At the beginning of the year I embarked on my biggest diy project yet: our church coffee shop makeover. Even though it took quite a while to finish up, I’m so happy with how it came out. It was fun designing and being creative with using what we already had on hand so we could be wise with our budget for it. I’m very thankful for the many people who helped make this a reality with their time and donations. It’s now a nice area to be used by the church for fellowship, classes/meetings, and provides an area for the many people who come in during the week seeking help through counseling/food bank/other needs/etc.

Before I get into the details, let’s take a look at the before. It was a very nice spot that they had redone when the church first moved into this building. For some background, the building was originally a grocery store. Then another church bought it and started to work on the interior to make it more functional for church purposes. And after they had it, they moved on to a different building and our church moved in and began using it. It still has a lot of work to be done to be used to it’s full potential, but we are getting there. Here is the before (pics courtesy of Clark Miller) :

As you can see, one of the most noticeable transformations was taking that wall down and opening it up. I was told this used to be a children’s area, which is why I’m sure the wall was there (to keep them in there lol). But as a coffee shop, the wall was a hindrance. If people were standing in the entrance, it was hard to get in. Now there is much more flow and it feels a lot more welcoming. We painted the whole area to brighten it up. I ended up going with Sherwin Williams Icy Avalanche (HGSW1497) in eggshell for the walls and Sherwin Williams Carbonzied in semi-gloss (HGSW1481) for the baseboards and cabinets. Since this church has a lot of foot traffic, we noticed the white baseboards on the inside would look dingy and dirty real quick. Painting the baseboards a darker color hides a lot more of the wear and tear.

For the counter area we did a few simple things to take it up a notch. We painted the cabinets, which thankfully went perfect with the main counter tops so there was no need to replace them, but we did paint the back counter tops with special paint just for that since they were red. Someone had some of this paint they never used and it ended up being a great match to the overall color scheme. FIY, the special counter top paint stinks horribly! So if you ever do this, be prepared for that. We had the walls covered in this wood that was actually old shelving from in the back of the church. I gave it a good sanding to get rid of a lot of the scuff marks and then gave it a coat of polycrylic to protect it from food and drink splashes. We had these lights from Lowes installed to give some more ambient light which I spray painted them black to match. They changed the name of the shop to Fifteen Fifty-One, which is the address number of the church, so I created a new logo (using a template from creative market) to update it. To get it on the wall, I used a projector to project the image, traced it with a pencil, and then painted it in.

I used premade chalkboard panels from Home Depot for the chalkboards and Nekoda Derouen framed them with wood and put them in place. We stained wood to create shelves to hold some of the supplies and I spray painted galvanized piping/flanges/caps to hold them in place (here is a great tutorial on all that).

To help with the customer flow, I made an order here sign to place above the counter. I simply stained some wood, created the letters from vinyl on my Cricut Explore, and drilled some holes to hang it with rope.

We also decided to make a large chalkboard menu. This was on the large side so I actually used thin wood panels that I painted with chalkboard paint. Then Nekoda put these together as well and framed them and Marybeth Anderson did the amazing chalk design. For the next little corner, I had the idea to create a more comfy and casual sitting area. Nekoda went and found these wicker shelves in church storage and added legs to create benches. He reused tops from other old benches to go on top and a lovely volunteer covered them in a drop cloth for us. The tables were old stools that he cut down and added new tops and painted. I found the metal stools at Hobby Lobby and helped make a bunch of the pillows to go with it. I also added some metal magazine holders so people can have something to look at when they are sitting here.

The “gather” word was another word that I projected on the wall, traced, and painted. Such an easy project with a big impact! Beside that area is what I call the “testimony wall.” I wanted a place where we could share pictures, stories, and encouraging quotes/verses. I was inspired by a board idea I found on pinterest. The words “tell”, “story”, and on the word bubble, were all made from vinyl. I found the wood “your” letters from Target and painted the sides of them, and then Nekoda made those word bubbles for me. I filled in the boards with all kinds of things, but many of the printables I used were from this site.

The other side of the coffee shop needed a little love too, so Clark designed these and we had engineer prints made and framed them.

For a few final touches, Nekoda made this barn door to replace the old one and an awesome trashcan cover.

All the tables used were also old tables found in the church and made over or made from scratch by Nekoda and the beautiful new flooring was installed by awesome volunteers. I still can’t believe it’s all done, but it is and functions perfectly for what we need right now. I’m currently working on the parent’s room now and can’t wait to share that. I installed my first ever board and batten wall there! Now I’m going to do one in my own home haha. Oh, and if you follow me on instagram you saw that there will be a new {free!} girls dress pattern releasing soon, so be on the lookout for that soon.

-jess