Boring Kitchen No More! {Chevron Wall}

Welcome to my kitchen.  You might remember we built about 18 months ago... darn that we weren't blogging back then. It would have been fun to come to all of you for design ideas.  Although, after 5 homeless months I was sort of like whatever, just finish the house!

Well my kitchen was "fine"... and remember, when I say fine I tend to mean take it or leave it.  It was just lacking anything cool.  We do have a fun chalkboard backsplash, but the fun ended there.

Last week, we were sitting in our breakfast room, eating dinner (why is it called a breakfast room?) and I was looking out into the kitchen and not thrilled with the view...

This plain wall was screaming at me to do something! I love the barn sale chalkboard, but the wall was blah!

I looked to Eric and said, "Mind if I do an itty bitty project tonight when the kids are in bed?" To which I think he said something like, "Oh boy..."  I quickly cleaned up from dinner, grabbed my oldest daughter and ran to Lowes.  I needed black paint STAT! (Sidenote: it took the guy at Lowes 40 minutes to mix my black paint. Not exaggerating. I was the only one in line, but it was a hot mess.  It sorta deflated my "we're on a mission" mindset, but oh well, I pressed on!)

I got home and started gathering supplies... tape: check, paint: check  roller: check chalk line... UGH! It got mixed up with Nate Berkus' supplies and it was sitting in NYC.  This was almost a deal breaker... I got a little cranky, and then decided to stop being sad and start being awesome!

Source: joyshope.com via Meg on Pinterest

That's right... I had chalk and string, so I just sucked up the royal mess and made a chalk line! 

Eric was really, really happy about that decision.  He loved that it looked like a blue snowstorm in our kitchen! (hehe)

Before snapping lines came the math.  Boo math! Lucky for me, not only is the hubs handy, he's also super smart! I told him what I wanted and he handed me this nice, little cheat sheet of measurements.  

Pharmacokineticist by day... DIY Mathematician by night.  SCORE one for me! 

We chalked our nicely spaced and pre-measured grid lines

And then I got taping.  I will be honest here... taping chevron wasn't my favorite thing ever.  Getting the points right isn't hard, just annoying.  I used an X-acto knife to get them crisp. 

Then I painted.  Then I asked Eric to paint the top because I wasn't tall enough.  I think I heard him say something like, "How did I know this was going to become an us project?" I think I might have then suggested he change out of his grubby, outdated work jeans, and into something more blog-friendly... yeah, that didn't happen.  It was worth a shot! 

All painted!

We used our perfect stripe method and had no bleeding lines! SWEET! But, we did have some paint pulled off by the tape, not sure why, but I touched up any imperfections.  

I just went back the next morning and did some reverse taping so I could touch up.  

There she is... I couldn't love it any more than I do! Well, actually that's a lie.  I'm also going to do the wall to the left of it. I wanted to be sure I liked it first.  Once both walls are done I'll be fully smitten! 

This is my not-so-boring kitchen now.  I know chevron (especially in black) isn't for everyone, but I think it's just right for us! 

I finally erased my month-old birthday message and added this to my chalkboard...

A Beautiful Mess is one of my favorite blogs and also describes this family of six pretty well.  If you haven't checked out Elsie's blog you should, but I'll warn you.  It's a love-hate thing for me.  She is so adorable, so creative, so stylish, so cool that it makes this nerdy blogger have a little pitty party once in a while, but I keep going back for more.  Some of my favorite posts are about her wedding... heart shaped pancakes for the meal... need I say more?  Go take a peek! 

Okay, so there you have it... 

my new wicked awesome kitchen wall! 



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