The Pioneer Woman Set- Blank, White Wall Be Gone

Oh hey friends! Today, I am sharing part of the set that I created for my friend- The Pioneer Woman. It all started when I did a room makeover for her friend, Hy. Hy and I got along great (and I have to say the makeover turned out pretty swell too. ;)), so she introduced me to PW. I guess Ree liked the room makeover as well, because not long after she asked me to spruce up the set for her cooking show! If you’ve watched previous seasons, you may have noticed that the background was pretty neutral and not quite Ree. If you read her blog, you know the PW is a vibrant, funny, and warm person- so her set needed to reflect that!

THE PREVIOUS SET

After thinking through what I wanted to do, Tim and I loaded up the car and headed to Pawhuska, which is only about an hour away from us! Lucky me, right!? After we came to the end of what I am sure is the longest dirt road ever, we arrived at “The Lodge!” The kitchen itself mimicked the land it was surrounded by- huge, open, and beautiful! However, just like God paints a sunset across the Pawhuska sky every night, I needed to add some color to the kitchen to make it pop on camera.

There are lots of rules to set decorating that I won’t go into now, but to keep it simple- the main purpose of decorating a set is to create an interesting backdrop that will add to the show, but not be so distracting that it takes your attention away from the purpose of the show- in this case Ree and the food!

One definite “no-no” in set decorating is having large white spaces. These are very distracting (because they’re so bright) and just boring. That was the issue we had over by the stove in Ree’s kitchen.

I knew this was an area we would be focusing on because Ree mentioned the fact that she really wanted to do something with the space. I didn’t want to do anything that would damage the tile or be too permanent (because we might want to change the look for upcoming seasons of the show). So, I brainstormed a few ideas and settled on making a shelf that would be suspended from the vent hood!

Then, it was Tim’s turn to get to work! He sourced a big, beautiful piece of wood that fit right in with the lodge and we used a rustic rope to hang the shelf! Do you think the Marlboro Man approved of our design!?

After the shelf was hung, it was time to decorate it and the rest of the area around the stove! I love using plants or greenery to make a set feel “alive” and so I thought some hanging herbs would make sense and provide that little bit of green I was looking for.

Of course, it also made sense to have the essential cooking oils close by, so they went on the shelf as well. I used Ree’s plates and pots to bring in rainbow of beautiful colors. I love using pieces in unexpected ways, so when I saw this file organizer at Pottery Barn, I knew it had to act as a plate holder in PW’s kitchen. It really works perfectly!