Pepper Design Blog

Office Makeover: Wallpapering Open Shelving

I drove up the coast of California to visit family this past weekend, but I managed to finish step 1 of making over the new credenza before taking off. As mentioned in this post, I found the perfect sized credenza for the new office (and all of that storage that we’ll need!) on Craigslist.

The plan was to paint, add paper to the open shelves and change out the hardware to give it a brand new look.

Once the piece was home and in the space though, I immediately knew that the painting portion of the project wouldn’t be necessary. Once out of direct sunlight, the rich walnut tones were beautiful. When paired with the lighter woods of the desk and bookshelves, the credenza’s color lived up to it’s mid-century modern shape (which is known for rich walnut stains) and was no longer as honey/yellowy as it appears in the above pictures.

The top of the credenza could use some love, and I considered sanding and restaining to see if I could get rid of a couple of stains from long ago. But when it came down to matching the color to the rest of the piece, I knew that restaining could open a bag of worms that might have led to redoing the entire credenza. So we’ll leave it as-is for now with the hope of one day really focusing on the nitty gritty details.

With painting crossed off of the list, I moved right along to wallpapering the open shelves.

The shelves were screaming for some attention. I’ve added fabric backing to shelves before and I love the look of a pop of pattern and color in an unexpected location, so I began searching for a wallpaper, wrapping paper or sheets of decorative paper (check out the selection at Paper Source) that were large enough to line the back of these shelves without seams.

I settled on this wallpaper from Lowe’s because it has just the right amount of subtle color/pattern to work with a variety of future fabrics that we haven’t quite settled on for the room.

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Applying Decorative Paper to Shelves

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Materials: decorative paper (wallpaper, wrapping paper, handmade paper…), glue stick(s), straight edge, ruler, knife, scissors

{1.} Carefully measure each ‘wall’ of your bookshelf/credenza and cut paper to fit. I’m glad I had an entire roll of wallpaper, I had to recut several times, definitely buy 50% more than you anticipate using because of silly and unforeseen mistakes! I would have hated to have halted the project to run down to the store for more paper. Because the inside of this credenza has varied levels for different shelves, I opted to only line the most inset points. Once the shelf is back in place, I think that that will provide the cleanest look.

{2.} In my search for a non-permanent adhesive, I settled on a glue stick (the standard, kid’s crafts version). I could have pulled out the wallpapering glue from this project or even used double sided tape – but my goal was to have edges that wouldn’t roll up over time and to still create an adhesion that would allow me to replace the paper with a new pattern some time down the road. Cover your paper liberally with the gluebefore adding to the walls of your shelves (but don’t wait too long between applying glue and sticking up or you’ll have extra creases and bubbles).

{3.} I used a plastic triangle from my husband’s architectural-supply box for school (though a wallpapering broad knife or smoother – even a standard ruler – would have done the trick) to smooth the paper firmly against the walls of the credenza as I slowly added the sheets of wallpaper. Moving out from one corner across the paper provided the best results and the least amount of bubbles to ‘smooth out’.

{4.} Use a utility knife to clean up any edges that are not directly up against your corners… and then repeat until all walls (and the ceiling) are lined!

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Next step is finding some neat hardware to replace the older brass pulls. I’m on the hunt.

More visual inspiration of paper backed shelves from this way-back-when post!

For more Office Makeover posts, check out: finding the perfect credenza, new trim, dining table-to-desk, a new desk & bookshelves, installing remnant carpeting, grasscloth wallpaper, painting the office nook, finding carpet for the office, chocolate brown wall ideas, plastering progress,  inspiration for a diy desk, back in action!, desking hunting for under $300, bookcases under $300, inspirational rooms, room layout options, demo part 1 & demo part 2.

Office Makeover: On the Search for a Credenza

One of the biggest design challenges in the new room is working around the lack of storage. As you know, we nixed all of our closet space in favor of a second full bath in the house, so we’ve been getting creative around here on what can be stored where and what can be downsized.

Part of the functioning space of the office/guestroom is for it to be my art room as well. So the office will need to cleverly house a sewing machine, fabric swatches, paint + charcoal + pastel supplies, yarn for knitting, etc. The solution? A super large credenza for the opposite side of the room across from the desk.

And so the Craigslist/swap meet/thrift store search was on. My only criteria was that the new credenza needed to have strong bones (a sturdy, wooden piece that would make for a long lasting addition) as well as plenty of shelving or doors for storage. That, plus the more over-sized the better – at least 70″ (your traditional credenza/buffet is about 60″ long, so that was a challenge).

After finding plenty of furniture that was too small, too expensive or in too terrible of shape, I stumbled upon this Craigslist posting:

The size was just right at 72″ long, and the clean lines had a mid-century modern flair (especially those legs!). The drawers, door and shelving would offer plenty of storage, and a cabinet maker’s stamp on the inside of the drawer confirmed that she was well-built with solid wood and strong bones. She came home with me for $135 cash – what a steal!

Right now I’m imagining a little TLC involving paint + some kind of pattern in those great open shelves + pretty hardware:

I’m feeling a weekend project coming on… she should be up and running in no time!

For more Office Makeover posts, check out: new trim, dining table-to-desk,  a new desk & bookshelves, installing remnant carpeting, grasscloth wallpaper, painting the office nook, finding carpet for the office, chocolate brown wall ideas, plastering progress,  inspiration for a diy desk, back in action!, desking hunting for under $300, bookcases under $300, inspirational rooms, room layout options, demo part 1 & demo part 2.

Office Makeover: All of the Trimmings

I love moulding. I adore moulding. Rooms that are trimmed with baseboards, lined windows and crown moulding have that clean and ‘finished’ look that’s hard to beat regardless of how much decorating and attention other areas of the room get. It’s the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the well-deserved encore. I wish I could heed my own advice and install moulding in every room tonight, but it’s one of those painstakingly slow projects that despite the great results, is usually last on the list to get done (part of that is for good reason… you want your carpet and your wallpaper to sit under the molding, after all).

The new office just received her baseboards and window trim, though!

Wow, what a difference. Now that brown pops right off of the walls!

While traditional moulding can be quite fancy with all of the little grooves and edgings, I’ve always preferred classic and simple. It stands the test of time (in fact it looks more original in an older house) and provides a clean framing. I love the simple style so much that when purchasing, we opted for cheaper 1/2″ x 12′ boards rather than the pre-primed moulding options available.

For the floors, we chose a larger-than-average baseboard and it really helps to ground the space.

The trick to installing moulding as efficiently as possible is to measure twice, cut once (lesson learned). Each cut received a 45 degree angle so that the corners disappear into each other and it’s oh-so important that that 45 degree angle is cut in the right direction at the right length, otherwise you end up with a lot of re-dos.

With that comes the suggestion to make all of your cuts before you begin painting. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll make a bad cut and it’s such a shame when it’s on a 10′ baseboard that you’ve just primed, painted and repainted.

After painting and drying comes installation. We used a nail gun attached to a compressor for a quick install, making sure to nail the baseboard to the wall at each stud (usually 16″ intervals along the wall). The window trim received a nail each 8″ or so, plus the corners.

Next is caulking. We used plastic wood, a filler similar to caulking but one that dries as closely to wood as possible for the fewest seams. We filled those new nail holes, creases and gaps and then gave the plastic wood a good day to dry. A generous amount of sanding ensured that the filler was even with the original wood trim.

Finally the molding was painted over one last time to hide all of the new brown plastic wood filler spots. Speaking of paint, I read somewhere that bright white shows the most dust and that a shade just off will help to hide smudges. We’ll see how that works out!

And now those rich chocolate walls have white (or just off-white?) trim to help brighten the space! It looks great and I wish I could wave the magic wand to outfit every room with this simple but great looking moulding.

We painted a ‘faux’ moulding while originally painting each room (here’s a little clip of the living room) when we first moved in, hope to replace this with the real deal someday:

While we didn’t tackle crown moulding this time around, the room is beginning to take on that ‘finished’ look!

For more Office Makeover posts, check out: dining table-to-desk,  a new desk & bookshelves, installing remnant carpeting, grasscloth wallpaper, painting the office nook, finding carpet for the office, chocolate brown wall ideas, plastering progress,  inspiration for a diy desk, back in action!, desking hunting for under $300, bookcases under $300, inspirational rooms, room layout options, demo part 1 & demo part 2.