Grey and Cozy in the Bedroom

I had one goal over the Christmas break and that was to get my bedroom painted.  I had bought the paint back in August during a paint sale and then never got around to actually painting...oops.  I wanted to go grey, and spent a lot of time researching trying to find the perfect one.  I was inspired by this gorgeous bedroom, from that always-played Ikea bedroom commercial:

as well as this one, from HGTV:

Here is my bedroom before

And here is the after!

I went with two different greys.  Behr's Anonymous for the wall behind my bed, and Dulux's Fine Silver (colour matched at Home Depot) for the other three walls.  I LOVE them together.  They allow for both my white and black furniture to stand out, while at the same time creating a cozy and relaxing atmosphere. Perfect for sleeping :)

I have a plan for the closet doors but that will have to wait for another day...or another vacation time...maybe March break!

DIY Moroccan-Style Wall Stencil

I stenciled the walls of my front entry way.  This is one of the best DIY projects I have ever done.  It's right up there with the ottoman and the corner shelf hack.  I'm so proud of the way it turned out!  Let's start with a little Before and After, then I'll get into the details of how I did it!

Before:

After:

Here's how I did it!

The first step was to install the bead board wall paper.  I bought the chair rail from Home Depot and my Dad came over with his miter saw and did the cuts and the installation.  I then gave everything, including the wallpaper, two coats of white paint to make it all uniform in colour.

I read and pinned on Pinterest a few tutorials on how to stencil a wall before I started.  My favourites were Sarah's from While They Snooze (which is where I also got my template from), Kathryn's from Nanny Goat, and Kate's from Centsational Girl.  I thought I had everything all figured out, then my sister came over and told me my ideas would not work.  Turns out she was right...sometimes my ideas need vetting before they come to fruition, haha

I printed my template and glued it onto some cardboard to make it stiffer.  Realize that the bigger you make your shape, the less work it is!  Most tutorials advise printing your shape on multiple pages and making it quite large.  Honestly, I couldn't figure out how to print the shape larger with my computer so I left it the standard size.  I think since I didn't do a complete wall, the smaller size worked, but for a complete floor to ceiling stencil I would go larger.

    

I taped a level to the stencil to ensure that each time I repositioned it, it would remain level.  That helped tremendously.  Then it was just a matter of tracing the stencil over and over onto the wall.  A lot of this project was done by "eye balling it".  I traced the first pattern, moved it a bit to leave a gap then traced again, moved it to leave a similar gap and traced again, etc.  

To do the corners, I printed another copy of the stencil but didn't glue it to cardboard.  The bendy-ness of the paper allowed it to be folded and traced in the tight spaces.

Once everything was traced it was just a matter of painting between the lines.  I had a few disagreements with my sister on what colour to paint.  I originally was going for a non-dramatic shimmery taupe.  My lovely sister called the colour opalescent urine... So we tried white.  It was okay, but we were running into the issue that we had traced with a pencil.  FYI - light coloured paint doesn't cover pencil.  I recommend if you want to do a light colour stencil then trace with something that is similar in colour or be prepared to do multiple multiple coats.  So we tried black and it looked really good and it covered the pencil.  It was more "in your face" than I was going for originally, but I love it now!  Here is our testing phase (don't worry, the test spots got covered by the chair rail!) and partway through the painting process.  

If you were to get up close and really study it, you would see that the gaps aren't all quite perfect and the lines aren't all quite uniform, but from far away, the effect is that everything is the same.  (And really the only people that notice the imperfections are your own family members anyway who get super up close and stare at it!)

In total, it didn't really cost anything.  I used black paint that was already on hand, and printed the stencil myself.  It only cost time and manual labour!  My sister helped a lot.  She spent one Friday night and a whole Saturday working on it while I was away at work.  Then I plugged away on it for the rest of the week when I wasn't at work. So about 5 days and quite a few hours...but the end result was totally worth it!  Even when you just pick away at it, you will finish!  

I love it and keep making trips to my entry just to look at it!  It makes the entry so much "homier"!

Hiding Out With The Camouflage

Oh man, I'm so late with this post!  I definitely meant to get this out sooner but I got busy with Easter, teaching, and my sister's birthday!

Over March Break the living room, kitchen, hallway, and front entry got painted!  It took a good two days with my mom and I doing it.  It looks awesome and the whole space feels more finished and less "clinical white" now.

Here's some before shots of the rooms.

And here are the afters!

The colour is called Camouflage by Benjamin Moore that I had colour matched at Home Depot.  I love it because during the day it has a beigy tone with green undertones, but at night the green really comes through.

It's really neutral and looks good with the white trim and dark wood.

You might have noticed the above picture where the front hall is only painted half way...there's another project in the works there that you'll have to stay tuned for!

How to Paint Around a Toilet

I have definitely fallen off the blog wagon these past 2 weeks.  Halloween came and went...which pretty much sums up the entire event for me.  I had a rehearsal and wasn't even home!  I've never been a big fan of Halloween, so there was no decorating to be had around here.  We just finished the Kitchen Event at IKEA so that had me working very long and late hours.  After having taught all day at school as well, by the time I got home at 11pm blog writing was not high up on my list!

I'm still working on the blog design, so bear with me while I continue to tweak!  That project also fell by the wayside as well!  But I have a few days off coming up so I'm hoping to get some things accomplished around here.

I've still been working on my bathroom and I wanted to share with you the easiest way to paint around a toilet!  I know, just what you wanted to read on a Monday :)  All you need is some saran wrap!

My sister found this tip on Pinterest and it worked really well!  Just wrap your tank and any of the pipes with the saran wrap.  Here's Lynn and my mom getting their inner "wrapper" on while I took the photos.

Make sure you take the tank lid off before you start.  There will always be a little patch that you can't reach unless you took the whole toilet out, but you won't even notice once you're all done.  The saran had all kinds of paint on it from us jamming the roller and paint brush behind it, but the toilet itself stayed sparkling white.  Super easy and gets the job done!

To see more of the bathroom update you can read:

*Painting the bathroom 

*How to remove a glued on mirror

*Shower curtain makeover 

Sprucing Up The Bathroom

Big things happend to my little bathroom over the weekend.  It got painted!!!!  We painted it Verdigris by Behr, the same colour as my parents' bedroom.  Here was the room before:

And here it is after!

 

 

The builder had glued my mirror to the wall (who does that?) so that had to be removed first.  I have a post planned on that very topic since our technique seemed to work well!  I also have a great technique for painting behind the toilet that I'll be sure to share too!

 

There are a lot more things I'd like to do to update the room including:

• Add a piece of fabric to the bottom of my shower curtain (notice how short it looks?  Everything in my bathroom was made for a very tall person...)
• Update the shower head (again, it is mounted so high that by the time the water reaches my head, only the ends of my hair get wet!)
• Update the light fixture
• Change out the mirror
• Add some closed storage
• Add towel hooks
• Add some open shelving over the toilet
• Paint

I think it's coming along nicely!  The white toilet looks amazing with the wall colour, haha.  It also picks up on the slight blue/grey streaks in my tile around the tub.  The colour also compliments the dark cabients as well.  It's a win win!  IKEA is having their bathroom event right now, so I might just have to go take a quick peak around...

Kitchen Stool Reveal and a Feature!

It is high time that these stools be done!  I'm tired of having to get out placemats for breakfast when I could just be sitting at the counter breakfast bar.  I know, tough life when you have to get out the placemats.  The stools are finally finished, painted, and back in the kitchen!

As a reminder, here is what the stools looked like back when I moved in.  A big, flakey mess.

I stripped the black paint (more on that here), sanded and primed them (more on that here), and here they are now!

I like how they match the appliances and Bert now!

I had a hard time finding silver paint that resembled metal.  While doing some internet searching one day, my mom found some stainless steel paint by Rust-oleum which was available at Home Depot. 

It was a tad pricey, but it was the only metallic paint I could find a can...seriously, you'd think it'd be easy...So I picked up a can, and I still have some left over in case I have another metallic project I want to complete.  Word to the wise though: this stuff smells A LOT.  You have to use it outdoors and be sure to wear a mask (or 2!).  It is made with real stainless steel particles and can be dangerous if inhaled.

So after 2 coats of the stainless steel, I gave each stool a few coats of a clear gloss spray to protect them and to give them more of a sheen.

I LOVE how they turned out!!!

In other exciting news, my parents' bedroom reveal has been featured on My Favorite Paint Colors!  It's a fantastic blog that shows you real rooms using real paint colours.  Be sure to check it out.  Here's my shout out to Verdigris Blue!