Inspiration and Indecision

i find myself looking at pictures a lot and noticing just how nice the room looks, and thinking "that would look nice in my own house". i piece it together in my mind how i would walk into that room and feel all happy and relaxed, quite proud of myself and a bit smug with my awesome little room. and, even better, i can totally do that! i mean, it's just paint, a rug, the arrangement of the furniture.... how hard could it be?

(all from google image, btw)

then i look at my room and go completely blank.

(not how i want my room to look...)

i can't even come up with the most basic of concepts to try. a designer, i may have mentioned, i am not. apparently, it actually takes talent! and don't think i haven't tried! in college, i chose some rather unfortunate colors for our tiny little condo (i think my husband is still a little sore over the pepto pink bedroom, mint green and sunny yellow kitchen, and "sea venture" blue living room and hall). in my current house, the color i chose for my living room somehow changes color during different times of day, and is never a really pleasing color during any of them. it seems to have a pinkish/orange tint to it that can clash with my sage green couch and brown ottoman. and we won't discuss what my husband thinks of the pink paisley fabric i used on the bench he made me....

hey, don't judge. the first step is admitting you have a problem.

anyway, remember that art piece i made for the wall above my couch (here)? well, it turned out that the color blue i used for the background was much too light and bright for the space it was designed for. bummer. so i looked into all kinds of ways to try to fix it so that it would work without actually having to redo the darn thing. the best choice? repaint the wall. in fact, repaint all the walls in the living room. trust me, this really was the best option. if you doubt me, reread the second paragraph.

now, i wasn't so much worried about painting the room. i've painted before without incident. it's the easy part of decorating. but what color to choose? i was a wasteland for ideas. when i lack inspiration, i turn to my trusty friend, the internet. in this case, i turned to kreyv. if you look at this site, there is a whole series of posts dedicated to different colors and how they could work. check out the one for grey and see where i finally found my inspiration. that's me in words, people: subtle, sophisticated, and versatile! if you don't know me, just take my word for it. if you do...well, try not to laugh in front of the newbies. but, back on track, grey is the winner for my living room. a light grey, (a la:
to be exact. easy, peasy! except....

do you know how many light grays there are to choose from?! a bazillion! i counted! it's insane! i came home with 11 paint swatches to consider. ELEVEN, people. and i left at least twenty times that many looking lonely on the shelf as i walked away! why do we need that many choices?! it's dangerous, frankly, to put that many options in front of people who have no idea what they're doing! then someone suggested i consider light tan, as well. now, hold on. let's not get carried away and run all willy nilly through the store, okay? i don't have that kind of time! rein it in, people. just rein it in.

oh, this may take longer than i thought.

a couple months later....

so, a tip for other novices, like myself, who are not what we call "color confident" when it comes to these major decisions: ask friends for opinions. it's easy and they love to give them. here's the thing, though. only ask people who's tastes you admire. i asked one person who i think may be color blind. that opinion, obviously, does me no good. so, stick to a select group. then hit the store and grab some samples. then ask again. compare those samples that passed muster with the group with your furniture and curtains, etc. (unless it's all up for a change). they sell little sample cans of paint in some stores that you can get for a small area to test in your room, if you want to do that. it's a lot cheaper than a full can and less risky.

i made a deal with my husband. he only opposes me on most home improvement projects because he doesn't want to have to do it. so i told him he wouldn't have to do any of the painting (simply come home one day and it would be a different color), and he agreed to let me have my way with the living room. well, i have three small children to take care of all day, so painting a big room was not going to be an easy task. so i did what i could when i could. i started with the edging (which is my least favorite part and, i think, what takes so long when painting a room). i got one coat on while the kids slept...and then nothing else for days.


it looks blue, doesn't it? which was funny, because the paint in the can looked white. both of which are funny since the color i paid for was gray. i began to feel doubt (just so you know, people, doubt is a big part of my home improvement process).i stared at that edging for days and worried. then i did a second coat on the edging, just to see if that would help. it didn't. still blue-ish.

it sat even longer. we went out of town for a while and when we came back...still blue! what to do?! i had to make a decision pretty quick because we had company coming in a couple days. i either had to go ahead with the gray/blue, paint the edging back to the original color (which i had in the basement), or get a whole new color and start over.

have you ever heard the expression, "in for a penny, in for a pound"? well, i'd already paid my penny, so.... it was time to pound it out. with the help of a couple of friends, the paint went up.


it still looked rather blue to me, but the next problem was that i had misjudged the size of my room and needed more paint. so out i went. after treating my friends and kids to lunch and getting some more paint from lowes, i returned home to a gray living room! it was like magic. the paint dried to the color on the paint sample (as it was supposed to)! yes, it still needed another coat, but i could happily say that it was coming together!


i'm pretty happy with the result:



it looks pretty good with my new gallery wall, if i do say so myself. and i do. often.

so, bottom line is this: if you want to spruce up your room, paint is a really good option. just make sure to get the right advice when it comes to color. the color part, for me, got the juices flowing for the rest of the room (the room that i was completely blank about before). i never would have considered gray, to tell you the truth, if someone had not suggested it. don't be afraid to take advice that seems rather foreign to you. get the samples, test it out, and, if you think you might like it, go for it.

oh, and wait for it to dry before you panic. ;-)

Ever Wonder....?

i have friends people (admit it, you're surprised) who are a bit more confident with their abilities than i. they take on some crafting tasks that i would never have dreamed of. case in point: the canvas. it looks so simple, does it not, that simple piece of canvas stapled to a simple wooden frame? so why does it cost so much?! and why do they make special tools for it? hm. food for thought. then my friend decided to tackle a project for the wall behind her tv. and now, people, we know why. this is her story:

Thursday, March 31, 2011

I'm baaaack...

for now. With a boring project post. Sorry.

I needed something to do with the big empty wall behind my TV. I saw something online (check out the bottom picture here) that looked just like a giant plain canvas behind a TV, and figured I liked that more than anything else. So I decided to make it. I started watching tutorials on stretching canvas and building the frame, and figured, (you guessed it...) how hard could it be?

Hard. But definitely doable.

First I bought I huge roll of canvas, which kicked my butt into gear. I felt invested looking at that roll sitting there waiting for me do my project.

I started building my frame with 1x2's and then a quarter round on top of that. The purpose of the quarter round is so that the canvas basically doesn't touch frame except on the edge. Pretty clever. Also, very expensive. If I had skipped this step, which I'm not convinced was a real necessity, I could have shaved $25 off the cost. I think that is probably more important for artists, (you know, the people that usually use canvases to paint art, not solid colors)so that the surface of the picture doesn't perform differently around the edges.




That was all the frame building tutorial covered. Which would probably have been fine for 24" picture, but no so much for a 70" picture. I instantly realized I would need to put some supports in. Sadly, I hadn't bought enough wood for that since I was going off the online tutorials directions, so I had to make another trip to the Home Depot.

Incidentally, why is it every time I walk into the store, a prerecorded message comes over the loud speaker about keeping your kids safely buckled in the shopping cart within a minute? It's like someone sees me coming with three kids and pushes the button to tell me to buckle in my kids. I got news for you (well, them). a) I've been around the block (so to speak) with kids and carts and feel like I pretty much have it under control, and b)The straps don't even slow my kids down. In my opinion, they just create a false sense of security, since I am more likely to stand a couple feet away and turn for two seconds and find Jade standing in the top of the cart, the buckles hanging around her ankles.

Anyway...I got enough wood to put a support down the middle and a diagonal at each corner. I mitred each diagonal at a 45 degree angle and nailed them in. Very well. From both directions. That sucker was sturdy.



I then proceeded to start the canvas stretching process. It was hard. I got a blister on my wrist. Not really sure how, but I did. Finally, just before finishing the edges, I set it upright, and to my horror saw...a parallelogram. (I had a picture to show you, but most of my pictures magically went blank. Not deleted, just plain boxes :( ) Anyway, I couldn't figure it out. 45 degree angles and equal distances should have made perfect square corners, but it didn't. I called my dad to lament. Then I decided to take it apart, a pretty heart wrenching decision after all that work, but I knew I wouldn't be completely happy with it not-quite-square. I took each staple out of the canvas. Then I tried to take the supports out. Unfortunately, I had built it a bit too sturdy. I injured my leg and arm taking out the supports. I found a t-square and painstakingly put it back together, with perfect 90 degree corners. The t-square was absolutely imperative to getting this right (with my experience level, anyway...which is none...). For a smaller frame, you could probably get away without it, but due to sheer size on this big guy, a tiny error = a huge difference in the product. It was amazing how such a tiny difference could make such a huge difference in the whole frame. I stretched the canvas again. My hands felt like they were going to fall off from that little task.

Then the hardest task...choosing a paint color. I finally got a sample, which was almost enough, so I painted the parts that showed the best and did the part that would be hidden behind my TV stand last :)



Since I only spent $3 on paint, I won't feel bad when I change my mind and repaint it. I suppose I could change it with the seasons if I felt like it :)



It turned out pretty close to what I imagined. I wish I had done it a few inches wider. It's hard to tell, but comes out about three inches on each side of the TV stand, I would prefer it were more like 5-6". Sadly, that was a logistical problem since the wood came in 6' pieces and I would have had to buy the 10' pieces to go bigger which would mean a lot of wasted wood and money. I do think it adds something to what was a very, very boring wall. too bad the "before" picture is one of the blanks...you'll just have to imagine it. I may add a little decorative something (similar to this, perhaps) to it later...we'll see.


Anyway, here's the takeaway. This project was difficult (for someone who had never done something like this), but doable. And no matter what, don't try to do a 70" frame without a t square. Oh, yeah, and if you work at Home Depot stop pushing that button when I come in.

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so now we know why we pay through the nose for someone else to put that simple piece of fabric on that simple wooden frame. thank you, karma, for this insight...and thank you ahead of time for stretching my canvas when i need it done.

*note - this was taken from my friend's family blog, not a craft blog, so i will not be posting the web address.