hand painted herringbone wall

Well, I'm getting a little(okay totally) out of order with the house. We have been making so many structural changes, that I decided it was time to do something fun. Don't get me wrong, the unseen things have tons of value...but I was sooo ready to do something light-hearted and fun.

A while back I did this hand painted chevron nursery. I loved the way it turned out and filed it away for our house. I saw this tutorial and this tutorial on herringbone, and loved them as well.

I combined all of these ideas and came up with a game plan for our dining room. I knew that I wanted to do the herringbone pattern, as opposed to chevron, and I knew I wanted to incorporate three distinct colors. I settled on navy, gray and white(the base color throughout our house).

Here we go...

before

 during

A quilting ruler is my major time saver whenever painting any stripe pattern. Mine is 24" long and 8" wide. I can see through it to make sure I get my lines perfect, and it is large enough that I can gain a lot of ground in one movement. I also use chalk to make my marks on the wall...almost always(mom says never say never or always). It wipes off with a damp cloth and never bleeds through to paint(unless you use a crazy color and then try to paint white on top of it).

 ( i feel like i should defend my appearance in these photos...my excuse is vacation:))

 after

(or should be say, for now:))

 the pink blinds were making jeff nutty, so i replaced them with these sheers. i am going to hang some yellow panels that have a large organic pattern on them in ivory. just have to save my pennies for them! the yellow panels will hang on a double curtain rod in front of the sheers. i think they will add some great visual weight to the room. we will also get a new table, new light fixture, chairs, rug...but this is a start.

(next time you see this piano, it will be yellow!)

I was a little nervous halfway through that I'd gone too bold, but in the end, we love it. It is fun and bold, but breaks up all of the white in our place.

Colors

base color: Sherwin Williams Alabaster

navy: Benjamin Moore Old Navy

gray: Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray

Happy New Year!!

Riley's Name

problem: riley's room needs a little something special

solution: custom name painting

we wanted a shape that was simple, but girly. we also wanted to tie in the colors pink, gray and cream. here ya go:

after

and some detail shots

hope your week is treating you well!

Alexandra

probelm: mama is creative and wants to decorate daughter's nursery, but she also wants help

solution: create a mood board, which serves as a map for mama to decorate room

mood board

before 

in progress

if you look on the dresser in the left of this picture you can see the letters that will go in the bubble gum pink circles painted on the wall...

you can't tell from this photo, but the ceilings are quite high in this space. this light fixture lightens this space and adds the perfect texture and shadows to the chocolate walls. a huge part of me wants to buy this light fixture and stuff it under our bed until we have babies!

 i love the way the three dimensional butterflies from turned out. we bought them from etsy and then i hand placed them on the wall.

somehow, i got distracted while there, and only snapped photos of this wall. we still have to tack the letters "alexandra" inside the pink circles. i will update this post next time i am out there and will post the finish product along with her brother's room!


ps before and after of her dresser coming wednesday!

Jillian

problem: jillian needs a little extra oomph to complete her purple room

solution: add some chandeliers, complete with actual crystals, and glaze cabinets to complete her purple palace

before

after

 i actually came back and added small crystals to the "drops" on the bottom of the chandelier, but i forgot to take pics of the addition...

 we decided to glaze the cabinets while we were at it...

yeehaaaw

yeehaaaw! i updated the gallery section of my website. be sure to check it out.

(please note woody's banker hair. it's what makes him irresistible)

Baby Isaac

i think i might try to blog a little more of my week to week projects. i bought a little point and shoot camera, so this will be the last round of my terrible iphone pics.

last week, i painted baby isaac's name in his room. his mama and daddy were inspired by some other rooms that i have done and tackled the stripe detail on their own. i came in behind them and added the name detail. there is something about seeing the name on the wall that makes things real, and sweet, and special (hint, click on the colored words).

don't forget, by using these letters, you will always have a special piece of baby's first room. simply pull this three dimensional letter off the wall and put it in a shadow box with a piece of fabric from baby's bedding. doesn't get much sweeter.a hall full of shadow boxes, with a swatch of baby bedding and a first initial, sounds pretty sweet to me.

i sure had fun chatting with rowena and helping create a special space for baby isaac.

Katie

This week I got to work on a room for Katie.  Katie is 7 and is getting a new room!  Her mom painted the room yellow, bought new bedding, and hung a few shelves.  She wanted me to paint something in Katie's room.  When I met with her she said that she wanted something small but significant.  I thought that was a great way to put it.  I have done several of these name/monogram with painted detail lately.  It is a really great way to add a significant, special touch to a room, without investing in the entire room.  Here you have it.

Katie's yellow room, new bedding and shelves before we add in the hand painting.

Day 1 progress (Shelf inserts complete.  Katie can tack up pictures of her friends in the padded shelf inserts.  Hand painted detail in progress)

And Day 2, the finished product.  I should mention that Katie LOVES softball.  We added in a subtle softball theme to the painted detail to highlight her current interest.  However, if Katie later decides softball is not her thing, all we have to do is paint out the tone on tone stitches and they will just be polka dots.  Who doesn't love some polka dots?

Happy almost weekend!!