The Office Wall Treatment is Finished!

Today, we're excited to share our updated office walls. As a reminder, we're turning the 5th bedroom in our basement into a home office/studio space. We haven't done anything to that bedroom room since moving in, so it's especially fun to give life to a room that's been a bit of a wasted space the past three years:

A few weeks ago, we shared in-progress paneling...

Now, finished, it looks like this!

Painting our shed in 30 minutes or building an easy art ledge are examples of quick projects that made a big impact. These walls are example of a big project that made a big difference. That is to say, it wasn't quick.  Easy, yes. Time consuming, yes, Tedious, yes. Worth it--now that it's done, yes. Ha!

From the progress post to finished, we decided to add additional cove molding into every paneled box. I love the extra traditional touch it adds. And then we caulked all the seams, which is actually what took the longest.

I liked seeing the line between the cove molding and the 1 1/2" MDF molding that made up the base of our paneling, so I didn't want to caulk it smooth, just enough so there was still an indent. Where the MDF crossed, I used spackle and then sanded it smooth (something you can't do with caulk) so that was more seamless.

Then it was time to paint. Because of all the detail on the walls, we taped everything off and sprayed it with a paint sprayer (we used the Wagner Flexio 590 for the job because it comes with a detail attachment). The color is Farrow & Ball's Pigeon. It's a really beautiful green with a lot of gray in it. And definitely a color that changes throughout the day. Sometimes it looks more gray, other times there are hints of blue. It's truly a new favorite.

I ordered a free swatch book on Farrow & Ball's website years ago and have had a couple swatches color matched (not all successfully) but had never used actual Farrow & Ball paint before. They caught word we were planning on using "Pigeon" in the office and offered to send some our way. The difference is unreal. One thing Chris and I both noticed separately was the paint doesn't seem to separate like other paints do. It arrived sealed and when I opened the container, there wasn't paint all the way up to the lid like there normally is after paint has been mixed. It's like---it was poured into the can. And never needed stirred. It is really thick and goes on easy and dries like velvet. You can order any of their swatches by the quart or gallon right on their site.

In this week's podcast episode, we actually talk a bit about paint sheens and the importance of getting them right and why this room (and it's slightly orange peeled textured walls) needed a matte finish. This paint delivered that gorgeously. You can listen to this week's podcast here.

It was a last minute decision to paint the inside of the room's door and the baseboards in  the same color and I'm so glad we did. It makes everything feel a little more luxe. Next on the agenda is the closet.

While we won't be using sliding doors now, we decided to store the doors and keep the tracks in place in case we want to revert back to a normal closet down the road. In the meantime, we'll be tearing out the eclectic mix of shelves and rods and starting fresh.

All together, all the trim (including the baseboards) cost us close to $500 with the bulk of that being the cove molding we used inside of each box panel. Besides the closet, we also have all the pieces to our standing desk in our home waiting to put together, except the actual desktop. I'm having trouble deciding on something there. I'm dreaming of marble on an mdf budget. Marble contact paper?