Kate Pearce Vintage’s Speakeasy Updates | ORC Spring 2021: Week 2

It’s been a busy over here at the Pearce house, but one of my all-time favorite parts of renovating took place this week: DRYWALL! For me, drywall is like a visual celebration that marks the turning point in a reno from demo to build-out. And after two months of demo, electric, planning and designing, that shift was a welcome feast for the eyes. We also painted the exposed beam ceiling, finished the electric, ordered some stuff, and planned out the next phase, all of which I’m about to take you through right now.

THE CEILING

I mentioned last week that I was conflicted about what color to paint the exposed beam ceiling. It was important to me that the beams remain exposed for a few reasons. The first reason being that it’s simply a visually interesting feature that is also a nod to the age of our home. I love the aesthetic interest the exposed beams add to a space. The second reason was that we don’t have a lot of headroom down here. Billy stands at 6’4″, and the ceiling comes in shy of 7 feet, so we were literally looking to save every inch possible.

I would have considered leaving the wood beams clear and not painted them at all, but there was a problem. The previous owner had slapped a solid coat of primer on just half of the ceiling beams in this space. Rather than deal with the unpredictable pain of stripping the primer, we decided to paint the entire thing. We first used KILZ oil-based primer to get a really solid coat over all of the beams. We used this paint sprayer for the job (which saved an enormous amount of time – and neck pain).

Next was the question of color. I was deciding between a deep crimson red and a dark, emerald green. The red would add a bit of sexy to the speakeasy, and a splash of fun color. The green would read more neutral and would serve as a continuous line with the green zellige tile from RIAD that will be going on half the walls. I posed this question to my followers on Instagram and the majority voted for green. But the real kicker was the DMs reminding me that red and green scream CHRISTMAS. As much as I love Santa, I’m not sure I want to be thinking about him all year-round.

So, Magnolia Home’s Locally Grown was the color we settled on. We went with a semi-gloss finish as to not highlight the loads of imperfections on the ceiling. I also loved Locally Grown because it does read as a neutral, and has warm olive undertones that are picked up in the green zellige tile from RIAD.

ELECTRIC

This really isn’t my area of expertise. And by that I mean I have not the slightest clue how to do electric. But Billy does. He tackled this like a champ, and even went through how he went about hiding all of the electric that went through the exposed wood beams. His whole chat is saved to highlights under ORC2021 on my Instagram profile. While he dealt with all the wiring, I was busy planning out where the new electric would go, and what types of lights would go where. Because of the low ceiling height, we decided to forego any chandeliers or pendants.

I settled on two different types of sconces from LETI. The sconces I chose have classic silhouettes that feel updated, yet not too trendy. I went back and forth A LOT between going uber-trendy with the lighting and keeping it classic. Ultimately, I erred on the side of classic. Why? Well, I wanted to go trendy in a lot of other places, and I always find that too many trendy items in a space can make a space feel a little too unoriginal. It also is a quick way to make your room feel dated just a few years down the line.

ORDERING STUFF

We finally got around to ordering the cabinetry for the space this week. We went with IKEA cabinets. Our kitchen renovation was done with IKEA cabinets and we’ve been really happy with the quality for the price point. I was mostly excited about going with IKEA this time around because their new line – KUNGSBACKA – is made of entirely recycled materials. The sleek, dark color of the KUNGSBACKA cabinets will fit in perfectly with our moody, sexy speakeasy theme. Mostly, I’m excited about getting behind IKEA’s newest commitment to sustainability.

NEXT PHASE

While there are still plenty of design details to be worked out, we did have to finally settle on some details with our built-in banquette. We broke ground on that corner of the speakeasy today, and are looking forward to updating you through Instagram stories this week – and via the blog next week. In fun news, we are heading to the fabric store soon to choose the fabric. If you’d like to tag along, be sure to tune into IG stories! The to-do list for this week is long. It includes finishing up the built-in banquette, painting the walls, and settling on some smaller design details like hardware for the cabinetry.

Well, that’s it for this week, folks! Be sure to head on over to the One Room Challenge blog to check in on the other fabulous room transformations taking place!

Hope to catch you on “the ‘Gram” this week. I’ll be looking forward to dropping another update on the blog in seven short days! Until then, I’ll be keeping my painting clothes on.

See yah out there.