Getting Graphic in the Green Room – Accent Wall Style!

I decided way back some time last year that the green room was in need of a little makeover, (more details on that to follow, so stay tuned) and what better way to get started in that direction than to do an accent wall?!

Ahh, the beloved accent wall - a new one pops up on my Pinterest feed at least three times a week, and it seems as though everyone in blogland is doing one… and well … now so am I!

Check it out:

I thought long and hard about how to accent this wall for a very, very long time – going from thoughts of a solid contrasting color, to stripes, to something stenciled, to finally deciding on something grahic, abstract and super colorful.  Even though this little project was a long time a coming, I am glad that I deliberated over it for as long as I did, making sure that it was something that I would absolutely love and that reflects me.

Here’s a quick little pictorial rundown of my day-to-day progress: (I am currently working on a more detailed how-to that’ll even include a little step-by-step video, so again, stay tuned for that!)

And finally, after making a few more tweaks, I called this turkey done!

My inspiration for this project came primarily from the painting below by my super talented and bestie, Devon Nowlin:

and also from this image that I came across on Etsy:

As an added bonus, I completed this project just in the nick of time to submit toward the self-imposed  “Pinterest Challenge” that the ladies over at YoungHouseLove and BowerPower cooked up to get folks to stop pinning and start doing their pinned projects (more on that here). So you can click on the button below to get in on this big ol’ pinterest-project-share-fest and check out lots of other fabulous DIY projects that the great people of blogland are doing and showing off:

Here are some of the accent walls that I have pinned along the way that have inspired me to create an accent wall of my own:

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Thanks for looking!!!!!

Master Bedroom Painted!

Well it only took me three weeks (working at it a few weeknights a week) but it’s finally all done! This was my first attempt at painting a ceiling, aside from the teeny tiny one in the master bathroom, and also my first time to paint all the trim in a room, which for this room included baseboards, crown moulding, two door surrounds, three window sills and also the closet trim.  Whew, glad it’s all done!!! And I am very, very pleased with the results

I wanted the walls a shade of greige, something earthy and clay-like, so with the following inspiration colors in mind…

… I narrowed it down to these three options:

Benjamin Moore’s “Revere Pewter,” “Baby Fawn,” and ” Dove Wing.”

After slapping a sampling of each color on a variety of walls in my bedroom, right away it was clear that “Dove Wing” was much too light and “Revere Pewter” was too cool for my liking.  I really liked “Baby Fawn,” but didn’t find the hue saturated just quite enough, so I tried a fourth sample – “Baby Fawn” mixed at 100% darker, and BAM! I found my color:

I decided to paint the trim semi-gloss ultra white first, that way I didn’t have to be too precise in my efforts, and boy, what a difference it made:

It’s so clean-looking and really makes everything pop!

After getting through that phase, I tackled the ceiling next, mainly because I really wanted it painted and I knew the likelihood of me ever getting around to doing it after the walls were complete would be drastically decreased if I didn’t do it first! My first thought on ceiling color was to go lighter.  I thought I would just mix all the paint samples along with some of the wall paint and go with that, but after a little deliberation, I decided that I wanted to paint the doors in there black, so I thought making the ceiling a little darker and moodier would tie everything together real nice (we’ll see how that all works out at a later time).  So in addition to all the samples getting mixed together, I added a little black to the mix, which resulted in this:

Then finally, the following week, Olive and I got busy painting the walls, which you can see a peek of in the above photo:

 

The final outcome:

I really like it! The wall color leans toward a warmer beige tone at well-lighted times, and toward a cooler gray tone in low-key lighting. I’m currently working on getting the curtains back up and I’m already liking how the darker accent colors pop against the more neutral wall color.  So hopefully the addition of a dark headboard and black doors will all work out in the end, we shall see…

Thanks for looking!

Dresser Drawers Turned Wall Shelves Phase 2 – Decoration & Styling

Here it is folks! The winter edition of the unofficial Pinterest Challenge, as created by Katie B. from the blog Bower Power and explained in further detail right here on Young House Love.  For this “challenge,” which is basically a self-imposed challenge to get some of those Pinterest projects that we all have tons of pinned, and turn them into things we’ve actually DONE!

So without further adieu, I share with you the dresser drawers turned wall shelves that I decorated and styled up for this challenge:

When I left off on the installation process of these shelves, they looked like this:

Getting them all prettied and decked up was a fairly simple project.  I just used some decorative wrapping paper, from World Market, cut to size and then adhered the paper to the “backs” (technically the drawer bottoms) of the shelves using double-stick tape:

So much prettier and happier looking than the dull, brown backgrounds, don’t you think!?

And as far as “styling” the shelves, I just grabbed some books, bookends, and other little knickknacks I had on other shelves around the house and quickly arranged them to have some photos for this challenge post.

Feel free to checkout tons of other really great Pinterest projects by clicking on the ”Pinterest Challenge” picture below and scrolling to the very bottom of the post:

And you can click right here to check out the inspiration photos that I have pinned to my Pinterest board for this project:)

Thanks for looking!!!

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 14,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Dresser Drawers Turned Wall Shelves Phase 1- Installation

As a continuation of my self-imposed Pinterest challenge (more on that here) I have gotten the installation phase of my drawer shelves complete:

This is one of those projects that I would file under “upcycling” or “restyling” as they are known in DIY blogland - where you take something that you found or have lying around the house that you don’t use or don’t LOVE in its current state, and upcycle it into something awesome that you do love. These projects also tend to be budget friendly - I snatched these drawers for free from an old retired dresser of my little cousin’s that was getting tossed.

The process was fairly simple.  After spotting a blank area on one of the walls in the den that could house a little project like this, I first put a quick couple coats of paint on the drawer fronts (paint color left over from the blue room - Behr’s ”Caribe”) :

Then I cut out paper templates to the size of each drawer and arranged them on the wall several times until I came up with a configuration that I  liked:

After that, it was basically just predrilling and drilling holes into the drawers and into the wall (using wall anchors) and getting them up one at a time until they were all mounted:

And that was pretty much it!

Below are some inspiration photos for this project that I have pinned here:

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Pretty inventive and lovely, don’t you think?

In phase 2, I plan on decking out the shelf backings (technically the drawer bottoms) with some pretty fabric or decorative paper, and then decorating and styling the shelves with some lovely tchotchkes aka thrift store finds, so stay tuned for that

Thanks for looking!

Jumping on the Dipped Leg Bandwagon …

… well sort of.

If you read any diy or interior design blogs, then you know what the term “dipped legs” means. It’s one of the biggest trends that can be found all over the blogosphere right now as seen here, here, here, and all over here.

So I decided to hop on that bandwagon and render my own adaptation (hence the “sort of” above) of the whole dipped leg movement that’s currently taking place:

This was a fairly easy little project that I completed over the course of three days, mostly due to the need of so much drying time. First, I snagged the wooden console table from my bedroom (was using it as a vanity in there, but moved all my hair and make-up goods into the master bathroom) and gave it a good wipe down and light sanding:

Then I measured and marked where I wanted the “dipped” area of paint to go and taped things off, also taping around the surface area that would be painted white:

After that, using the same quart of paint from the door Olive and I recently painted, I mixed a little white paint into the blue-green paint to, one, extend the life of the paint, and two, lighten it up a bit:

And then a-painting I went:

This took more coats of paint than I had anticipated. The wood bled through the first three coats, so I ended up applying four coats of paint in the end. If I’d have thought of it, I would have primed it instead of having to paint it over and over again so many times – eh, you live and learn, right? Then after letting things thoroughly dry, I applied four very thin and even coats of satin polyurethane with a foam brush, allowing each coat to thoroughly dry in between applications yet again, and BAM! That was it:

And now on to putting this table to use, any guesses at what we’ll be using it for…

Thanks for looking!

LINKED TO:

http://www.younghouselove.com/2012/10/fall-pinterest-challenge-getting-board/

and

http://www.bowerpowerblog.com/2012/10/pinterest-challenge-is-for-succas/

Related articles

• Rearrange furniture, change paint to boost a room (newscover.co.uk)

Patio Perk Up

It all started with one piece of furniture getting added to the patio mess already at hand. As you can see below (this was about the only “before” shot I could find) the patio was in some need of attention, with bicycles, leftover camping equipment, and rescued living room furniture amongst other things strewn haphazardly about:

After adding the porch swing (thanks mom!) things kind of just got rolling from there. First it was deciding on this arrangement and placement of all the furniture:

Since I was already moving and shaking out there I decided to go ahead and hang up the string lights I already had on hand (bought them on clearance at World Market a couple months ago):

 

Then, you know how sometimes when you update one part of something, the other parts start looking kind of shabby by comparison? Well I had one of those moments and on a whim decided to paint the door:

And add the butterfly door knocker I bought at the Old Home Store over a year ago! :

Things were starting to look pretty good, except for that sad old window covering. Luckily I found one at Lowe’s in the clearance stuff (regular $49, got it for $23 because the package was open and didn’t have any instructions – no biggie) that fit perfectly. And lastly, I added an old crib sheet of Olive’s to the seat cushion of the swing to push the whole ensemble over into the realm of “granny chic” and voila! Things are looking pretty swell out on the patio if I do say so myself :

Thanks for looking!