Happy Friday all!  Yesterday was the airing of my design plan for Tamika and Jamaal on The Nate Berkus Show.  It’s surreal watching yourself on television, but what an honor to be given the task of designing a space for a wonderful family.  For those of you who missed it, here’s a bit of background.  Tamika and Jamaal are a happily married couple with two young children.  They were not feeling ‘House Proud’ so they submitted their family room dilemma to Nate.  The Nate Show called me and asked if I would put together a new design plan for Tamika and Jamaal to suit their lifestyle and personality.

Tamika and Jamaal were looking to add comfort and style to their bland family room space.  Tamika has been busy pursuing her masters degree so she hasn’t had the time or energy to create the colorful welcoming family room of her dreams.  If you saw the opening segment yesterday, what was clear was their room suffered from two design dilemmas: disproportionate furnishings and lack of color.

Before:

In the questionnaire submitted to the show, Tamika’s revealed her favorite colors were orange and pink, so that became the starting point for adding color to the new space.  As much as Jamaal loved his huge TV, Tamika envisioned a comfortable space that would serve more than just TV viewing.  She wanted a space where her family could gather for not only movie nights, but also a room where she could entertain.

We were in a time crunch because the segment and room design came together mere days before the show was filmed so I had to work with readily available décor, nothing custom or special order this time.  Big props to The Nate Show for their ability to grab these home furnishings in a quick turnaround!

Here’s a clip from the show talking about the new ‘After’ design:

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Hey there!  Hope you all had a fine weekend!  I spent the weekend working on a few projects, like building an upholstered ottoman, and also taking a very cool class.  I hope to share both with you later this week. 

The best part of our weekend was spent working on our Alma Project, transforming the bare walls of the entryway to not only provide more storage, but also make this hallway a much more functional space to help the families living within these walls stay organized. 

Take a peek at what we started with in the morning:

And ended up with in the afternoon!

So much better!

I started by painting the hallway in Kelly Moore’s ‘Graystone’, a nice neutral tan color.  Usually I opt for Ben Moore paints, but KM was right down the street, and I was color matching the new paint in the great room (more on that to come!)  I chose these wide plank grooved panels from Lowe’s because the adjacent kitchen has the same style paneling on the lower half of the walls, but in that icky 1970’s brown.  I had all of the new panels cut in the lumber department.   I intend to prime and paint those brown panels in the kitchen and eating area to pull all three spaces together and make it more fresh and modern.     

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I’ve been falling asleep in this space for a few nights, I just can’t help it!  I find snuggling up with my little guy in this room late at night completely irresistible.  It’s here where I learn all his secrets, his battle plans, and if I listen carefully, the location of buried treasure.  It seems everyone in our house has been spending more hours in this room lately, especially the resident to whom it belongs, our five year old son.

Last year we said goodbye to the soft blue nursery walls, and upgraded to a more mature, more intense teal blue, and the completion of the board and batten treatment last week enhances the color even more.  I wanted it to be a bright clean happy place, one where he could adventure and explore.  A room where he could not only display everything he loves right this very moment, but one that would also adapt to his changing interests over time.

Want the grand tour of our boy’s room?   Come on in!

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At last, it is done.  Oh my word I am so loving this wall treatment in my little boy’s room!  I’ve always loved the paint color (Valspar’s ‘La Fonda Villa Fountain’), yet somehow this wall treatment not only mellows all the intense teal blue but also provides such beautiful contrast.  Heart!

I know there are so many ‘how to’ tutorials in blog land about board and batten, and truly they are all worth reading.  Everyone has a different approach.  I installed this same wall treatment last month in my friend Mia’s loft, and finally had the opportunity to install board and batten around an entire bedroom in our house.

Pay no attention to the variance in color from scene to scene you’re about to see.  These pictures were taken in the brightest morning light and under the dimmest incandescent light over the course of several weeks ~ basically whenever I could get around to working on this project.  Want to know how we did it?  I’ll tell ya!

Obviously we started with a blank wall like this:

Midway through the madness the room looked like this:

Then we got it closer to this:

And now this:

Ack, what the heck?

This is the section under the window, but (duh) I never captured it at any other angle.  You’ll have to wait for the room reveal to see this wall, but I have more ‘final’ pics of the other walls at the end, just scroll down.  But first, the play by play.

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