favorite photo of Liv, applied a slight sepia effect to it and printed out a dozen or so as well. Love, love a thick white border around b&w or sepia photos!

My inspiration for the party thus far? Besides this little post round-up here, lots of pink and coral ribbon plus the translucent die-cut butterflies left over from this project.