Faux-denza

Thanks for all of your encouraging feedback about the wall stencil! It was so much fun to do and share. I have another project that I am working on, we like to call it our faux-denza. Its not a shelf, its not a credenza, its a faux-denza! Also, its an IKEA hack. And man I love me some IKEA hacks.

So, heres the deal. Before Travis and I were married I loved the simplicity of the narrow stretch between "dining" and "living" (its really all just one big L shaped room). It was nothing but green walls and 2 old doors. This was back before I compulsively photo documented everything, just incase, I ever needed the picture. So the picture below does not do the space justice. Although you can say HI to my granny and aunt janet! Anyway, just imagine how sharp my white table with retro green cushions looked off to the right of that space and those doors.

 After Travis and I got married I needed places to store "things", and so we decided to purchase this. Its part of IKEA's Expedit shelving line. If you look closely you will see that the smaller units are not functional, per say.

 We layed the unit on the floor horizontally and then used the bottom for storage and the smaller areas for display. In order to hide the bottom ugly parts we made some little curtains from muslin. It was....fine, but I've always wanted to do more. Here you can see what we have now:

Looking at the pictures there are a few things I don't like. 1. I feel like this heavy piece on the floor really weighs things down. 2. The console is so dark it really pulls down the sharp green walls. 3. The curtains are, fine, but nothing exciting. So to address these issues we have decided to do some major console renovation. First, we ordered 6" legs for this baby. Our baseboards are 5" so this will be just tall enough. But the real project is turning this console into a faux-denza. And here is how we're going to do it.

We are going to make 2 doors to cover up the bottom row of storage, and of course, I had something a little fun in mind for spicing up the outside of the doors. So, I needed some inspriation.

I really love these vintage kittinger chests. Hello greek key goodness.

and this console, room by Emily Henderson.

(and don't even get me started on how awesome the wall paper is)

 So I decided that I wanted to use these two peices as my jumping off point. So before I get too carried away I should probably just give you a bare bones run down.  

Faux-denza to-do-list:

1. purchase painters grade wood and cut to size

2. paint wood glossy white

3. purchase wood molding

4. decide on arragement for the greek key effect

5. cut wood molding into peices

6. spray peices gold

7. attach peices to door with wood glue

8. cut vertical slats of consol, so that once doors are placed they will be flush with the sides

9. attach legs to console

10. attach doors to console

11. poof, faux-denza!

So, these instructions are pretty simple and not at all detailed, but as we go along I plan to do a couple of posts showing our progress! I am so excited to see the finished product!