Halfway done living room built-ins!

Left side is up!  Hooray!

Here is a sneak preview pic

You can see the white-wash pickling stain, and the oak (unstained) bead board (tongue and groove) behinds.

The trim still has to go up of course, and the mantel stuff has to happen.  The right shelf is cut, so tomorrow/Monday the sanding and staining of that will begin!

Hooray!  Halfway to getting our living room back!  :)  Also, I will need to pick a wallpaper for behind the floating TV.  Exciting.  I've never actually picked wallpaper.

White Wash Pickling Stain

Hello Internetz!

Thank you so much for all your votes/comments about the shelf colour!  We have decided to go with "White wash pickling stain".  You can see the first coat going on below.

It's going to be hot, trust me (I have good colour imagination).  And if we no likes, we can always paint the shelf white in a few years.  Can't go back and choose stain once we've painted, so this seems safest.

Now, for help with the wall colour.  I am thinking of "griege" - that's gray mixed with beige, yo!  Is it gray?  Is it beige?  That's the colour I'm going for, with maybe the slightest suggestion of a purple-ish undertone.

So far my fav I've found is Loggia by Sherwin Williams.  Do you have a favourite "griege"?  Keep in mind the shelves may have the slightest green tinge, due to the poplar.

 Second coat of white wash pickling stain is going on this morning, then some polyurethane, then the left side is done! (Can't stain both sides at once, living room is too small)

Progress on those shelves!

Adrian assures me there is plenty going on behind the scenes, and he loves his Kreg jig x 1,000,000

Built-ins begin!

Yes, it is renovation season again here at the So house!

Our long term plans included built-in bookshelves in the living room.  And with only a few months of mat leave left (and thus both of us at home), the time is NOW to get to some of these projects!

Nothing was overly terrible about our living room, it was just a shade on the ugly-unfinished looking side.  It will mostly look the same when we're done, but with killer custom bookcases.  Which is sort of probably end up looking like IKEA bookcases, but fitting our space.  Also, playstation (aka, Netflix machine) and all cords will be hidden - hurrah!

Reminder:  old living room.  You can see my classic 1970s bookshelf (look familiar to any Markhams, perhaps?). and two mismatched IKEA bookshelves, all bursting with books n' things.

Kick off - here is our wood pile (poplar - aka, "poor man's cherry").  And he's begun - mantel is down already!  I'll keep you posted for how things are shaping up!

In a surprise turn of events, I've not made up my mind what to do with colours - both wall and shelves.  So, blogosphere, here are two questions for you, please make sure to take the polls at the right, polling closes March 15th! (or whenever we start painting/staining)  Calling all Internetz, please make sure to vote!  That means you!

When I say "lightly coloured stain" I mean something like a pickled oak shown below.  When I say "dark stain" I mean Jacobean (our house stain - several things are stained this here at Casa So). And of course, poplar is a-paintin' wood, so feel free to vote for white if that's how you swing.