Stencil status update

Since I got the hallway painted, I've kind of stalled on my painting project.  I guess I forgot that in order to actually paint the stencil, first I'd have to have the stencil in my possession.  And in order to have it in my possession, I'd have to order it.  So - I'm still probably at least a week away from having any actual results to show you, so in the meantime I thought I'd post the stencil I just ordered.

The actual pattern is just one of these flowers, like this:

The pattern is about 3 feet high and 7 inches wide.  I picked it because I like the look of it - clean and spare, with minimal fussiness - and also because the long thin shape of it will best fit into the odd layout of the wall area in the hallway.  If I had chosen a thicker one I'd have been able to use it less in the hallway because it wouldn't have fit in the narrow spaces between doors.

So there you have it.  The color palette is still undecided, but hopefully the pattern will arrive in the mail soon so I'll have something real to show you!

Getting things done

It was a productive weekend.  I finished painting the hallway in Boothill Brown, so am now officially ready for Stencilmania!  Let's kick this off with a quick before and after, shall we?

A slightly different angle - I think these two pics really show the nice contrast between the brown and the white trim, and also the white floor.   

I think going with the brown was a good decision.  As my pal Amanda pointed out the other day, it's probably a little much to have more than two colors going on in one connected space.  That much contrast would probably do more to make the room feel small and distracting than just continuing the brown.

So, next steps:

• Order the stencil
• Decide on a color scheme for the stencils on the hallway walls

Someday I'd also like to replace the ugly overhead light in the hallway, but with multiple vacations planned this year, and with still paying off the fridge for a while, I think the budget will not allow for that quite yet.

New Directions

[Thank you for indulging me in that Glee reference.]

Readers, I am fickle.  When last I wrote, I was headed down a stencil path in the hallway.  That hasn't changed.  But the whole color scheme I was considering for the hallway has taken an unexpected turn.  I showed you some of the options I was considering, which included white, a lightly tinted neutral, and orange.  Here's what those might have looked like:

My first thought was that white with a bright orange stencil would be the way to go, something like this:

But, one thing these pictures don't accurately show is the whiteness of the floor, combined with the whiteness of the doors.  Adding intense crisp whiteness to the walls as well - even if broken up with a stencil - seemed a little too close to mental hospital chic to me.  So I then reverted back to the idea of a very light neutral, like this:

I was all set on that idea for the past couple of weeks.  I had gone to the store, picked up several paint chips to compare and select an actual color, and had even gotten in the car to drive to the paint store to buy it when I had a brainwave that gave me a lot of second thoughts.  (Didn't this happen before with the green wall in the kitchen?  Yes it did.)  In fact, I think I had never been completely comfortable with this color scheme, but had convinced myself that it would be fine when I got it up on the walls.  And maybe it would have been!  Who can say?  I think it just never sat quite right with me because it meant introducing this whole other color into the scheme that just wasn't part of it - the other colors are such visceral colors, that this one just never fit in.  (Sorry, Durango Dust - nothing personal.)

My last-minute brainwave in the car was: Why not just paint the hallway the same brown that I had used everywhere else and loved?  The brainwave actually started from a money-saving impulse.  As I was driving to the store, I just really didn't want to spend $30 on another gallon of paint.  And I had all this brown sitting at home, so I thought, why not try it?  I went home, and quickly mocked up a few pics to see what I thought.  Here's what I came up with:

I like it!  Not only does it keep that whole wall fairly seamless, but it even more emphasizes the green of the kitchen and dining area because everything else is brown.  The white trim and white floor looks great against the brown, and as I happily discovered on the other walls, this beautiful brown is not really dark at all - it just feels very warm.

Plus, I can still have my stencil cake and eat it too.  The brown will provide a great backdrop for some colorful flowers.  I could either go with a warm color scheme like this:

Or a cooler one like this:

Please pardon my ill-executed flower drawings - I promise the actual stencils will look better than that.  But the idea is there, and I like it.  I think I'm leaning towards the cooler green and white flower option.

Painting of the brown will be happening this weekend, and then I can post some pictures with the actual results! 

Watching flowers on the wall (that don't bother me at all)

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I've been spending some time mulling over what to do about my bland hallway, which is trapped between two fairly vibrant colors.

I came up with a few different ideas for what to do with it, ranging between adding a third vibrant color, using a very light neutral, or something in between.  I have this little toy from the Benjamin Moore website that I downloaded to play with prospective paint colors, so I thought this would be a good use for it.  One caveat: this is a pretty crude tool, so one thing I've learned in using it is that the actual colors that show up in the edited photos are not a good representation of the true color that you would see on a paint swatch.  So you'll just have to trust me that I won't pick some horribly ugly color :)

First I started with a couple of neutrals.  One of my ideas was to make it a crisp white to go with the trim that's throughout the rest of the floor.

Pretty good - but maybe too much white?  What if it was a really light version of one of my color scheme colors, either the orange or red?  This color is a super-light orange and is called Gerbera Daisy.

I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of this.  It might be all right as a color, but the off-white doesn't make it quite as crisp and modern as maybe I'd like.   So what if it was a nice burnt orange?

This pic above is a good example of my color caveat from above.  You can see the little swatch in the lower left corner is closer to the color I'm really interested in, but the way it shows up on the walls with this tool looks a little too neon.  Setting that aside and assuming it showed up as the color I really wanted, I still feel like maybe it's a bit much.  Combined with the green and the brown, it feels a little claustrophobic.

So then I took a different approach.  If you remember from my previous post, I had been toying with the idea of a stencil on the wall...  Sounds a little crazy, but I had seen something really awesome using a stencil on my favorite blog, so I thought it was worth considering.  The only issue is that doing a stencil would require me to take down the Asian scrolls that I had hanging up on the walls in the hallway in order to open up some visual space.  (BTW, I wish I could be more specific than "Asian" - I got them at a Japanese fundraising dinner, but they look more like Chinese art that I'm familiar with.  Racial.)  But change is good, right?  So I played with that a little bit.  Here's the walls as a blank slate with all decor removed.

In thinking about the stencil idea, I had the colors of burnt orange and white in mind, but was kind of undecided as to which one should be the background, until I did that little experiment above with the orange on the walls.  Even with a stencil to break up the intensity of the orange, I think it still might be too much.  So I decided to use white as my test background color for this idea.

Now where to get stencils?  Well, based on this blog post from Young House Love, I found this website that sells such things (www.cuttingedgestencils.com) and perused the options.  So many!  You could get stencils that were allover graphic prints (kind of like wallpaper), stencils that were like branches coming down from the ceiling, giant standalone flowers, all kinds of cool stuff.  I found that the ones I gravitated to were stencils that evoked flowers kind of growing up out of the trim on the bottom of the wall.

So using my really *awesome* Paint skills, I mocked up a little picture of what one of these things might look like.

I think there's other exciting possibilities for this too, with variations on the orange color - could be lighter, darker could be an accent color, whatever - and variations in the height of the flowers.  Soooooo, based on this little experiment, I think I'm definitely interested in pursuing this stencil idea.  Exciting!  It'll be kind of an artsy challenge, and will add some interest to an otherwise really boring area of the house.  There's still a lot more thinking to be done and decisions to make on this before I can get started, but at least now I've got a general direction to move in.

Painting update!

So much painting fun!  Well, okay, that's slightly sarcastic.  I mean, seeing the results of the painting has been fun, but it's been a long, sometimes tedious process.  I kind of decided - without quite realizing I was deciding - to do the whole thing myself, instead of rounding up some friends to help.  It's been really satisfying in many ways, because it's been ALL my work, and I can do it on my own schedule, and make my own mistakes.  But the flip side is that it's taken probably a couple months when it might have taken a weekend.  (And truly, I'm not even 100% done yet.)

Anyway, I've finally finished off the brown on the long wall where the piano is, so that officially completes the parts of the main floor that I really wanted to deal with - the kitchen, dining area, and living room.  As usual, I shot a few before pics, because I know how much you want to dwell on that meh-colored beige.

Yeah.  Just as awesome as I remembered it (not).  And after:

So here's what the living room looks like with all the brown up.  It really makes it kind of nice and warm-feeling without being too dark. 

And the lovely green kitchen, all Giggled up:

Still really loving that crazy color.  So now the question is...what to do about that pesky hallway.  You know, this one?

Bland as bland can be.  So now that I've got the two sides of it painted, I'm debating what to do about the old beige that's still the original color.

I think there are a few different ways to go with this, so I've been soliciting ideas from various people I've talked to this week.  I don't think I can continue with either the green or the brown because it's such a small, window-less space, and I think either of those might be too overwhelming.  So I think it has to be a third color, which could be one of these options:

• Leave it the way it is - it's not absolutely horrible, after all - just kind of blah
• Find a different neutral beige, but one with a little bit more warmth
• Paint it white - but maybe that's too much white with all that trim?
• Find a neutral that's a super-light version of the orange or red in my color scheme (below)

• Paint it with a burnt orange kind of color - not quite as bright as the one in the color scheme, but bold
• I saw a post on my favorite blog today about stenciling on walls, and I must say that kind of caught my attention...maybe there's a way to do a nice bright color, but soften it with a light stencil?  Kind of create a modern wallpaper effect without the hassle of actually putting up wallpaper?

Lots of exciting possibilities to think about!  So I think I'll be mulling that over for a while, and just trying to live with it, assuming that eventually a good idea will reveal itself.   I'll keep you posted when it does.

Getting the giggles

I'm back with another update on the green walls: they're done!  I spent a lovely day off work recently finishing off the green (hereafter referred to as The Giggle) that goes on the whole long wall facing the alley, all the way through the kitchen.  During my last painting sesh I left off here, after finishing off the long wall - you can see it stops right above the right window.

So this weekend I Giggled the whole kitchen!  Woot! 

It wasn't easy going.  Unfortunately, this paint (Dutch Boy Platinum, if you're curious), had a hard time getting good coverage in The Giggle, so I had to do three coats.  I used the same paint for the brown and didn't have that problem, so it must just be something to do with the makeup of this green. 

Here's a few shots to reminisce about what the kitchen looked like before The Giggle Makeover.  Before:

And after!

And just for fun, let's go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, when the only thing I had done was to buy my gas range:

Isn't that crazy?  I hadn't looked at that old picture for months, but it feels really good to have it up there to see just how much progress has been made.

If I was a more honest blogger, I'd show you where all my little painting or taping-off mishaps occurred...but I'm not.  So rest assured that there are a few tiny mistakes here and there, but I don't think you'd notice unless you were looking for them.  I've come to be quite comfortable with the idea that it's not perfect, but it's satisfying to do it myself.

In lieu of doing something more flashy (and expensive) like a new countertop, or painted cabinets, or backsplash, I think The Giggle does a nice job of perking up the kitchen.  Eventually I will want some of those things, because the countertop (which was always ugly) is still ugly, and neither the countertop or the backsplash tile really matches the green.  But oh well - those are problems for another day...or year :)

Under pressure

So I got a little sassiness from my family tonight about promising to put up the pictures of the green walls and then failing to do so.  So here you go, clutter and all :)  No styling was done in the making of these pictures.

This first one was taken right after the actual painting was done, before I had moved any of the furniture back into place.  Also, I used the flash in this one so it's a little brighter than the others.  It's kind of a janky picture but I included it because the color in this one is a truer representation of the green than the other pics.

This next one is basically from the same angle, except it was taken after I put all the furniture and wall art back up and then took it without the flash, so it's a little darker.   What I like about this color is how much it makes all the wall art and the white trim pop.  It's just such a fun color, it makes me smile every time I walk in.  Which is something, right?

Then here's the angle from the kitchen, so you can see what the green and brown look like side by side.  I think they go well together, and it makes for a nice way of dividing up the space.

And then just for posterity, a picture of the living room with all the brown walls up and the furniture put back and everything.  (Again, a little dark because it was taken without the flash.)  I'm so excited about how this looks!

Remember how it was before?

Pre-tty bland.  This is a big improvement, I think.

This upcoming weekend I'll be hoping to finish off the green, which still has to be painted around all the walls in the kitchen.  I predict it'll be tough because of all the weird angles and the extreme amount of taping off I'll have to do - not to mention dealing with painting behind and around the appliances.  Wish me luck!  If that goes well, I might even get around to painting the opposite facing long wall in the brown, to finish off the living room, dining "room" and kitchen areas of the main floor.

That would leave just the hallway connecting my bedroom and bathroom to the rest of the main floor, but I still haven't yet decided what I want to do with the color there.

 
Ideas range from leaving it the light neutral color it already is to painting it Boothill Brown, to finding some third accent color to use.  Not sure which one is the way to go yet, so I'm putting off that decision until I get to that part of the wall.  Procrastination is my friend in this project, I think.  Any opinions on the color from out there in the blogosophere?