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Thursday, January 14, 2016

Barn Wood Backsplash

We have lived in our home near Austin for 18 months now, and for a good bulk of that time we have wondered what to do with the backsplash. Well, actually there were more pressing things on our mind before the backsplash, but now that those things have been largely completed, we recently turned our attention to the torn up, ugly walls in our kitchen.

I was truly open to all kinds of ideas for backsplashes, but I thought it would be nice if it was:

1) Cool looking.
2) Easy to install.
3) Relatively inexpensive.

I'm happy to report we were able to accomplish all three! While at Home Depot one weekend, Zach spied some engineered, tongue and groove "barn wood." It was regular wood stained to look like barn wood, but it was symmetrical, uniform, and hence very easy to work with.

Now I know that real barn wood would be much cooler, but real barn wood is neither easy to install nor relatively inexpensive. So it was off the table. We also considered pallet wood, but I'd read some things about the chemicals and cleanliness of using pallet wood in your kitchen, so that gave me pause. After one trip to Home Depot to take a look at their product, I was sold!

This project was so easy. I feel comfortable saying that even though I was not the person doing the measuring and cutting. The whole thing took less than a day and I didn't hear even one curse word along the way, so to me that equals an easy project. And the final cost for materials was in the neighborhood of $150.

Here's a picture of the project halfway through. The most difficult part truly was the measuring and cutting out for the electrical and light sockets. Luckily my math whiz, construction-minded husband does not have an issue with that. See that window on the right? That angle was a nightmare to cut and measure, but he got it the first try! He's the bomb.com.


Here's a closer picture of the back wall and wall by the refrigerator. We glued the boards but used nails sporadically, too. I think the nails add to the rustic look.

Here's a look at the whole kitchen (my apologies for not bothering to clean up. I was tired from telling Zach what boards needed to go where). 

Ooh, look at the floors, too. That's ceramic tile that looks like wood.
We've had it for a year now and I'm still SO HAPPY with it. 
I'm thrilled with how this turned out! After getting all the boards up, we took another trip to Home Depot to procure some stain to touch up some areas where cuts made real wood color show through. Then we put a coat of polyurethane on the wood so that I can wipe it down when splashes inevitably occur.

This stuff was so easy to work with that we are planning another project using the "barn wood" -- an accent wall in the formal dining room that will cover three-fourths of the wall with a small shelf on top. I found the idea on....wait for it....PINTEREST, the place from which all good and bad ideas are born. I'll be sure to chronicle that project, too!

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Workout of the Day
Chopping loads of veggies for the Ultimate Reset and Yoga with Adriene Day 14 of 30 

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