Renovations, The Buffalo BurrowWall Board in the Burrow Kitchen January 8, 2020 This is a sponsored post by Lowe’s Home Improvement. All opinions are 100% my own. I love that you guys are as excited about our new kitchen at the Burrow as we are! I’ve been dying to see those design details I dreamt up nearly a year ago start showing up. So far, I’ve only shared details about the design plans and haven’t had much real progress to share. But that is about to change FAST, friends. Things are officially flying and it’s so exciting that we’re now to the exciting progress: finishes! If you missed any of the previous kitchen posts or if you want a quick refresher, you can find those by clicking below: WHAT INSPIRED THE BURROW KITCHEN THE KITCHEN DESIGN PLAN CHOOSING KITCHEN CABINETS PLANNING THE CABINET LAYOUT But finally, I have some real progress in our very real space to share with you. We have some texture on our walls! It felt like we sat with studs forever while all of the mechanical work was done, so seeing this progress was so exciting! I love texture in all of my spaces wherever I can get it. I’ve often said that if budget and time constraints didn’t exist, this house would have zero sheet rock. No offense sheet rock, but give me all the wallboard, bead board, and board and batten. But of course, those constraints do exist. Often, details like this cost more than sheet rock. But even more than that, Chris has to install it all and he has limited time. I had to be choosy about where we would add those special details. The kitchen is a place I absolutely love texture. I knew that we wouldn’t have tile on all the walls for cost, but also effect. I really love to make a focal point with my tile and place it where you need the most durability (a.k.a. behind the stove), but then let the other areas visually rest, if you will. For me, that means either sheet rock or something like bead board or shiplap. We have horizontal shiplap as our current kitchen back splash and have loved it. It adds age and character, which are always my goals! And it also is more durable than sheet rock. We painted ours with a really durable, wipe-able finish and have had no issues with it not cleaning or being damaged. We have had sheet rock in our kitchen in the past straight down to the counter tops and it presented a lot of challenges with splatters, worries about it getting wet, etc. For this kitchen, I loved that adding texture to the walls would also add to the aged feel. I decided after seeing this main kitchen inspiration photo from an old house in Belgium that I wanted vertical wall board behind the built-ins we’re doing flanking the stove. Source I loved the texture of the planks backing the shelves, but I also loved that they run perpendicular to the shelves. Horizontal shiplap like we currently have would’ve been parallel to the shelves and I didn’t like that as well visually. Once I decided that, I knew that meant continuing it throughout the kitchen except for that center tiled panel around the hood. While I love mixing finishes and textures, I didn’t really want to add a third texture in with the gorgeous patterned tile and the vertical boards behind the shelves. For the wall board, we used these PrimeLinx Shadow Gap Shiplap planks. They’re just over 5″ wide. I didn’t want too narrow, but didn’t want a super wide feel here. These feel just right. These boards come in a variety of different lengths: 8′, 12′, and 16′. We have 9′ ceilings in this house, so we went with 12′ boards and cut them to size. These boards are nickel groove, so that meant there aren’t gaps in between boards once they’re installed and we could install them straight onto the studs. If you use plain cut boards that don’t join with a tongue and groove, you need sheet rock behind them. Since they’re serving as our wall and not just as a decorative detail, they needed to be installed first and then the cabinets will be installed and attached to the boards. Since I wanted to install them vertically, we had to add blocking in the studs so we’d have something to nail to. You can see a bit of that in the photo above where the hood is going to be built in. But I took these photos right before Chris finished the last of the wall board so that you’d be able to see the blocking well. Here on the left is the refrigerator wall and it will have wall board behind it as well. Here’s an up close shot of the blocking in that area: Chris installed this throughout the entire kitchen after it was framed before any of the wall boards so that he’d be able to nail the wall boards straight into the blocking. He installed blocking about every 2-3′ depending on what he had to work around in the wall. It was a bit more work for him, but the finished product is worth it! The walls will all be painted a creamy white. I’m still nailing down the exact color, but I’m going for a very warm cream/white. Not too yellow, but not nearly as stark white as I’ve done in the past. The planks that the built-ins are attached to will be painted to match all of the cabinetry. The planks on the wall will serve as the back of the built-ins and will look like a separate unit from the walls, if that makes sense. Our cabinets are about to be delivered and I’m DYING to see that lovely Escape Gray on all my new cabinets! It’s the perfect blend of sage and neutral to me. I can’t wait to see it with the patterned tile, creamy white, brick floor…all the things! HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams Escape Gray | Creamy White Walls (color TBD) | Allen & Roth “Peaceful” Quartz | Blue and White Patterned Tile | Brick Porcelain Floor Tile And once the cabinets are here and installed, we can get to work on those upper built-ins I’ve been dreaming about for so long! It’s really starting to feel like a house. Stay tuned for more updates coming later this week on this space (hint, hint: the gorgeous brick floor going in!).
Austin says January 8, 2020 at 4:10 pm Dumb moment, but I had NO idea you could just install shiplap boards as the wall itself with no need for any kind of backing (other than studs to nail into, of course). This room is going to be STUNNING — so excited to see it as cabinets and floors are installed! SO excited for you, friend! Reply
Lindsay says January 9, 2020 at 4:30 pm Oh so not a dumb moment, friend! I only know this because Chris recently taught me that! As long as they’re tongue and groove so there are no gaps, they can be the walls! And thank you so so much! You’re always such a sweet encourager 🙂 Reply