garden suite progress – shaker peg rail

well my room if finally taking shape, and i’m so excited to share everything with you. i have been taking lots of pictures and i couldn’t be more thrilled with how everything is coming together. it’s even better than i expected!

so if you’ll remember from the before pictures i have one pretty large wall in the sitting room area. so, i wanted to come up with something unique, sunny and different to dress up this wall. so… here’s what i did.

this is the before:

and this is the after in progress:

lovely, right? i still want to add some more special touches (sounds like i need to hit up some of my favorite antique shops!) but you get the idea.

oh, i bet you also noticed curtains in the background. yep, all six panels are sewn and hung! but that’s for another day.

back to my peg rail …. here’s how it all came together.

i purchased a long piece of molding from lowes – 12 ft – yeah … you should have saw me trying to fit it in my car!

it was white to start. it’s that fake mdf style molding. i did want wood but they didn’t have this particular style/length  in wood. once i got it home, i cut it to size and spray painted the whole thing with kyrlon’s sun yellow.

all the shaker pegs (also from lowes) got several coats of white spray paint.

i then when over the fresh painted sun yellow molding with lots of acrylic paints i had. i brushed on a lighter yellow. then a darker yellow. then white mixed with yellow.

after all that, i diluted some burnt umber with water and wiped it on with a rage to add some ‘age’ and give it more of a ‘wood look’.

i sanded it.

then i whitewashed the whole thing to get the white would settle into the cracks. then i quickly wiped off the excess.

it sounds like a process … and it was … but i got exactly the look i wanted.

i then screwed the molding to the wall, measured for my peg placement and then drilled!

fun, but messy. so far so good.

then i added some good wood glue to each hole.

then inserted all my freshly painted white shaker pegs.

and that’s it! a beautiful new rail for display lots of garden/farm inspired goodies! loads of character on one tiny, brightly color strip.

i wrestled up a straw hat.

and my mom bought me the most perfect antique aprons. i just love them. aren’t they beautiful?

i had the little stars, so they went up too.

i want to add a couple gardening tools and maybe a big sign above the rail … but that’s to be determined.

either way, i’m in love.

and i can’t wait to hear what you think!