It's All in the Details - Wallpaper for Shelf Liner
As you may have noticed, I've been missing in action for the last week or so. My grandmother passed away on Monday, January 31, and I've been at the hospital, out of town visiting with family, and attending the funeral. It's been a tough road for my aunts these last few months as they cared for my grandmother, who was battling lung cancer. Needless to say, it was a very emotional week for the whole family.
Here at the house, we've started the kitchen cabinet makeover. We're having to work on one or two cabinets at a time because of lack of space to store the cabinet contents and to work on all the doors. It's slow going to say the least. Degreasing. Sanding. Priming. Three coats of paint, inside and out. Last week I managed to prime the inside of one cabinet and get two coats of paint on. Imagine my surprise when I woke up from a nap to find that hubs had painted the third coat "Ultra (bright) White" instead of bisque. Eek! Oh, well, four (maybe five)coats of paint won't hurt:)
I'm painting the inside of the cabinets a warm bisque color and the outside "Cherry" red. The shelves on the inside of the cabinets are also being painted red. I decided that instead of putting down the ugly old rubber shelf liner,I would really try to personalize our cabinets and make them look "cottage sweet" inside and out. So I went to Lowe's last night to look through their washable wallpaper. I did find a couple of rolls that were "ok", but I didn't want to settle. 
I spent a great deal of time searching through their special order wallpaper books for just the right "shelf paper". I saw several that I really liked and it was a tough decision, but finally, I ordered a roll from the Waverly "French Accents" Collection (above,left). My cottage style doesn't scream French, but neither does the wallpaper I selected. It's kind of old fashioned yet simple and fancy at the same time. The photo shown is actually darker than the actual paper - it is much lighter and less "beige" and more of a creamy white and "cherry" red in person. I've been throwing around the idea of actually wallpapering the back of the inside of the cabinets with a small red and bisque ticking pattern. The sample to the right is closer to the colors in the above print, btw. I can always go back and do this later after all the other design elements are in place. Another idea is to place wallpaper inside the recess on the back of the cabinet door, if there is a recess, that is. You can apply the paper to a stiff piece of thin cardboard the exact size of the recess, and then just pop it into place...use velcro if you don't want to do anything permanant. It's just an easy and fun way to add cottage style to your cabinets. I would just make sure that your paper selections coordinate nicely with each other and with the rest of the room.
About the outside of the cabinets, on the ends, we're adding beadboard and then will be adding crown moulding to the top. I also hope to add some rope moulding underneath crown, if there is room for it. It will all be painted out red and then slightly sanded for a distressed look.
It may be a while before you see photos because I'd like to first get it all completed. But I will for sure keep you updated with the progress:) I can't wait until this project is behind us!
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