Log Cabin Bedroom

I do love a good project, and revamping my boys’ room has been in process for awhile now.  It’s still not done, but we’re getting there.

I’ve seen the pallet wood projects all over lately, and I think it’s pretty cool, but it seemed so “everyone is doing it” to me, as well as, FOR REAL, who wants to really rip all the pallets apart and remove the nails?!  I wanted the rustic feel, but thought it’d be fun to find some color too.  So we loaded up our kids and headed to our favorite local salvage yard where we walked around a couple acres of property and unearthed one cool looking board at a time, just kinda guessing on how much we’d need.  I tossed it all together, offered the man $50 for all of it, and we put it on the van and headed home.

My good friend Daniel White had done a pallet wall before, and he suggested we first cover the wall with roofing felt to deaden the light in the cracks between. So that’s just what we did!

 

After we used a air compressor and some staples to get the felt onto the wall, we marked all of the studs with a white colored pencil so we’d know where to nail the boards.  We also marked level lines periodically so that we could make sure as we worked our way up that we weren’t getting wonky with our lines.

I don’t know what’s the best way to do this, but since all of our boards were different widths (I did try to choose ones that were pretty close in thickness), I had to figure out how they were all going to go together.  I measured our wall and then marked it out with sidewalk chalk on the driveway…pretty technical huh?!

Because we have dormers in the room, i made sure that the boards overlapped that line plenty so that we could cut the 45 degree angles when we got to each board. It was a pain…I’m not gonna lie!

We started at the bottom left and worked our way right and up using an air compressor and brads to nail the boards into the studs (also, the brads are tiny, so they dont’ show up at all.)

We didn’t cut the angle of the ceiling until we got to that point (working left to right), and it was better to cut them slightly too long and trim off the straight edge to get a tight fit than to risk a big gap.

Also, I’d found the gorgeously awesome plank that we used on the top (which amazingly had a bevel on the top so that it fit a bit more closely to the crown.) When we got close to the top, we went ahead and put it up there to fill in the spaces between the bottom level and the top one.  My husband had to rip a couple planks and then use a planer to shave them down when we got to that point.  This whole thing was like a crazy puzzle to fit all together.  My setup on the driveway worked pretty well, but there was of course some discrepancy once we actually got stuff on the wall.

It took us the better part of an entire day to do this, but it turned out pretty incredible!  We have plans to put it onto the low walls between the dormers as well, but have to gear up to get that done.

So, here’s the before…in all it’s messy glory! It’s like a makeover photo…never put makeup on the first picture.

And now..

My sister knew I was doing this and so for Christmas she gave the boys a faux cowhide rug that I think she found on Overstock.com.  It is fantastic!

And the wall, all decorated with some incredible vintage showshoes I picked up for a steal, an old map I just had, a fun shotgun made from old license plates we found at the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville, NC, and a random piece of leather I had and some ropey thing (no idea what it is) I got for free at the salvage yard. My son’s old bed was a convertible crib, and this wrought iron one was my great grandmothers that was mine when I was a kid.  I spray painted it (it was white) with an oil rubbed bronze Krylon spray paint and it looks totally refreshed now!  I love the way it all turned out!

So there you have it!  And all total, I still have probably as much wood remaining as we put on the wall, so you’re looking at about $25 worth of salvage wood there (that had a minimum amount of random nails here and there to remove._  And for those of you wondering, I guess it might have lead paint, but since my kids aren’t eating it, and I sanded it and cleaned it off pretty well, I’d say we’re ok. I LOVE the way it turned out and think the boys will enjoy it for years to come!