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With a picture frame molding accent wall, scale and pattern are important.

DIY Picture Molding for Plain Walls

Try out this fun weekend project to add dimension to plain drywall. 1 GET YOUR PARAMETERS Start by taking measurements of the chosen wall to ascertain the available space for the picture molding boxes. Identify places on the wall where the picture molding can’t go, such as electrical outlets, light switches, baseboard and window or door frames. Sketch this elevation to scale, either on paper or in digital software. 2 PLEASING PROPORTIONS This is potentially the most difficult part of the project—getting the number and proportions of the picture molding boxes right! Think about the wall as a grid with rows and columns, and start sketching out possible layouts. While mapping this, keep in mind the key elements that will affect the final look: repetition and asymmetry. An odd number of rows and columns will look best. When the layout is complete in 2D, use a pencil and a large…

A cozy indoor garden scene featuring an easel-style shelf holding multiple potted plants, including succulents and cacti, with natural light from a nearby window, capturing the essence of Oregon lifestyle and gardening culture.

DIY Cedar A-Frame Plant Stand

illustration by Charla Pettingill Plant lovers, this one is for you—a weekend woodworking project that packs more plants into one space, courtesy of this simple A-frame plant stand. We’re building it out of cedar, so it can go outside on the patio; however, the shelves are removable and it can fold up (courtesy of carriage bolts), so feel free to put this anywhere. Here are our instructions. 1 MATERIALS We’re opting to build the A-frame supports on either side from four 8-foot-long, cedar 2x4s. There will be eight supports for the shelves, each support measuring a foot long, so you will need one 8-foot-long cedar 1×3. The shelves will require two 8-foot-long, cedar 1x12s. Prep the wood, if needed, and give it a light sanding. 2 BUILD THE A-FRAME Cut the 2x4s to 73 inches. Cut the bottom of each leg, where it will be sitting on the ground, at…

DIY Horseshoe Pit

DIY Backyard Horseshoe Pit Guide

illustration by Kate Wong Come summer, we’re ready to play lawn games. Horseshoes are a classic, and a horseshoe pit court can be as simple, or complicated, as you like, as well as a straightforward weekend project to build. Here are our tips: 1. PLOT THE COURT A regulation court requires the metal stakes to be 40 feet apart. To keep this simple, measure the distance across a relatively flat plane, and pound a metal stake in the ground at either end. However, to create a cushioned area for the horseshoes to land, prevent bounce and foster fair play, it’s best to build a pit. Build two pits across from each other, or a single one that players will take turns on. To get really fancy, add a backstop to the pit to contain the flying shoes. 2. PLAN THE PIT Each pit will be 3 x 4 feet, with…

Wood slat accent wall

Build a Wood Slat Accent Wall

illustration by Sophie Barlow It doesn’t look like it, but a wood slat accent wall is a fairly beginner-friendly project. The idea is to create an accent wall in your room of choice—perhaps in an entry or hallway—composed of a series of 1×2 boards. It’s a modern look that adds architectural character, warmth and texture. 1. GATHER WOOD Measure for the accent wall dimensions, getting height and length. This project is based around boards that are listed as 1 inch x 2 inch x 8 feet (or 10 feet, depending on ceiling heights), yet the actual dimensions of the boards will be smaller, about 3/4 inch x 1½ inch. However, since there is about a ½-inch gap between each board, to determine the number of slats needed, just divide the length of the wall (in inches) by two, and add an extra board or two to the cart for mishaps….

A Portland interior designer undertakes a difficult mission—modernizing a classic cabin.

How to Decorate a Log Cabin

A Portland interior designer crafts a delightful, rustic-meets-modern retreat in Black Butte Ranch written by Melissa Dalton | photography by Kayla McKenzie When interior designer Wendy Scott bought this log home in Black Butte Ranch, the sale included not just the house, but everything inside it. “You name it, we inherited it,” said Scott. “Forks, cups, art, baskets of dusty fake ivy upon baskets of dusty fake ivy, log beds, phones from 1980, linens that were thirty years old, and games with missing pieces.” As one of the oldest, most traditional forms of American architecture, log cabins are storied enough without all the additional stuff. This one, built in 1990, is a more contemporary version, but still came with the design problems unique to its typology. For Scott, deciding what to keep or toss was the first of many issues to tackle. Add to that, the fact that the thick…

The fine craftsmanship of Perpetually Devastated played out in a 1968 Overlander.

Art and Craft in an Airstream

A couple creates one-of-a-kind Airstream interiors in Southern Oregon written by Melissa Dalton photography by Bethany Williams With a business name like Perpetually Devastated, Parker Bolden and Bethany Williams are used to explaining the meaning. “We are sensitive people and find the state of our world depressing sometimes,” said Williams. “People hate others just for being different. There’s environmental degradation, extractive capitalism, the list could go on and on. You could just be really sad. It’s all perpetually devastating. And yet, you have to find a way to make yourself happy, to make things just a little bit better if you can.” One of the ways that the two have done that is by renovating Airstream trailers alongside a talented crew at their shop in Southern Oregon. Each project starts with a trailer that has solid bones, which they use as a base to rebuild the interior from scratch, from…

Natural fibers and warm colors follow the aesthetic of the Columbia Gorge below this Mosier home.

Natural Beauty

A house in Mosier captures everything special about the Columbia River Gorge written by Melissa Daltonphotography by Christopher Dibble Richard Brown is no stranger to working on esteemed sites. Consider the architect’s deft addition to a 1949 Pietro Belluschi house in Oak Grove—Belluschi being perhaps Oregon’s most famous modern architect and known worldwide. But when the owners of 10 acres near Mosier in the Columbia River Gorge reached out, it wasn’t an existing house that struck awe in Brown. It was the land. “My first thought was, ‘This is a rare opportunity for us to work with a really beautiful site,’” said Brown. “I felt a great responsibility to be respectful, in order to take advantage of as many aspects of it as we can.” The Columbia River Gorge is indeed dramatic: a canyon 80 miles long and 4,000 feet deep in spots, cut by the Columbia River and marking…

Chris Martini's first wood-burning hot tub on Mount Hood

DIY: Wood-Fired Hot Tubs

Photography by Northwest Timber Tubs A few years ago, Chris Martini’s friends asked for help with a project. They had bought property at the base of Mount Hood and wanted to build a hot tub there. The only catch? The tub needed to be completely off-grid and fueled by a wood-fired stove. Having extensive experience as a carpenter, and most recently managing production for a teardrop trailer company for five years, Martini thought the project sounded like a fun design challenge. “They sent me pictures of some fairly crude designs from the internet that they had found. Real simple stuff of an old tub with a copper coil set-up on the outside,” said Martini. “But the issue with that set-up is that it takes forever to heat up.” Martini got to designing and building, not only the tub, but the platform beneath it, the stove insert, and a retractable roof…

Designer Max Humphrey pulled ocean and sage colors from Manzanita and found the tile to make it work.

Three Bathrooms, One Designer

Max Humphrey shares three very different bathroom designs for inspiration written by Melissa Dalton photography by Christopher Dibble Considering everything Max Humphrey has done before starting his Portland-based interior design business—including working in television and film production in Los Angeles, and touring the United States and England as a bassist in a punk band—perhaps it should come as no surprise that he has this advice for prospective bathroom remodelers. “Bathrooms don’t need to be neutral and boring,” Humphrey said, who is also the author of the recent style guide Modern Americana. The following three projects show us how that’s done. Manzanita: A nature-inspired main suite For a top-to-bottom gut remodel of a 1978 house in Manzanita, Humphrey worked with the Portland architecture firm Beebe Skidmore to swap out the home’s dated finishes for a beach cabin aesthetic that takes inspiration from the immediate natural surroundings. “An Oregon beach is very…