chevron wall-art from wood shims

When I showed you Rad's room, I mentioned that I love geometric shapes and patterns in children's rooms. 

I knew I wanted a statement wall or focal point in the playroom.

I started looking around on Pinterest and blogs and loved ideas like this one from Vintage Revivals and this one from Makley School for Girls.

The thing was, I had like almost no budget left so even though 2X2's are inexpensive, they still would have broke my budget. 

So one afternoon I was putting some stuff away in the garage and I saw half a package of wood shims we had leftover.

Bingo!!! 

Shims are cheap cheap cheap and they are versatile. 

The only downfall was that they wouldn't really work for either of the ideas I mentioned above so I Googled shim art to get some ideas.

And I found this idea from the talented girls from East Coast Creative. 

Perfect.

I followed their tutorial...kind off...but made a few changes to make it a little simpler. 

So here is the 551 East version of East Coast Creative's tutorial. 

Step 1: Buy 2 packages of shims.

(Kind of a well duh step, but you know.)

Step 2: Cut them at a 45 degree angle. 

You can stack them and cut multiple at at time. We cut about 8 stacked.

Make sure to cut the 45 degree angle on the THINNER side of the shim

Step 3: Paint or finish the shims how you want. 

I used paint I already had on hand to keep project costs to almost nothing.

If you don't have a lot of paint on hand, small tubes of acrylic paint from any kraft store would be great and they run only about a $1 a bottle.  

I think this would also look amazing with stain or tung oil. 

Just a thought. :)

When you go to paint the shims, make sure to lay them out so that half of them have the 45 degree cut on the left and half of them have the 45 degree cut on the right. 

That way when you go to put them on the wall you have an even amount of each side for the pattern.  

Since I have a lot of spray paint on hand I used that.

It made the whole process super fast since I used 11 colors total. 

Step 4: Once your paint is dry lay the pattern out. 

Step 5: Measure your wall space and create a straight line for the center of each column. 

East Coast Creative used a plumb line for this, but we just drew a line with our level. 

Super easy and no messy chalk line to clean up. 

Step 6: Using a nail gun (you could do this by hand, just make sure to use finishing nails so you don't split the shims) adjust the pressure on the gun to low otherwise you will just shoot the nail right through the shim.

This is also where we differ from East Coast Creative. They glued their shims to the wall, but that seemed a little too permanent for me and we had no problems with the shims splitting when we nailed them to the wall.

Use 2 nails on the thickest parts of the shims to prevent the shim from splitting.

And that's all!

Honestly, the whole project took less then 2 hours and a decent amount of that time was waiting for paint to dry. 

And I kind of love it. :)

PS. Because I used paint I already had the total cost was under $10. 

Score. 

Click HERE for the playroom reveal and HERE for a tutorial on the floating fort/reading nook.

how to turn a closet into a floating fort/reading nook

Today starts day 1 of the tutorials for the play room!

If you missed the reveal click HERE.

Growing up I loved turning the floor of my closest into a reading nook.

The more blankets and pillows the better.

So I wanted Rhett and Rad to have something like that; a place where they could read, and play, and hide and build and have a space for their littleness to grow.

Which is where the idea for the floating fort/reading nook came from!

Before be get to the details, I want to make it perfectly clear that we are NOT contractors or professional builders. We used our self learned DIY skills, some advice from friends, and common sense to build this project; so if you chose to follow this tutorial you accept ALL responsibility for it's function and safety.

Now that we've got that taken care off, let's get to the tutorial. :)

I will be listing all materials used, but not the cuts and measurements since all closets are different sizes.

Materials:

2 X 4s 

2 X 2s 

sheet of 1in thick plywood

quarter round

3 1/2 in deck screws 

miter saw

stud finder

level

A Kreg Jig is helpful, but not required

Step 1: Determine the height of your floating fort in the closet and mark it off.

Step 2: Locate the studs in the walls.

Our closet had 7 studs. I'm not sure if there is a science to how many studs it takes to build a closet (oh the jokes we could make about that sentence. :)) but the more you have the better. This is is my personal tip, but if your closet has less then 5 or 6 studs I would recommend not doing this tutorial. 

PS I HIGHLY recommend using a stud finer. Makes it so much easier.  

Step 3: Measure the walls and make the cuts. 

You'll need 2 longer pieces and 2 shorter pieces. 

Use the miter saw to make cuts on each end at 45 degrees.

Step 4: Secure your longest 2 X 4s to the back of the closet wall and use the level to make sure the board is well, level.

We used 2, 3 1/2in deck screws to secure the board to each stud.

Because when 1 screw is good, 2 is better.

Step 5: Secure the shorter boards to the side walls.

Again, use your level.

After we had secured the back board we secured the shorter side boards.

We had studs in the corners of our closet so we used our drill to drill the screws at an angle into the corner.

Step 6: Attach the final long 2 X 4 to the front.

(Say it with me...use your level!)

Look at the awesome rectangle you made!

Step 7: Measure and cut your 1in thick plywood to fit onto the top of the rectangle you just built. 

We used a lot of scrap wood for this project, which is why we used 2 different sheets as seen below.

Step 8: Using your deck screws and drill, secure the plywood to the frame.

We didn't measure exactly between the screws but it came out to be about 5in between each one.

Step 9: Brace the frame and plywood with 2 X 4s.

Cut the 2 X 4s to fit flush with the frame and brace them against the plywood.

Screw the 2 X 4s to the frame.

Again we used 2 screws to brace the 2 X 4s to the frame.

Because when 1 screw is good...2 is better! 

Right? :)

Total, we used 4 pieces of 2 X 4 to brace the frame and plywood.

Step 10: Nail the quarter round to the raw edge of the plywood.

It will give the project a more finished look and help protect little fingers from splinters.

Step 11: Build the ladder.

We used the 2 X 2s for this.

Measure the height you want your ladder to be.

Cut 2 longer pieces and 4 shorter pieces (we found the best length to be 15in for the shorter pieces).

This is when the Kreg Jig would be helpful, but if you don't have one you can just screw/nail the steps to the ladder frame.

Step 12: Secure the frame to the fort base.

This is just a tip, but it is so much easier to paint/stain the ladder BEFORE you attach it to the fort frame. 

And that's it! 

Paint it, pillow-ize and decorate it and then snuggle up with a book or some cookies and make some memories. 

Again, we are NOT contractors or professional builders. We used our self learned DIY skills, some advice from friends, and common sense to build this project; so if you chose to follow this tutorial you accept ALL responsibility for it's function and safety. 

Feel free to leave a comment or  email with any questions!

I'll do my best to help. :)

Come back tomorrow for the shim wall art tutorial!

playroom reveal

It's probably only me that feels like this reveal is so long over due. 

The playroom has been almost done for about a month, but a few little details kept tripping me up and I don't like showing things till they are mostly 100% done.

But I finally have it ready (And by ready I mean I wouldn't let my boys play in here till I got the pictures I needed. Mean mom I know.) so here we go!

Here's some before pictures.

Don't judge the chaos. 

Lest you think we normally have a hallway full of toys, these were after we cleaned the room out to start painting. 

If you follow me on Instagram (why aren't you following me yet?! :)) you've seen this pic of us getting the paint on the walls. 

And then there was some Ikea shopping and DIY's and yada yada let's get to the pictures. 

Details will follow. Promise.

I love this room. 

I may not win Mother of the Year for a multitude of reasons (you're kid ate goldfish crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner...?) but I do a pretty darn good job of playing with the boys. 

So this room was really important to me. 

My tops priorities were storage, lots of floor space to play, a desk and just for it to be a playful place.

And I think I can check all of those off the list! 

Below is the source list for everything in the room. 

I'll have a different tutorial each day this week for different projects in the room.

Tomorrow will be the closet turned nook. :) 

Playroom Source List

Built-Ins: IKEA and Craigslist

$200

Metal Storgage Baskets: Crate & Barrel 

$35 (on-sale)

Leather Chair: already had (thrifted)

$0

Rug: Home Decorators 

$55

Curtains: Target

$20

Shim Wall Art: DIY 

$10

Closet fort: DIY

$40 (we had most of the wood on hand)

Pillows: Target and already had

$45 (all pillows are on clearance)

Turquoise stool: Already had 

$0

Chalkboard: DIY

$0

Elephant: already had

$0

Red storage bins: Target

$7 (clearance)

Wood desk: DIY 

$35

Stools: IKEA

$8

Alphabet Poster: Hobby Lobby

$15 (clearance)

Circus Water Color: a gift from my very talented aunt

$0

PLAY Picture: DIY

$8

Wall Paint: Already Had (It's Pepper Corn by SW)

$0

Total: $478

We sold the rocking chair/ottoman, rug, shelf, and some toys for a total of $110 which we put toward the projects in the room, so the final total came in at $368.

Not to bad!

See you tomorrow for the closet turned nook tutorial!