Police Station Makeover {Reveal}

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The police station is done! Oh my. When I tell you this project just about ate every brain cell I had, I am not kidding. As many of you know, this project was a community service project sponsored by Sherwin-Williams and Wayfair as part of the 2016 National Painting Week campaign. This was by far a super fun project, in fact, my favorite so far to date.  When you do a community service project, especially one this big, you have to expect a few snags along the way. I won’t bore you with a lot of words because I know many of you are like me, you just want to look at the pictures. -ha

The break room before was pretty indescribable. There are really no words for this room before.

When I tell you this room scared me, it really did. I quickly realized that a little spruce up wasn’t going to cut it so we gutted the entire room and started fresh. My friend Jake McGovern from Paramount Woodworking was generous enough to donate his time, materials and his nights to make all new kitchen cabinets. Aren’t they gorgeous? We worked sometimes until 9pm at night on this kitchen, cutting and sanding the doors. I never realized what went into making kitchen cabinets. I think I sanded off 3 layers of skin on my fingers. -ha. Poor Jake ended up getting the flu in the middle of this project but worked through it just to get these done in time for my deadline.  Little did Jake know that once the cabinets were done, I wasn’t finished with him. You see that amazing wood table? We made it! It’s solid walnut and I almost kept it for myself. They needed a solid heavy duty table that would fit in this small space and everything I found to buy, was either too big or not sturdy enough. SO, I tracked down Jake, showed him a picture and he literally rolled his eyes at me.-ha. Jake, you truly are a rockstar and created a gorgeous focal point for this room.

We picked the Sherwin-Williams color Topsail for the walls, Extra White for the trim, doors, ceiling and Pure White for the kitchen Cabinets. The goal was brighten up the room but add a hint of color so we decided a pale blue with a crisp bright white trim would look great. I personally love white cabinets and because the space was so small, it was important to give the illusion that that space was larger so incorporating white cabinets helped open the space up.

Before.

Once we got the kitchen cabinets installed, Silva Stone from Millbury Ma, was kind enough to donate the black granite countertop. Do you know Silva? He is the best! He also did our kitchen counters in our recent kitchen renovation and they turned out gorgeous. I have always loved how white cabinets and black granite look together.  The new counter space gives them enough room for the new microwave and glass jars full of candy.

Here is another before.

I am not sure they agree with my adorable sign but I liked it.

The officers laughed and rolled their eyes at this sign I picked up at HomeGoods. My happy place. -haha. One of the biggest issues they had, besides lacking style, was that their storage was limited. The kitchen cabinets and brand new filing cabinets add a tremendous amount of storage and they look pretty too.

Work Station / Tv Wall before:

After:

Their existing work station consisted of an old desk that was falling apart and was full of stuff they never used. So I used two of the new filing cabinets we got them as pedestals for the desktop. I am so thankful to Guaranteed Builders in Douglas, Ma for helping me make the laminate desktops as well as the generous donation of some of the 4 drawer filing cabinets. Thank you Lou!  The laminated desk top provides a clean washable surface and it looks great too. We simply screwed the desktop to the filing cabinets and created a functional work station.  The beautiful office chairs are all from Wayfair. My overall theme for the room was a functional industrial break room and the armless leather chairs with chrome legs provided the perfect seating for the space.

I opted for a red leather desk chair for the work station and I got a few eye rolls when it arrived at the station. I told them they needed to get out of their comfort zone and embrace the design trend. -ha. The chair was a hit with the handful of ladies that work at the station. I got them all new desk and storage accessories along with new bullet and dry erase boards. Do you know how hard it was to not cover this desk with pretty pink and gold polka dots with a hint of chevron?

This was the wall before where the little sad table sat with the microwave along with a bunch of other “stuff.”

After:

Better right? Like I said earlier, the goal was to give the officers more storage so we created a tabletop area using four new filing cabinets. We made the same type of laminate desktop that we did for the work station and made a coffee station area. Yes, they were excited over the new popcorn machine from Wayfair, cookies and chocolates. They didn’t have a coffee maker so the new Keurig caused a bit of excitement, especially with the Kathy, the dispatcher.

The chalkboard is for a daily inspirational quote that Kathy, the dispatcher, likes to leave for the officers.

I know some of you are wondering where all their stuff is? Well, it’s amazing what happens when you empty a room. The trash pile becomes huge and the addition of the filing cabinets and kitchen cabinets allows for all the non-essential stuff to be hidden.

Before:

After:

We replaced or painted everything in the room except for the flooring. There wasn’t much we could do so Jim Fitzpatrick, from NU Services in Sutton, offered to come clean the floor and spruce it up. The floor went from crapola to fabola in about an hour so thank you so much Jim!

Before:

After:

I made a space on the far wall for a framed inspiration quote along with some of the kids baseball teams they have sponsored in the past. I moved their large black mailbox to the back room which we spray painted. I will share that little room project on another day.

They look pretty happy in this picture but they tried to run away five minutes prior.  For a group of tough guys, they certainly are wimpy when it comes to getting their pictures taken. If you look in the mirror in top left of the picture, you will see about 4 officers hiding. They told me I take too many pictures ;).

The beautiful honeycomb light gray shades were installed by my friend Sue Adams who owns the local Budget Blinds Franchise for the Blackstone Valley area. This is the only window in the room so it was important to have a shade that still allowed the light to come in but also provide privacy. I made the cornice board out of plywood and covered with fabric. Thank you Sue for helping me hang this beast. I will share that tutorial soon!

Choosing the fabric was challenging. It took every bone in my body to not buy pretty girly looking drapes. I kept telling myself, “stay focused Jess, neutral decor and not too girly.”

Here is one last before:

After:

Phew, that was a lot of pictures! Don’t laugh, the Chief walked in as I was taking pictures of myself with my remote and he said, “what are you doing?”  Yes, we bloggers do some crazy stuff for a blog post.

Check out this cool video of our makeover journey.

 

And that’s a rap. Thank you to Sherwin-Williams and Wayfair for making this community service project possible as a part of National Painting Week. I think this was my favorite project to date since blogging. It was so much fun to work with everyone at the station and bring the room to life. I had a lot of laughs (these guys are funny) and realized that in my next life, I want to work at a police station- ha. Never a dull moment and so much excitement. I can’t end though without thanking a certain officer for all his help. Officer Mike Mcgee was a huge help in getting this project done. He was always willing to pitch in and do whatever needed to be done, even if it meant moving filing cabinets 15 times a week. -ha. Of course, thanks to Chief Dennis Towle for getting the room emptied and helping me paint. Kathy, Denise and Maureen for protecting my stuff and keeping the “boys” from messing things up (and eating the props …..candy and cookies) and thanks to the rest of the officers who helped out and had to eat lunch elsewhere because the room was a mess.

*update: Our makeover was featured in the Millbury Sutton Chronicle

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Sherwin-Williams and Wayfair. All opinions and words are 100% my own.