Church {Coffee Bar} Makeover

I was asked by our local church to help revamp the coffee bar area – and who could say “no” to giving back AND a fun DIY project in one?! Haha, I joke with the staff that it originally started out with “what color should we paint an accent wall in the coffee bar?” to me taking it to a FULL makeover of the space!! (… my husband says nothing with me can be as simple as changing a wall color 😉 … he may be right!)

Here are some before shots of the space:

| The Design |

The staff was pretty open to any ideas, so I went to work designing and this is what I came up with:

I wanted to frame in the coffee bar area to really define the space. I thought doing MDF trim and painting it a dark brown color to compliment the brown iron railing above would tie it in well. Then to add some warmth (because what doesn’t say coffee bar better then a warm space?!) I thought doing some stained wood between the trim would be a fun accent.

For the paint colors I went with SW Warm Stone as the wall & ceiling color, and SW Seal Skin for the trim color:

For the back wall I wanted to do a muted/washed brick veneer. I felt like porcelain tile would be too harsh in the space – and again, I was going for an overall warm feeling. I found these wall brick veneer tiles at Lowe’s and they fit the color scheme perfectly! (and they were IN STOCK!)

| The Execution |

Then came time to get to work! We had the ceilings and walls painted first and installed the shelves (that my talented hubby built!). I then began installing the tile piece by piece (with tile glue & homemade spacers) while my husband started installing the tongue and groove on the wall:

As you can see, rather then pre-staining the boards before we installed them, I chose to stain them after for a couple of reasons: 1. we didn’t have a ton of wiggle room in the budget for waste and 2. I had no idea what colors I wanted to stain them! (minor detail right?!). I needed to see the boards up with the wall color, trim color, and brick to make my decision!

This is also the reason I went with a tongue-and-groove board verses my normal shiplap (have I mentioned I have a thing for shiplap – 😉 haha). T&G boards are much easier to finish after they are installed because there isn’t that gap between the boards to try and squeeze a brush in! It also offers a similar look as shiplap, but has cleaner, straight lines when doing multiple colors of stains.

I went with a combination of 5 mixed stain colors (made with about eight or nine different stains). I could not tell you the exact mixture of each… which is typically the case when I am working with stain! I just kept mixing and added colors until I felt like I had a good combo. I tested the stains on scrap wood and then went to work!

Here is a progress picture, of the all the boards stained and the brick up:

Then came time to add the mortar… such a messy, messy job! And holy-arm workout!!! I installed the “grout” with a grout tile bag … which was HEAVY as heck! My arms were burning by the time I filled each gap between each brick!

BTW – How much do you Love these floating shelves built by my talented hubby!?!

I wish I had a picture of the counters after I “cleaned” the grout lines … lets just say there was a reason the counters are covered with plastic! Mortar was everywhere! If you ever do this – know it is a messy job!

While I did the mortar, my husband finished installing the MDF trim and put a coat of polyurethane on the T&G stained boards . I then came through and patched the nail holes & painted the trim!

After about three coats of paint on the trim and a coat of sealer on the brick veneer, it was time to accessorize and have the grand revel!

| The Final Look |

And that was a wrap! It took us a little longer then expected to finish (we thought 2-3 days…. haha turned into 6 – but if there is anything we have learned with DIYs… very little goes according to plan & you just have to roll with it!
We had a great time creating this space & were pretty happy with the end result!

Here is one last look at the Before and After – Such a transformation!!