seeing green... light green
Oh, internet, how I love you. You give me ideas and inspirations; sometimes I get excited and actually make those things happen. Let me just mention, again, how grateful I am for my very tolerant husband. He puts up with me! He nods and smiles when I show him my plans! He even sets aside skepticism when I say things like "painted wallpaper" and "Moroccan trellis". He (bravely) agrees that some ideas are worth a trial run. I gave him full veto power on this project- complete repaint, no effort on his part.
Here's the before picture of the front room in our house, oh-so-fondly dubbed the green room:
And....here's the after:
(Wow, crazy color difference... taking pics at a consistent time of day might help.) It really didn't take as long as I expected, though a little music and some strong black tea contributed a lot. I used a cardboard stencil, then traced it several times onto the wall with a pencil. When the design hit the corner of the room, I used a paper stencil so it could just be folded for the necessary shape. Unsure of what color would look best, it seemed that a trial run with a few different options would be worth the trouble.
A low-contrast color ended up being the winner, partly because it looked less busy, but also because any imprecision is less noticeable (and there definitely was some imprecision...good call). At that point, the test area needed a coat of the base color for a clean slate. Before tracing out six bazillion stencils, I decided to place the stencil-tracings right next to one another. That made things look less crowded by eliminating the appearance of a double line. Keep things simple, right?
Cue the tracing. Then some more tracing. Maybe some more, for good measure. At first, my kids were puzzled when I started drawing on the walls; by this point they could see where things were headed. (The neighbor kids just think I'm crazy.) After a couple hours with the pencil, it was time for the paintbrush. I used a size 4 synthetic hair artist's brush...because that's what I had on hand. It took about three hours to paint all of the tracings, but after it was dry, pencil lines were showing through the paint. Ohhhh, man. Sadface. I gave myself a couple days' breather, then tackled a second coat. It required louder music.
The total cost of the project was about $20; the only thing I bought was a gallon of paint that was one shade lighter than the current base coat on the wall (base color: Valspar Contractor Finish, matched to Metro Mist, CI 35) . That ended up being lighter than I liked, so I mixed it with some of the leftover base color and just a touch of a dark green paint that we had in the garage. It really is kind of a Frankenstein color... it would be pretty tough to recreate the final product of my little-bit-of-this and little-bit-of-that approach to paint mixing.
Josh was away on a work trip for most of the time I worked on this, so he came home to a fully-finished project. Guess what? He likes it! This is a good thing, because I'm kind of done with paint (until I see the next super-exciting-internet-idea that requires paint). I should probably just back away from the computer. It's the only safe thing to do.
Surely, I can't be the only one who sees things like this on the internet, only to decide that it must be done. In my house. For reals. Do any of you paint things on your walls? Show me, show me!
originally posted at pixellaneous.com
Here's the before picture of the front room in our house, oh-so-fondly dubbed the green room:
And....here's the after:
(Wow, crazy color difference... taking pics at a consistent time of day might help.) It really didn't take as long as I expected, though a little music and some strong black tea contributed a lot. I used a cardboard stencil, then traced it several times onto the wall with a pencil. When the design hit the corner of the room, I used a paper stencil so it could just be folded for the necessary shape. Unsure of what color would look best, it seemed that a trial run with a few different options would be worth the trouble.
A low-contrast color ended up being the winner, partly because it looked less busy, but also because any imprecision is less noticeable (and there definitely was some imprecision...good call). At that point, the test area needed a coat of the base color for a clean slate. Before tracing out six bazillion stencils, I decided to place the stencil-tracings right next to one another. That made things look less crowded by eliminating the appearance of a double line. Keep things simple, right?
Cue the tracing. Then some more tracing. Maybe some more, for good measure. At first, my kids were puzzled when I started drawing on the walls; by this point they could see where things were headed. (The neighbor kids just think I'm crazy.) After a couple hours with the pencil, it was time for the paintbrush. I used a size 4 synthetic hair artist's brush...because that's what I had on hand. It took about three hours to paint all of the tracings, but after it was dry, pencil lines were showing through the paint. Ohhhh, man. Sadface. I gave myself a couple days' breather, then tackled a second coat. It required louder music.
The total cost of the project was about $20; the only thing I bought was a gallon of paint that was one shade lighter than the current base coat on the wall (base color: Valspar Contractor Finish, matched to Metro Mist, CI 35) . That ended up being lighter than I liked, so I mixed it with some of the leftover base color and just a touch of a dark green paint that we had in the garage. It really is kind of a Frankenstein color... it would be pretty tough to recreate the final product of my little-bit-of-this and little-bit-of-that approach to paint mixing.
Josh was away on a work trip for most of the time I worked on this, so he came home to a fully-finished project. Guess what? He likes it! This is a good thing, because I'm kind of done with paint (until I see the next super-exciting-internet-idea that requires paint). I should probably just back away from the computer. It's the only safe thing to do.
Surely, I can't be the only one who sees things like this on the internet, only to decide that it must be done. In my house. For reals. Do any of you paint things on your walls? Show me, show me!
originally posted at pixellaneous.com