Monday, January 2, 2012

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!!

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