Living room wall paneling.

Another of K's ideas, she wanted to panel one of the walls in our living room. Originally, if I remember right the plan was to do the wall at the far end of the living room. Then we flopped the layout ninety degrees because we didn't like having our backs to the rest of the space. 

This project was in conjunction with installing a Jøtul GF 160 fireplace ourselves. We had to finish the paneling before the final installation. With the fireplace installed, it'd be a lot harder to hang the trim pieces and paint.

In the end, the wall looks pretty striking.

Rewinding a bit… when we first moved in our dining room and living room looked like a giant white box. Quite literally.

It was sort of blinding, honestly. Also, not at all cozy. Stark is a word that comes to mind. Where the previous owners preferred that look, we prefer cozy. Inviting. 

Enter: color.

Our first take was to at least paint that east (narrow) wall a dark grey.

That actually helped. It's amazing what a little, bold color can do for a space. But it wasn't enough. The room still didn't feel as cozy as we'd like it. Since building our espresso bar, we landed on a black and white color scheme. Granted, not for every room. But a softer white for the walls and a not-quite-black black for the trim. Also, for the wall we'd panel.

The first step was coming up with a plan. So one night in bed I sketched out an eccentric pattern. 

We had gone back and forth on various geometric patterns before landing on a pretty simple design. Then I took that sketch into InDesign to do a final layout.

We had to avoid a few things like the TV mounting bracket, cold air return duct, window, and an outlet. With some back-and-forth between K and myself, we landed on a pattern. I figured out the measurements and we headed to Lowe's to get the lattice board we'd use to create the panel effect.

The actual installation was quite simple. We opted to break the wall in the middle, leaving the dining area part of the space white and un-paneled. I rolled paint on all of the trim boards before installing them. Since none of the measurements in my sketch were exact (they really couldn't be until I went to cut and install them on the actual wall), I simply worked in order of boards that then determined another board's position.

Quickly, while K made dinner, they were hung.

While I installed the paneling, I also wired up our A/V cables for behind the TV. 

The outlet has a built-in surge protector for a clean, minimal-but-still-protected look. We also have a center channel wire and HDMI cable running from our receiver. When I wired the recessed floor outlet for our Jøtul GF 160 fireplace, I also cut the drywall and ran those two cables behind the baseboards.

After painting the outlet cover to match the wall and spray painting the vent grill black, the paneling was complete.

Worth noting is we're only halfway done with cozy-ing up this room. The final piece will be designing and installing a wall of built-in bookshelves and shelving along that grey wall. We have about a month to finalize the design before heading back to good ol' Ikea to pick up the shelving.

In the meantime, watching movies on a black wall is a whole different experience. It's very cool. We love the paneling, too.