Kelly’s story starts with a movie "Something’s Gotta Give". She loved the layout of the home in that film and had always wanted to build a forever home. The first step began 10 years ago when they met with the architect. A few issues with the property delayed the start by about a year and it took two years to complete the build.
She took her time because she knew this was it, this was going to be her forever home and she wanted it to be just as she envisioned.
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Painted Tongue & Groove Wood Paneling
PROJECT: 9000 SQFT Primed & Painted Wood Paneling
The Wood Species - SPF white wood blend
The Wood Grade - Select Tight Knot (STK) #2 KD - Graded to Smooth side
The Paneling Pattern - 1x8" Tongue And Groove with Micro Beveled Edge profile
PRE Finished - Prime + 1 Coat Paint - "Accessible Beige" and "Dove White"
The T&G Pattern Kelly chose is called a "Micro-Bevel" or "Micro V". The standard T&G pattern has a 1/4 inch V cut on each side to get a 1/2 inch "V" when the wood is put together. Kelly used 1/8 inch V cut to get narrower 1/4 inch "V" when put together.

The Home Owners - Kelly, husband, 2 daughters and 4 dogs!
We interviewed Kelly after we posted her project on HOUZZ and she had some great quotes so we decided to tell her story in her own words.
Kelly: "We wanted to build our own house and I did not want to move again. We had moved quite a bit earlier on. I like rehabbing and I like design, as a stay at home mom it has been my hobby and we wanted our forever home."

The Movie "Somethings Gotta Give" was the inspiration for the layout of the house.
Kelly: "There’s all these crazy people, because obviously it’s just a movie set, but these crazy people had sketched out a floorplan of what they thought the house would look like and that’s what we literally took to our architect. His wife had seen the movie and loved it so he was very excited."

GREAT ROOM (Living Room Right)
Being a stay at home Mom and lover of all things design, allowed her the time and patience to get it exactly right.
Kelly: "That movie was my inspiration but the whole time I kept thinking 'man this is too formal' and then Chip and Joanna came along."
About halfway through the 10 year project she saw an episode of “The Fixer Upper” with Chip and Joanna Gaines. She saw a home transformation from formal to casual, a more farmhouse lived in look, which is what she wanted, especially with a husband, 2 daughters and 4 dogs at home.

GREAT ROOM (Living Room Left)
The show featured painted shiplap style interior wood paneling and she decided to make a change.
Kelly: "Really all I changed was the wall design. They had initially done a lot more formal, less wood with more intricate designs and I never liked it. I felt terrible about it but then that episode of Fixer Upper came on and it was like Kismet. That’s it, shiplap wood paneling everywhere."
As featured on HOUZZ Old Farmhouse Family Home Design - Rustic & Elegant!

Frustrated with the local box store "junk" she was finding, she turned to the web and Buffalo Lumber. She shared her vision with Jason and decided to do almost the entire home, guest house, and outside porch soffit with a ship lap shadow box profile Painted wood paneling. She decided to paint 6000 SQFT Sherman Williams Accessible Beige and 3000 SQFT Benjamin Moore White Dove.

MASTER BATH - The tile is Carrera Marble 1" Hex in the bathroom and 2" Hex in the shower
Kelly: "So, along with the fixer upper shiplap look, it’s supposed to look rustic and like it’s been there forever. The wood paneling just transformed the whole house into something more casual, more farmhouse, more lived in and comfortable."
The product was reasonably priced, not a huge difference between level 5 drywall. But more importantly the custom milled wood paneling is a quality product - delivered pre-primed and painted with a good quality paint to achieve the desired rustic look and to stand up to the wear and tear of a family of 8, including the 4 dogs.


A note from Buffalo Lumber: The rustic shiplap wood paneling design trend getting traction from the Fixer Upper show (and other sources) is a custom profile variously called Shadow Line, Shadow Gap, Penny Gap or Nickel Gap. The design idea is to have a thin shadow line showing where the boards meet which creates that aesthetic. Typically this "nickel gap" shadow look is a custom milled SHIPLAP pattern.
For Kelly we went instead with a TONGUE & GROOVE pattern milled with a micro bevel edge (or micro V) to create the shadow line. The choice of the Tongue and Groove profile instead of shiplap allowed her builder to hide the nail during installation which created a cleaner finished look.

With 2 teenage daughters and 4 dogs how do you keep all this white clean?
Kelly: (Laughing) "The kids and I have only been here about 6 months but the kids have had probably 10 parties and it’s just, you know it’s a good quality paint. Bleach is great, I have everything slip covered and it’s washable."

Kelly: "I don’t like anything pristine or too white. I know it looks like that in the pictures, I get it, but believe me there’s dog scuff marks and kid scuff marks and chips and I love it. It’s part of the look!"

Normally 2 coats of paint are required to completely mask natural wood paneling features but Kelly decided on just one top coat.
Kelly: "I was fighting with my builder. He kept trying to cover up where the knots showed through and the color showed through but I wanted it to. So, along with the fixer upper shiplap look, it’s supposed to look rustic and like it’s been there forever."

The Tongue And Groove (T&G) Wood Paneling painted in subtle shades of gray and white completed the transformation from rustic Farmhouse design to amazing Family Home. On the costs of painted wood vs drywall...
Kelly: "You can go with ugly drywall but if you go with level 5 (nice) drywall that stuff is expensive. Obviously it is more for the wood (materials and labor) but it’s not out of reach for a lot of people. It makes a HUGE difference and there is a HUGE impact with it. It’s like night and day!"
And working with Buffalo Lumber?
Kelly: "It was so easy to work with Buffalo Lumber. Jason did a great job and it was seamless."

What kind of flooring do you have in there?
Kelly: "It’s just a white oak and the key is it does not have any polyurethane on it. Literally the dogs tear through the whole house all day and not a single mark on it.
It’s odd that the wood doesn’t scratch, it’s the linseed oil. For years people were slapping polyurethane on their floors thinking it doesn’t scratch but that is EXACTLY what scratches. One of my dogs is 70 pounds and I drag furniture all over and it just does not scratch. "

White oak flooring with linseed oil finish
The entire project has taken about 10 years to date. 8 years were spent designing and making decisions and 2 years to actually build it. We asked Kelly if she was happy with the result.
Kelly: "I wanted a forever home built from scratch. The beauty of the painted wood paneling makes it look like its been here forever, an old farmhouse in the middle of Florida, oh yes, this is our forever home! Decorating never ends but that’s what makes it fun!"

We agree completely. I always come away from these customer shoots feeling good that we had something to do with helping people achieve their dreams. Kelly's dream really came together to create something very special.
Their happiness and the awestruck reactions of visitors really makes me appreciate how lucky I am to be doing this for a living.
Chris Buffalo Buffalo Lumber Company Inc.

Buffalo Lumber provided the 1x8" T&G painted wood paneling for walls, porch ceiling and soffit
Credits go to: "Seamus Payne Photography" for this beautiful customer shoot, Sterling Builders in Tampa, Jeff Smith of Aude Smith Architecture in Dunedin, Chip and Joanna Gaines of "The Fixer Upper" and the makers of "Somethings’ Gotta Give".
