Wednesday, June 15, 2011

What a Difference A Little Paint Can Make.

I know we've all heard it before, but painting really can freshen up a room.

When we moved in, we loved the way the house was painted. But the prev owners didn't leave us any touchup paint for 1/2 the house (living and dining and our bedroom). That's fine for a year or so but it's 2+ and... it's getting a little scary in there.

Took a swatch to HD and tried to have them match. FAIL. Ace told me they could probably do it but they'd need at least 30 min and I haven't had the chance to stop in and drop off my swatch (which is really just a cutout piece of the actual living room wall, yeah I'm dedicated).

In the meantime, Pinterest has been giving me goosebumps with all these amazing gray walled rooms with white and colorful accents. So I wanted to go gray.

I put swatches of a few colors up. BM Stonington Gray, BM Revere Pewter, and Mythic Foggy Skies. We went with Revere Pewter at 125% and I slapped it up on the wall during our toddler's naptime. I just did one wall to see how we liked it. While it was drying, it was a little questionable, looking a little bit like cement. But after it was all dried, it was amazing. Love.



So now we gotta figure out how to paint the rest of the room, all the 125% or to make a few of the walls the 100%.. the 125% is awesome but could be a little dark if the whole room is done in it. The wall I did paint could function as an accent wall if necessary.

And here's a little compare to the original wall color, on the right. Revere Pewter is on the left. Super love. And those sweet little turquoise lamps? Home Goods.Which I learned about thanks to Young House Love, and while my wallet does NOT thank them, my little home decor loving heart surely does.


Now to finish up the wall with my photo gallery. I would love to just put my sunburst mirror up but it's a little small for the space solo. Hmmm, another reason to buy a mirror? Like I needed it.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Building a Wall Gallery...Very Slowly.

Now that we've got the Billy hack done... I have been jonesing to create my very own picture wall gallery. Pinterest has some amazing inspiration as usual, and I'd saved a ton of ideas.

Funny how when you start actually gathering what you have around the house and putting it all together, then taping up the cutout newspaper shaped like your pictures, things seem to come together.

Then they don't. Once I had all my stuff pinned up, I felt like it was closing in the room a bit. Our living/dining room is like a 'great room' but it's like the world's tiniest 'great room'. I think it's something like 18x40. And maybe that seems big but we have a lot of large-scale furniture from our old place which had really high ceilings...and many times it just feels cluttered in here.

So I removed some of the items at the suggestion of a friend. It looked better. Then I started putting up the pictures. And found that even though the newspaper looked great all pinned up, when I started putting frames up to see it in real-life, it wasn't totally jiving with the paper templates. So I closed a few things in and moved a few things around.

And came up with this so far.



Originally I wanted to do all white frames and sunburst but we kind of like the contrast. I actually painted the two light brown frames black and am painting a few other frames white/black to make the balance a little better but we are going to leave it b/w for a while and see what we think. And when we get sick of it (if?), I can paint it all white. Or all black. Or turquoise. Because that's the beauty of spray paint. Which I actually haven't posted about yet but I am firmly on that obsessed bandwagon. How did I never know about this before? So simple.

In any case, we are LOVING the Billy hack and the wall gallery thus far. I don't even mind that it's not totally finished because I am kind of digging the raw look and some of the open back frames and all that. Now if I can just get my husband to pull the Billy away from the wall and snake my new lamp cords behind the thing so we can get some real light into the room, I'd be an ecstatic girl.

Oh did you catch my new turquoise/aqua lamps hiding off on the edges? Those are from Home Goods...my other new obsession. $29.99 each. Perfect way to bring a little bit of new color into this room. Love.