Spring Wonderland

I've done my first paint job! YEEEEAH!

My sister Tawnia is spending the month of June with us, so I emptied the front bedroom, which I'd been using as a sewing room since we moved into the house. (The sewing room is now downstairs as part of the storage room. It's not the greatest, but it works.) I wanted to paint it before she got here because there's no point in setting up an entire room and then moving everything out to paint it later. Just get it done now.

The beginning: boring boring dirty-looking off-white. Yuck. You can see how pleased Adam is at my determination to paint our house. Ha ha ha. (Bookcase and dresser covered with the plastic - all other furniture was out.) And you can also see how pleased he is at my "extremism" of wanting to use multiple colors and needing lots and lots of tape rather than just slapping up all one color and calling it good. I'm grateful for my sweet hubby accommodating me. My thought is - this is the first time I've ever been able to do anything at all with my house, so I'm going all the way with it.

Phase 1: The ceiling and top 18 inches of the wall are the blue, and the yellow stripe is 12 inches wide. In person, it's more pale than this, and the walls aren't quite so neon. But it is bright! And I like it! The edge of the window, closet, and door are "ultra white" - nice and clean and bright and NOT cream! The pink ceiling fan was chosen by the girls and installed last summer when we moved in.

Phase 2 will be after Tawnia leaves, and then my parents are taking up residence in the room for the month of August, and THEN in September, SM and TA will get the room. At that point, we're going to paint flowers all over the green in pink, purple, orange, yellow ... whatever we have and whatever strikes us as interesting. We may also add some white clouds to the ceiling. The girls also want to put fairies on the walls. I told them I can't paint fairies - I'm no artist - but I'll find decals that we can use. I have fabric to make curtains - just haven't gotten to it yet. Those blinds are coming down and landing in a dumpster - I hate them.

RG has named our decorating scheme "Spring Wonderland." When we finish with the front bedroom, we'll do the back bedroom to match (and possibly their bathroom as well).

Living Room Update: Paint

It's been a few months...but I really HAVE been working on our living room update.  Remember where we started?

Dark walls, mismatched furniture, and really the farthest thing from cohesive you can imagine.

I have a wonderful friend who has been helping me with steps along the way to improve...THIS.  Her suggestions were to de-clutter our overflowing bookshelf, repaint, and start perfecting the little homey touches that make the house look a bit more sophisticated.  It hasn't moved as quickly as I've wanted, but I did some cleaning, re-organizing, and sewing.  (The sewing has so far been a flop; I tried to make some natural-colored curtains that ended up being too bulky and colorless for the living room, so it's back to the drawing board there.)  But our biggest change to date has been paint.  She really encouraged me to choose paint that would more unify our rooms (rather than the three colors we had).  She also challenged me to select a darker paint than I was really comfortable with!  But my hubby said it best:  "We decorated your way once before, and we didn't like it.  Let's try it her way."  So...

All parties except me chose the one on the right.  I wasn't even sure about the one on the left!  

We spent our spring break priming and painting with the same good friends who volunteered time to help us refresh the house.  Here's the final product:

And, you know what?  She was RIGHT.  I adore the color, and it made the room completely different. I feel like it's much more unified now.  And I'm eager to start working through the little nuances that will make it look "put together".  I'm going to be on the hunt for perfect curtains, and I need to sew some throw pillows and find a cute blanket.

What do you think?