The Bear Den-Part 2

When I first thought about converting the bedroom to a den I was thinking of opening an entrance in the wall that is next to our entryway. The thought was we would wall over the doorway from the hall. When we talked through the dimensions of the room, and considered where the windows and heat vent was we realized that we wouldn’t be able to achieve the right layout for a tv room. This prompted me to design a built in cabinet on that wall I referred to previously. We could go with ready made but I wanted to maximize the amount of storage we could get and we’d be able to achieve enough distance between the couch and tv on this wall.

There’s an air return column in the corner of this wall so we used the depth of it to set the depth of our built in cabinets. The design inspiration for the cabinet came from bookshelves I saw on Wayfair.

We found wood look wall panel at The Home Depot. I can almost hear the gasps! Wood look wall panel in 2021?! Yes, but this is not your 70’s beaver panel found in many basements and cottages. It’s got the rustic look of reclaimed barn wood, and it’s actually quite authentic looking.

DPI Cabin Creek Wall Panel

I drew the plans for George and he went to work executing construction. There are two tall book shelves on the sides with 6 shelves each, a centre base for the tv and a 6 box set of shelves for above the tv. George built each part separately out of maple veneer plywood then installed them in place.

Disregard the old light fixture. We hadn’t removed it yet. Pretty sure the previous owner got it from the gazebo that used to be in the backyard.

I stained each shelf on the side book shelves using Varathane Classic Oil based penetrating Wood Stain in Colonial Maple. I applied 4 coats to achieve the depth of colour I was looking for.

This is one coat.

I had recently learned about chalk paint and initially thought I would use it for the black. While researching colour I came across a product that had a colour I really wanted to see on the cabinet. And so begins my new love affair with Fusion Mineral Paint. For those who’ve never heard of it, FMP is 100% acrylic, low VOC, environmentally friendly, durable paint that comes in more than 50 colours. The bonus, it’s Canadian, developed by the Homestead House Paint Co. To learn more click the link: https://fusionmineralpaint.com/about-us/. I chose Ash and did two coats, topping it with Fusion Mineral Paint finishing Oil in Natural. In order to achieve the distressed look I wanted, before painting I applied some of FMP’s Beeswax on the trim.

Absolutely love the way this turned out!

We added baseboard, casing and doors to the front of the cabinet to finish off the look. The casing we purchased from the Home Depot, but George made the doors. I added wood decals I found at The Home Depot, and painted them with a mixture of DecoArt Metallic paints in Spun Gold and Vintage Brass. They are a perfect complement to the antique brass door hinges and lion head door pulls!

This entire project was completed during lockdown so all materials including paints and stains had to be ordered online for curb side pickup. I can’t remember how many hours I spent pouring over photos online to compare colours but it was a lot! We’re going to add the step by step on this project to our project page soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

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