I Love This…Wood Accent Wall

Kristy Pennino and her DIY wood plank wall.

Kristy Pennino and her husband, Volker Gallichio, moved into their newly built home in the Oakland Park community of Winter Garden a little over a year ago. Immediately, they wanted to personalize their living space. “Although our modern style preferences worked well with white walls, the living room was too sterile and unfinished,” says Pennino, who is a professor and program chair for Valencia College’s Graphic + Interactive Design program. The couple wanted a timeless look that would bring in the outdoor elements of their new surroundings. They considered paint and wallpaper, but eventually decided on a more natural technique they had seen in their travels throughout Europe and the western U.S. “We were in Arizona and fell in love with some wood accent walls in a restaurant where we were dining.” After a lot of research, they discovered Everitt & Schilling (eandstile.com), a distributor of American reclaimed barn wood planks, based in Colorado. Although the company did most of the pre-finishing work like cutting the planks to size and applying a special backing, Pennino and Gallichio took on the labor themselves. “This was our first substantial DIY project together, and it must have been a smart choice because we’re still married,” Pennino laughs. As for future DIY projects, she says: “We’d love to add a fire pit and an outdoor living space. And, well, we do have some leftover barn wood planks”… just in case they have another white wall to fill.