Color Therapy, Part 3

Click here for Color Therapy, Part 1 and here for Color Therapy, Part 2.

Finally finishing this up! I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath. Since my last post we got some sort of horrible cold/flu thing that pretty much has knocked each of us out of commission for about a week. And, of all irritation, it knocked my blogging schedule off kilter. Oh well. Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging. We are okay with that. 

I'm thinking that since we've paid our dues with this particular horrible illness, perhaps we should be excused from all illness for next year?! Ha, if only it worked that way. 

So, this is what I ended up doing with my beautifully painted clothespins... I found a over-sized Brandy glass vase thing at Walmart, and since I very specifically wanted something that didn't have a lid (I find it irritating to rattle with lids when my hands are full of things), that could eventually serve more than one purpose, and was cheap-ish. This fit the bill on all accounts, and I treasure it greatly.  I think possibly I need another 100 pack of clothespins, yes?! Hee hee!!

 After we were done painting most of the clothespins (I had deliberately withheld some in case I felt the need of another color) the girls and I stood back and looked at our work, and decided that the colors weren't quite full enough--they thought we were missing hot pink. :-) I however, realized that we were missing some depth to balance out the deep purple, and so I found some Navy Blue spray paint and did the ones I'd withheld--I'm SO glad that it ended up working out that way, because the colors look awesome.

 This is the lamp in the upstairs bookcase area, in progress. I love the look of writing on a lampshade, so I tried to accomplish that with this, one of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson, "Hope" is the Thing With Feathers. In short, I was NOT happy with how it turned out.

Things that made it not work very well:

**The fabric of this particular lampshade was really heavy and rough--not conducive to writing on--I couldn't even get pencil to show up on it to initially trace my letters, and painting it with the stiffest of brushes was nigh on impossible. I ended up free-handing it with a toothpick. Which is why it looks so rough.

**If I should write poetry on a lampshade again, I would do a barrel shaped silk or soft paper shade--one that is equally wide at the top as it is on the bottom. And then obviously measure and tape lines to keep the letters uniform, and also, I would first write the entire poem with a pencil, and use an acrylic paint pen over the top of that.

All that being said, it was a learning experience for sure. I had it like this for one night--just to see if I could live with it, and in the few hours I looked at it it made me CRAZY--it became very clear it had to go. So, the next morning I took it downstairs and painted over it with a spray paint to see if it could be salvaged.

 And, AFTER! Painting over it with spray paint worked well enough. You can still read the poem but it isn't so shocking. It doesn't necessarily make my skirts fly up, but it will do for now, and I can live with it.

This space is SO WELL LOVED and used now, at any given time there is usually a girl sitting in the chair with a book and a drink.  I put a coaster there for form for a few months--I figure my kids should at least know when they are and how to use them, but I'm not really that uptight about it after all, I did beat this table with a hammer before I brought it into the house.

 A close-up of the lamp. Goodbye, scary tacky gold, hello lovely interesting green.

 Next on my "Make this House Livable" agenda was the third bedroom. Our third bedroom in every house we've had has always served as the computer room/study/sewing/craft/guest room. And, one reason we were attracted to this house was because the third bedroom was HUGE. Blessedly huge.

It's also been the room that always ends up with the oddest assortment of furniture in it, for some reason.

So, when we first moved into this house I thought we'd do school upstairs at the kitchen table. I assumed that I needed to be near the kitchen while we were doing school, as that is how we'd done it in Wenatchee, and it worked SO well. But, as we've lived in this house it became very obvious that wasn't working out too well, at all. The kitchen and dining area in this house is TINY, and therefore it was ALWAYS a mess with school stuff going on, and whatever else. More than that, it turns out what I needed to be near wasn't the kitchen, but the LAUNDRY ROOM! And in this house, the laundry room is downstairs, a million miles away from the kitchen. This house is seriously weird. So, I set about having us do school downstairs in the third bedroom, aka the computer room/study/sewing/craft/guest room ANNNND... now the School Room too.

Also, the last year or so of our life sewing has really taken a back seat for me. And, obviously that's something that is going to happen here and there, but it was getting to the point where I really missed it. And I needed to figure out a way to fit it back into my life, even if just in a small way.

I didn't take any before pics of this area, but let's just say that it was a mess. This table (which I absolutely LOVE--it is from my uncle and aunt, and was our dining table in Wenatchee, but it doesn't fit in the dining room in this house)  was one leaf smaller, and piled high with fabric and books. Also, the light in this room is wonderful and natural during the day, but it has the weirdest light fixture that is horrifying at night--rendering the room completely unusable, and that is NO exaggeration.

So, goals for organizing this room were:
1. Set up for school, seating and storage and supplies
2. Light so I can sew in the evenings and the girls can play
3. Game/Books/Art storage so the girls can play in this room in the evening while Momma sews and Daddy plays Call of Duty.
4. Storage for sewing stuff and school stuff, so this room can be clean and completely decluttered when guests need to use it.

 We were always needing more chairs in here, so the blue ones in the above photo I found at goodwill for $9.99 a piece. They are wood, so I should be able to repaint them if ever needed, and they are perfect school room chairs for not just this room, but any room of the future. I ended up with one extra little lamp from all my lamp/furniture moving--but it's little enough that it nestles perfectly under the big lamp, so we're calling it good--it is SO NICE to have light in this room in the evening! I can't even say how wonderful it is.

I do need to add one more leaf to the table--I keep forgetting to ask Garrett to help me with that. I was able to do the first one myself, but we need muscle on both ends of the table for another. This huge table is such a blessing down here--we are totally able to have both art/puzzles, whatever going as well as sewing projects. It's been nice to get a bit of sewing back in my life, and also have the room set up so we can spend the evenings with Garrett, down in his Daddy Dungeon, alternately known as our "School Womb" or Guest Womb". Hey, the walls are all dark red. :-)

When I first started into organizing this room I was a little worried that I was going to have to find a half bookcase for our school stuff, and possible some of the craft supplies. Thankfully however, the previous residents of this house had this shelving in the closet. Not so handy for guests who have hanging clothes, but SO nice for our purposes. I don't know what I'd do without all this shelving. This closet full of shelves has proven to be a complete lifesaver for me. I was able to rearrange all our office supplies and craft supplies to also fit sewing and most of our school supplies and about half our games on it too. Yay! I love it when stuff works out like that!

 So this was a fun little project I just couldn't resist.

You see, Anthropologie has these delightful little containers in both large, and small. And, I've been plotting making them mine for a ridiculous amount of time. However, I never could quite bring myself to do it, because of a few reasons:

1. The sizes of them are a little small for actual usefulness.
2. I want more color options for the big one, especially. The blue is pretty, but I wanted a green big one for my sewing stuff.
3. You really need three of them if you're going to store fruits or veggies in them--like one big one, and two small ones, so it would be balanced properly. That could get spendy.
4. I bought 9 pairs of shoes between December and March. Now, realistically, I didn't really buy ANY shoes between December and March. You see, the first ones were my treat to myself since I moved us. And, I got them on sale for $30. If you count our moving process over a period of 3 months that means that I worked for a rate of $10 per month, which is ridiculously low, and shouldn't count against my shoe purchases at all. The next two pairs were with Birthday money, so they ABSOLUTELY don't count. The following two pairs were due to the fact that we moved. I used to run errands in my super warm snow boots all winter long. Now living over here in big-city, classier dressing people as a general rule, wet puddle-ville, it became apparent that snow boots were not going to cut it. So, I had to get a black pair and a brown pair of errand running flat cute (not heeled) boots. I firmly maintain that this is not my fault, and these shouldn't count against me.  Then, I did our taxes this year, and saved us a bundle on not going to an accountant. And I really needed some cute flat sandals for summer. So, I found a black pair and a brown pair--good basics for the need at hand. But then, I realized that anyone in their right mind who's rewarding themselves for the thankless and horrific task of doing taxes, especially in a year where there's a home sale and multiple other fun little things along those lines, should buy sandals in an actual shade of delight--not black or brown. So, I got myself a blue pair. But then, in order to get free shipping I had to spend another $5. So I got myself a coral pair too. And therefore, you see, I haven't ACTUALLY bought nine pairs of shoes. It just SEEMS like I have. My logic here is inescapable.

Somehow though, I find that this particular shoe saga takes a bit of the joy out of spending a ridiculous amount of money at Anthropologie for a few little trinkets, so I'm holding off on that for a while. :-)

Also, should you need any exorbitant purchases justified, I'm your girl, just give me a call.

Also, Disclaimer: My allowable shoe purchase price is stupidly low--so it's not like I spent a ton of money on said shoes.

So, anyhoo-how, after all that, I bought a bucket of strawberries, and and spray painted the trash at the end of the strawberry eating. :-) Then I coated it with multiple coats of an outdoor polyurethane, and I gotta say, I'm THRILLED with the outcome. Totally cute and usable and not the end of the world if it gets stepped on or dropped.

 I don't know anything about food storage and polyurethane, so I don't know that I would ever make these to put food in. Actually, I probably would, but I don't know that I should.

 That being said, I think I might need a yellow one, and an orange one, and a blue one... yeah. :-) Also, the bottom of it is my very favorite part--ha! I will admit to sometimes lifting it up, and grinning at the bottom. :-) It's the little things in life.

 So, for now that ends my pictures of the organization and projects around here. I'll be back with more, soon. Getting sick really threw me off my track--BOO! I'm hoping to be back on it soon. It feels like the clock is ticking for Bebe's arrival. It's not THAT imminent, but I've lost two weeks of good work due to being sick, and I'm not overly thrilled about that. Oh well, we will try to take it as it comes. Be back soon with more fun posts!

Color Therapy, Part 2

For the "before" photos, go to Color Therapy, Part 1. 

Before I proceed with continuing my storybook style recap of the crazy amount of painting that went on around here a few weeks ago, I have a few official items of business to care for from the previous post.

To my dear Sweetheart:

I do apologize for taking a picture of the yard before the dandelions were killed. Rest assured, my readers, the dandelions are all dead. For now.

I also apologize for taking a picture of the back of Rovey with the bolt caps off. I also, since I'm being all apologetic and everything, apologize for not noticing that the tire store didn't put the bolt caps back on--I was distracted by the enormous screw/drill bit that I've been looking for, and apparently we drove around on since last July. 

I DO NOT however, apologize for using the words "cereal bowl" and "underwear" in the same sentence. Mostly because I find it highly amusing that this even disturbed you. Please notice that I have also managed to work the words "cereal bowl" and "underwear" into not one, but two sentences in this blog post.

Thank you, I am done with the official business now.

  

Seriously, this was a ton of painting, that all total--since I was taking breathing breaks especially, haha, took me about three days. If I had it to do over again, this lamp is probably the only thing I would have primed--I didn't realize I even had primer when I started painting it though--I found it a bit later in the game. I was planning on antiquing it with sandpaper after the fact however, so it ended up just fine. I just sanded the bubbly areas down a bit.

Adding the clothespins to a bowl after they're all dried... this is not quite all of them. I used Krylon and Rustoleum spray paint, and the nozzle on the Rustoleum was way better, but the Krylon dried way faster. So you gotta pick your poison, apparently.

The rain started about halfway into my second day, so I had to move it all into the garage... which is beyond dark, and not horrifyingly disorganized, but definitely worse than I would like--I need more shelving, and the inside of the house has to come first. You should have seen the look of horror on my children's faces as I started hauling ALL our lamps out there so I could see what I was doing. "MOM! You can't spray paint all our lamps!!" Haha. I told them I could, and they better watch out, because I might spray paint them too.  Of course, I did not spray paint any of those lamps, or my children.

This is the table after it's coat of stain. Minwax Brand, Jacobean Color, which is my very favorite stain. The legs were pretty beat up, but somehow, strangely enough the top was pristine. It looked weird. I'm not a fan of perfect furniture. Furniture in our house gets drinks set on it, and feet, and whatever else, and that is how we like it. We are in charge--not the furniture. Also, I have the bad habit of not looking where I set my drinks while I'm reading, and spilling my drinks everywhere when I set them halfway on and halfway off the coaster. So, I set about beating the top of this table up with various metal tools I found around the garage and using my patented swing hammer, spin it in the air, let it land however and wherever it wants maneuver. The top matched the legs by the time I was done. :-) One good thick coat of Polyurethane, and the night to cure, and this table was ready to go...

Cleaning the "Command Center" area out... So excited at this point!

Originally when I bought the three Goodwill Lamps, I had intended on just buying regular shades at Walmart and calling it good. But, when I went to Walmart to price them out I realized that at more than $15 a piece, by the the time it was all said and done I'd have been spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 for the shades. Which, realistically isn't that much money, but I have some other things that I want that I would much rather spend that $50 on. So, I decided to go back to Goodwill and see if I could find lampshades that would fit the bill, and come in cheaper. It took two trips, but all together I paid for these three lampshades what I would have paid for ONE at Walmart. Not too shabby. Obviously the colors are all wrong, but with some base coats of spray paint, and then brush coats on two of them, they ended up being a bit of work, but definitely more original and they will work for as long as we need them to.

Drumroll Please!! This is my official "After" photo of my Command Center, right off my kitchen.

All total, including the cost of spray paint and things like a whole tablet of scrap booking paper I had to buy for the girls cameos that I only used about three sheets of, this project came in under $45!! Awesome!

The fabric that I used I didn't count in the cost--because I bought it quite a while ago. I've had it in my stash because I'm collecting fabric to make quilts for my girls. I only used about a 1/2 yard for this. It is Sis Boom Queen Street by Jennifer Paganelli (Maeve in Periwinkle). I assembled the bulletin boards by mounting styrafoam pieces from the packing for the command center desk onto the wood that I knocked from the table I refinished. Then I wrapped the Styrofoam in fabric with Mod-Podge, and mounted the cork board on top.

I LOVE these cameos. They were way harder than I expected them to be--but now that I've done them once, I think they'll be pretty easy to repeat. I have an ultrasound pic in the third frame, and that will obviously be traded out for a cameo once Bebe' is big enough.

The basic process for doing cameos is all over the web, so I won't repeat it here other than to say: take a profile pic, trace the face, freehand what you want their hair to look like if necessary, and then cut it out, trace it onto paper and cut that out, then mount over other pretty paper. There ya go. My tips for doing your own cameos would be:

1) Make sure your photo is a PERFECT 90 degree angle of the face, with closed mouth. If your kid is old enough, show them what you're trying to do so they understand what you're looking for. Telling Brie what I was doing made a magnificent difference in her cooperation anyway. :-)

2) If you're using a 5x7 frame, then print out a 4x6 of the photo. If you're using a 8x10 frame, print out a 5x7. Basically, just go one size smaller than whatever you want your finished product to be. It will look nicer.

The frames were ones that I had around that I just gave a few coats of blue to match the fabric and offset the red in the cameos a bit.

The lamp! I had some "help" with the sanding, so it got a little more antiqued than I probably would have done it in a few places. I'm ok with that though. :-) The shade took to the spray paint quite nicely, but I wanted it to have a brushed look, so I brushed over the top with a few different shades of yellow/tan. The original bottom trim was in rough shape, and the shade wasn't quite long enough for the lamp, so I added a ruffle and bias tape trim from some bias tape I had sitting around to solve both those problems.

This jar was originally a Pirouline tin. My girls use Crayola's Super Tips markers for EVERYTHING, and so I always keep a few extra packages around here as backup, because it feels like they'll all be working just fine, and then one day they're all mashed and unusable any more. I haven't been able to figure out where to keep the backups so they're out of sight but available, and this container solved that problem perfectly. Plus I needed to break up the red just a bit. I'd found the primer by the time I got to this, so I just primed it, yellowed it, and then mod-podged fabric over the top. I also cut out a piece of green paper (same as the bookcase and a few other things in the living room) to tie that color in and also cover up the manila of my pending paperwork file.

So, there ya have it... the "after" of one project completed!!

Color Therapy, Part 1

May will be 6 months since we moved into this house. And, I am reaching that point that I ALWAYS reach after moving (you'd think I'd actively remember this, since we've lived in 5 different places since we got married!) where I'm realizing what works, what doesn't, and what needs help with our living arrangements in this house.

So, the past couple weeks I've set about getting things the way I need them around here. When I had a job in an office, in an cubicle, I could NEVER focus, or get anything done, or work unless my area was perfectly organized. I can't function in mayhem. So, it makes sense that as a SAHM, my WHOLE house is that workspace. It has to be organized, it has to make sense, and it has to be neat, or else I shut down and don't function properly. 

And, when Momma doesn't function properly, NO ONE functions properly. 

Or has clean underwear or cereal bowls.

Since I'm still somewhat capable of moving and being active right now, I decided to take what time I needed off school with the girls, and just focus on the projects I want to get done before Bebe' gets here, and then when I'm not feeling quite so active we can buckle down and finish off the few weeks of school we have left. I've taken pictures through the whole process so far, so I'm just going to blog them, and you'll get them in the order I got them--the order of progress. :-)

 This is my "Command Center". HORRIBLE, with the lack of organization and color. It made me so crazy. I get buried in paper despite my best daily efforts around here, as I'm the only one who throws paper of any kind out. So it just gets stacked up, and then I have to actively plan a time to deal with it all. The lamp was too short, so when it needed to be on in the evening it was casting a funny light on my laptop screen. And, even though it's a little weird to have a mirror over a desk, I do love it there because it reflects the lamplight into a very dark living room at night time, but the paint was chipping on the silver, and quite frankly I was bored with it.

 I've endeavored to do as much organization/decoration on the smallest budget possible. Not just because there is always way more expenses than money, but because it seems plain stupid to "have" to go out and spend a bajillion dollars every time we move on new lamps, tables, organization stuff, etc. To be clear, I'm not opposed to spending when needed and on pieces that will really make life better, and there's going to have to be some of that, but I do think there's a lot of satisfaction in re-purposing stuff you have, or getting stuff on the cheap and making it what you want. I enjoy working on a tight budget for stuff like this--the challenge is pleasurable. Except, of course, when I WANT to spend money. Then it's just annoying. Ha! So anyway, pretty much everything I've been working on the past couple weeks is of the cheap/free/re-purposing variety.

I guess this is the only before I have of these lamps, which is weird, because I could swear I took one of them specifically. Maybe it's later in my catalogue of photos--you might see it yet. Anyway, the lighting in this house is appalling at night--it is WONDERFUL in the daytime due to all the windows and skylights, but it was built in 1988, and has florescent, BUZZING lights everywhere. I can't handle them--it makes me feel violent when they're on. They make me crazy. And, we read A LOT in the evenings, so lamps were a must. Here is my helpers cleaning and de-stickering 3 lamps from Goodwill. They were all $9.99 a piece, and completely hideous. But they showed promise, and I may have danced a jig out the door of goodwill with them. Just you wait. :-)

 Since I was spray painting it only seemed reasonable to give my kids something to spray too--a hundred pack of clothespins from the laundry section (NOT the craft section, they're way more expensive there!) we use them for everything, and they are so pretty when they're brightly colored.

 There's a story behind this too--in the interest of saving some words for another post, I'll tell you that one in my next post. :-)

 Taping up the mirror...YAY! So excited for this!! I can see the finished product in my head.

 While I was working I became aware of the fact that Brie was CARRYING her bike everywhere in my periphery. I finally asked her what in the world she was doing. Well, it turns out that "Bikey" carries her around all the time, today she thought that maybe "Bikey" would like to be carried everywhere today. Ha!

 My sweet helper.

 AHHH! So excited over all these gorgeous colors.

 So, upstairs on the other side of our bookcase we had just a chair, and a telescope on a tripod pointing out the window. Which is great, but it wasn't really a good use of space... the chair wasn't getting used because you didn't have a place to set your drink when you were sitting there, the lighting was terrible, and the tripod is Garrett's, but he just doesn't have time for it right now. Not to mention the fact that we're covered in clouds a goodly portion of the time here.  This table was in the backyard of the house when we moved in. So I gave it a good looking over, and decided that it could be salvaged as an end table.

 A good scrubbing with bleach, and more bleach, and a good sanding, and I knocked out a few of the boards on it because they didn't look so good, and it was already an improvement... stay tuned...

 And Brie, overseeing the action. :-)

Stay tuned for the next batch of photos from the process...

Projects... updated

So, over the past couple weeks I've been working on projects around here that I've been meaning to get done forever, and just haven't had the time, or the space, or the weather hasn't been right, or whatever handy excuse is available. Most all of these projects feed off each other somehow, so it makes sense to get them done together. And, now with staging our house to sell, other projects needed to get done so it looks somewhat clean and organized around here, and anyway, here's where I currently am on the projects.

Our headboard got turned into mounting boards for a whole bunch of going losting pictures. Why did I turn my headboard into mounting boards for pictures you ask? Because it was part of a bed that was a piece of junk, and it made me mad, and the alternative was chopping it into tiny pieces and lighting it on fire. That's why. These turned out pretty good. The goal for them was to 1) display going losting pictures with a minimum of $ output right now. All total including the cost of printing the pictures this cost about $20. So, that goal was achieved. And, 2) break up the brown wall in the study/guest bedroom, and make the room feel bigger. That worked as well, so all in all I'm happy with these. I'm thinking that when I go to display our next 4 years of going losting pictures I will maybe spend $40. And, if we keep that up, by the time we're 90 or so, we'll be mounting them and displaying them gallery style.

Since I had no headboard anymore, I spent an amount of time that shall go unnamed searching how to make one that was more us (ok fine, more me.) and also budget friendly, and moving friendly--I didn't want to have to bolt anything to the wall, or screw anything to our current bedframe. So, this tutorial was the best suited one to our situation that I found. I am SO happy with this headboard. It is good and stuck on the wall, and I'm not worried about it coming off and braining us while we sleep, or anything like that. Added bonus was I got to move the bed about 8 inches closer to the wall, which makes our room appear a lot bigger. And, it cost just about $40, that makes me happy. Also, if we tire of the Giraffe print I will feel completely guilt free taking it apart and doing something else. Not that anyone could ever tire of giraffe print. What is cooler than zebra print? Giraffe print, that's what. And zebra print is pretty cool. So there.

And, with building a bookcase I was finally able to paint this sideboard, and organize it with my cast iron, and pans, and BBQ odds and ends, and all the other fun kitchen stuff. I LOVE how this turned out. The top is still butcher block, and it is pretty with the green bottom.

And... the bookcase. The bookcase I've been longing after for over 2 years, and meanwhile collecting books to go upon it. With my pickiness for width and height and finish, and Frank's pickiness for the same, and budget constraints for what we wanted not quite being affordable--curses upon you and your expensiveness, Pottery Barn, this was the route that we ended up going. I mostly built this myself, with a bit of help from Frank, and my Grandpa.

It has to fill a lot of positions for home organization, so I needed it to be wide and I needed it to be tall. At this point and time it is almost filled to capacity. I could take off some of the pretty stuff and put more books on it, and I may end up doing that at some point, but the good news is that with the irony of life, after longing for a bookcase for 2 years I am expecting to shortly be moving into a house that will have at least one wall of built-ins. Of course, me expecting that ironic happening may negate the possibility of it's occurence altogether. Only time will tell.

Oh, it makes me so happy to have my books and things stored properly.
I did this for the outside frame finish of the bookcase--and there aren't words to describe how much I love it. I think I sanded off just a bit less paint than she did though. And, I agonized long and hard over whether to cover the backboard, or what to cover it in. I originally had thought to do something like this, but I try to avoid overly flowery prints in our living area, so that one just didn't feel right. My second thought was painting and stenciling, but that sounded like a lot of work, so I thought burlap might work just for some texture but that didn't feel quite right either. I decided on the faded zebra print and was pretty excited about it, but I still wasn't 100% sure until I got it in the mail, and it was so perfect that I may have squealed and jumped around a bit. It would be way too much zebra if there were no books on it, but with just a bit peeking out here and there from behind the books and things, it ends up being the perfect amount of zebra. All in all, I'm really glad that I went with my gut and covered it, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be nearly so satisfied with it if I hadn't.
And, lastly. I saw this on Pinterest, which linked to here. And, I had to have one. Realistically this didn't need to be done now. But the thing is that I know my antique stores here. And, while I'm sure they have antique stores on the west side, I don't know them, and I'm not going to feel like antiquing anytime soon enough to get me one of these as soon as I want one. So, I made one. And I love it as much as I thought I would. Which makes me happy.
So, yeah. There's a project update. My laundry is out of control, and my floors are disgusting. I'm going to fix that immediately upon hitting "publish" for this post.

The Master Bedroom

So, back in March I asked for help in deciding what color to paint our master bedroom. I appreciate every one's input SO much, I cannot even say how much it helped me. After reviewing what everyone said it became quite clear to me that our master bedroom was meant to be green. I don't know how I missed that. Anyway... I was completely hooked on the idea of luxurious red sheets, so I went with green walls, and 600 thread count red sheets--lovely! Pictures never do justice to paint colors, it's quite annoying. Anyway, the color that I chose was from Ace Hardware, Royal Interiors, by Ace, in Palmetto. It is a lovely shade of green that heads just a bit towards celery when the sun is shining on it, but fades into a greeny-taupe in the evening shade. Perfect for being cheerful during the day, but restful at night. My favorite thing about this paint is that it is a neutral in the room. You may not normally think of green as being a neutral, but it totally works as one in this space.
Since it was a lighter but deep color, I decided to do all the walls in the same color. I like accent walls in theory, and in other people's homes, but I've never managed to be okay with them in my home, for some reason I have this unquenchable urge to "finish" the room when an accent wall is painted. I have no explanation for this other than perhaps a touch of freakish OCD.


The other thing I'm loving about having this room finished is the white molding. The house came with this horrible orange plastic stuff, which looks TERRIBLE with color-painted walls. Normally if I have the choice, I prefer wood over paint, but this stuff is SO not cool. So, I've been painting the molding as I go along, and wow, it makes the house feel so nice to not have that nasty orange wood looking molding! It's just a horrible job to paint it. I'm not a very good painter, so that doesn't help. Anyway, the room, oddly enough feels so much bigger now that the walls and moldings are painted. It's really a great space now, and I am loving it. As Frank likes to say when he walks in the room, "Wow, it's so RESTFUL in here!" I know he's making fun of me, but I just don't care, because it actually IS restful.

The walls were looking a little bare, but I didn't want to spend money on canned, mass-produced art (I'm kicking my soapbox away, so I will not climb on it and preach to you about that subject today), and I can't afford custom art, so I had to come up with my own to fill the spaces. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I cannot draw a picture to save my life, but words, I love. I'm all about meaningful words and phrases. However, the last thing that would work for us is cheese ball love quotes in our master bedroom. We are NOT "Come away with me, and be my love, and let's suck each other's faces and grow old together" mushy-gooshy-squooshy folks. Not that there's anything wrong with that... It's just not us. So, I spent a lot of time thinking about, looking for, and pondering what quote/poem whatever would work for us.


I ended up finding two different ones that I liked, and I couldn't decide which one to use. I finally decided on using both of them because I had two spaces available, and because one of them has long time meaning for us, and the other is an awesome quote by Bruce Lee. My personal rule, as of now, is that if you find a Bruce Lee quote that works for your decoration, IT. MUST. BE. USED. It's a Bruce Lee quote!! You can't NOT use it! That would be an outrage, people! So, here's my awesome Bruce Lee Quote, slapped up on this frame. If you're an actual artist, you should probably avert thine eyes, right about now.


This wooden frame and backing was $3.99 on clearance at craft warehouse.
Isn't that a great quote?! Yes, thank you, I thought so myself. :-)


And the next one I had to use for a few reasons.


#1. "Carpe Diem Baby!" has been a line we've passed back and forth at each other from the time we started dating. It started as a chorus to a song that came out right around the time we started dating, and it just sort of became one of those things we'd say to each other whenever the situation fit, and as often as possible. So, it work for us, without being mooshy-gooshy-squooshy.


2. We both are huge fans of Roman History.


#3. I personally love ancient poetry.


This is the end of the poem, the first part is all about how the Roman God Jupiter may not grant you any more days, and I didn't care about that part--we have no place for Roman Gods in our home. But, I love the end of the poem, which has a lot of personal meaning to me, as I've almost always got my eyes on the future, and I quite often forget to appreciate the moments. As it is in Latin, I'm hoping I split the poem in the right place, haha! Frank and I worked on this one together to get it to be as accurate as possible. We wanted it to look like the ancient Roman graffiti. Anyway, I originally started out thinking it would look cooler in Greek, so I translated it to Greek, which was a learning experience, but it didn't look quite like what I wanted, so we went with Latin, and did our best to form the letters as they did back in that day.


Roughly translated, it states:


Be wise, strain your wine, and since life is brief, put aside far reaching hopes. Even while we speak, precious time has passed. Pluck the day, putting as little trust in tomorrow as possible.

That frame was $15 clearance antiqued wood, and I used a scrap piece of heavy cotton canvas from one of my aunts, stapled and glued to the back. Then, textured with a few different cream shades, and since my painting skills don't reach to making something appear to be carved in stone, as most Roman graffiti was, we decided to use a dark, coordinating paint instead. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. There is a typo in it--for some reason I kept misspelling one of the words, and of course ended up painting it the wrong way. 9 million meaningless points to the person who can spot the typo. :-) Part of me desperately wants to seize the painting down from the wall and fix it, and the other part of me kind of likes the typo. Ha! It's not like Mr. Quintus Horatius Flaccus will be marching into our bedroom and complaining that we misspelled his poem.


And so, that's good enough for now. I have one other thing I'm working on for this room, but it's going to have to wait... it's not doing what I want it to do, and I had to put it away because I was so annoyed I was ready to light it on fire. But, I think I've worked out how to fix it, I just gotta find a few minutes to do it! Anyway, that will have to have it's own post if I ever get it to cooperate--it should be pretty cool.


And Chatty, someday I shall have a zebra striped reading chair in there--I'm waiting for the right one to come along for me to re-upholster. :-)


Thanks again to everyone for their input! Have a great Memorial Day weekend!