Home Office W/ Chevron Wall and Custom Shelves

Brenda Ternier
by Brenda Ternier
$300
1 Week
Easy
Easy office renovation for a small space, paint and custom shelving can do wonders while working on a budget.
When we purchased our home in December of 2013 it had an array of different random colors which i would personally never put onto walls in a home that I lived in. Case and point, our office which is one of the smallest rooms in the house had an awful dark green the made the room feel disgusting and dreary. With one of the latest design features being chevron I thought how great it would be to paint the focal wall in the office with this pattern. I started by prepping the entire room (seriously the most important step if you want a nice finish), remove hardware and fill all holes in the walls with premix drywall mud compound, sand entire surface to remove excess old paint, two fresh coats of Behr Paint Primer in One. I'm going to be completely honest here, do not start doing your chevron pattern when you are tired!!!! I spent 4 hours drawing the pattern onto the wall and taping half before realizing that I had make a mistake on the top half.


I measured the entire wall and decided that I wanted to go with a 10" wide chevron pattern. Find the exact centre of the wall (top to bottom, side to side) this is your starting point. I used a 45 degree angle level with a ruler on it and traced my pattern by hand (there might be an easier way but I went with this way). Once the entire pattern was on the wall I used Frog Tape (yellow because it is for use over fresh paint, won't tear it off like the green will) to tape off my light from dark. Be careful when you're taping, you want to ensure you are taping on the correct sides of the lines on the walls.
Once the wall was taped off I added my two coats of dark only to every other taped off area, using a brush to cut in at the corners and a small roller to make quick work of the rest. Despite the amount of time this one wall took, I wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again. I loved the finished product.
On the other side of the room there was this cubby area that has a closet next to it. The closet originally had sliding glass mirrored doors (which were old and dated). I started by painting one coat of the Behr on the interior, don't do two right of the bat because you'll end up scuffing the wall when installing the shelving. I started by building three simple box frames with one centre support on each to create strength for the shelf (I went with a 15" depth rather than bringing the shelf out to the edge of the cubby, personal preference because I don't want to cram them full and it's harder to see if the shelves are too deep). Once i had my frames built, I tapped into place with a rubber mallet, levelled and secured to the wall using 2" screws ensuring that I was screwing into a stud.
I loved the dimension that the dark paint created, so when I went to put my second coat on the interior of the cubby I decided to paint the bottom half of the wall as well (taping off and measuring from the floor up to ensure level lines).
I used 1x4 Knotty Pine cut to the full width of the closet, leaving an approximate 1/8" gap between boards on the shelf (I used 4 - 1x4 per shelf, finishing with an additional 1x4 at the face). I secured each 1x4 using a brad nailer equipped with 2" brad nails.


All my lumber was sanded and finished with three coats of Varathane to keep the color of the natural wood but enhance and seal to keep it looking good for times to come.
It took me a little longer to finish the shelves in the closet portion, but it's finally done. Same process, I created my box frames and secured to the walls using 2" screws into the stud. Again I have used 1x4 for the shelving and the face plates, finished with 3 coats of Varathane.
This time I wanted to test my skill a little bit and give some character to the shelves by doing miter cuts. Measure the outside frame first and make and assemble these cuts prior to cutting the centre two boards, those are the easy part as it's a straight cut.
All said and done we now have tons of storage space for all that stuff that didn't have a home before. And our office feels 10 times bigger than it did when we bought the home. Amazing what a fresh coat of paint and some custom shelves can do for a space.


... now to fill the shelves :D


Happy Renovating!!
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