Feature Wall Challenge with Woodgrain

Y’all know how much I love The Haven Conference and their wonderful sponsors. Haven always provides challenges and opportunities to grow. Check out my entry for the Rustoleum Challenge! It’s Haven Week and I was selected to create a feature wall as part of the Haven experience. Ten finalists were selected to design and create a feature wall in each of our homes. Woodgrain generously supplied the materials. Woodgrain is a 65 year old millwork company that produces moldings, doors, paneling, etc. for builders and home owners. Their products can be conveniently found at Home Depot. Our projects will be submitted to Woodgrain and one lucky winner will partner with Woodgrain for the next year!

Deciding on a Project

I recently closed my antique and consignment store, The Blue Building Antiques, that I had run for ten years. Being a small retail business owner is super demanding. Consequently, many projects around the house were set aside or delayed. Last month, I participated in my first One Room Challenge. We renovated our kitchen. You can see the final reveal here for My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen.

I had also revamped a small bathroom on our main level several years ago. Here is the link to that $100 Bathroom Makeover. That means we have completed two of ten rooms plus two hallways and the main entryway. So, I really had many options for this Woodgrain Feature Wall contest.

Time to Acquire Some New Skills

I will tell you up front that I have no experience with molding or millworks of any type…none! Nada! Zero! Zilch! When I started tinkering in DIY over 20 years ago, my husband bought me a mitre saw.

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But I’ve only really ever used it as a chop saw. I never had time or complicated projects. Quite frankly, math was never my strong point so I had no desire to be devising angled cuts that must line up immaculately. The extent of making angled cuts pretty much lies in framing a bathroom mirror in the above mentioned bathroom project. And let me just say…those cuts were wonky as hell!

That said…I decided to pimp out the wall at the entry to our home…a feature wall! Here is a before picture.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Before

This wall is 14 feet tall. Go big or go home…right? If you’re gonna do a feature wall…might as well pick the biggest wall in the house. I actually used two extension and one 6 foot A frame ladder in this project. Mr. Blu just looked at me and said…”You’re gonna do that on a 20 foot extension ladder?” But he already knew the answer. His concern was that the crown molding was pretty high. I told him I’d figure it out.

Formulating a Plan for a Feature Wall

My first step was to create a design. There were so many possibilities. But, we are a relatively traditional family and our decor and design choices certainly aren’t wild, maybe bold sometimes but not crazy. I had visions of chevron and geometric shapes. But I kept returning to a classic style. I took some measurements and came up with a design.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Plan

Next step was to research types of molding and installation techniques. I watched alot of Youtube videos and read many blog posts. After about 5 trips to my local Home Depot and 3 to an alternate Home Depot (lumber and millworks are in short supply these days) I broke out the mitre saw and got to work.

Getting Started on the Feature Wall

Perhaps the absolute most difficult part of this entire project was removing the crown molding from the top of that 14 foot wall while balancing my not so tiny self at the top of a 20 foot extension ladder. Boy, was that fun. I do believe that the builder of this house handed out bonuses for those contractors who could best install crown molding that would be the most difficult to remove. I used the tricks I learned on Youtube but, inevitably, I had some broken crown molding. Just one more skill to master for this feature wall!

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall crown — Picture me rocking a crow bar with both hands while elbow locked on the top of the ladder trying to pull the crown molding off of the wall. Those 3 inch nails did not want to leave those studs! I expected it to be just as fun putting it back up.

Install Border

I framed the walls and installed the cross pieces. This left me with a basic farmhouse design.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Board and Batten

Add Some Character to the Feature Wall

But I wanted to dress it up a bit. After all, it is the entry to our home! So I installed picture molding.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Picture Molding

The Dreaded Step

The next step was the one that I dreaded…caulking. My only experience with caulk had been in the bathroom and it has never been neither easy or successful. So, back to the Youtube videos I went. And guess what?? I love caulking!

There is some sort of satisfaction from filling those gaps, smoothing the surface, and achieving a finished look. With proper technique, caulking is fun! I am still amazed. And I want to run through the entire house and caulk all of the gaps!!!

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Picture Molding Caulking

When I completed the wall, I loved it so much that I just kept going down the stairs.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall stairs

The crown molding went back up so much more easily than it came down.

To Color or No

While I love color, I decided to stay with our entry color, Benjamin Moore in Simply White. My go to paint is Behr so I had this color matched at Home Depot. I wanted the wall to have a subtle effect. I can see me eventually adding a dark charcoal grey or gorgeous navy to this wall. But I decided to wait until we redecorate the adjoining living room. That will probable be sometime in the next year or so.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Paint

And here is my wall…simple but classic and I think quite timeless.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall final

I don’t think you need to have a crazy fancy design (although I love crazy fancy designs, Mr. Blu does not) to make a powerful statement. Sometime, a subtle design can be very effective. And on a wall of this size, I believe this is exactly the case.

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall half wall

I would like to thank Woodgrain for selecting me for this challenge. I learned some new skills, successfully created my own design, and most importantly of all…I mastered the extension ladder without any mishaps! I look forward to more feature walls in my home!

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall After

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Woodgrain

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Woodgrain molding

The Blue Building Antiques Shopatblu Entryway Feature Wall Picture full

After all, I have 12 more areas to go!

Send me some good vibes as I submit my entry! And good luck to the other 9 finalists. There are some very very cool feature walls. You can check out all of the other designs on Instagram at WEAREWOODGRAIN.

UPDATE:

I recently took this entryway to another level! Our new doors are painted and I have added a lovely painted secretary! But the biggest improvement is a new light fixture!!! And I did it all for $100, yes 100 dollars! Check out the Entryway Reveal $100 Room Challenge!

I am sharing this post as part of Another Loverly Bloghop: DIY Projects! Thanks to Juliet from A Loverly Life for hosting yet another weekly blog hop. Check out these great DIY’s from my blogger friends!