Category: Living Room

Bow & Arrows

Published on by Our Humble Abode17 Comments

After deciding to paint the backs of the entertainment center yellow, I decided to add pops of yellow in the living room to tie everything together.  My first focus, pillows.  Redesigning the blog inspired a  pattern.  Flipped and repeating arrows.

Of course, I had to make the design.  In Photoshop, I altered the background design for a more suitable stencil.  Enlarging, beefing up the lines and shortening the overall design gave me a good base.

I opened a new page, copied, pasted, and rotated the arrow design 45 degrees.  To make a repeating design, I duplicated my arrow layer and flipped it horizontally.  When I like the placement, I merged my two arrows together and duplicated that layer, this time flipping the design vertically to make this design:

Printing to plain paper gave me my template.  I had transparency sheets on hand, but you can pick up a package at an office supply store.  Taping the template to the underside of my clear sheet made cutting a crisp design quick and easy.

Once I finished cutting my stencil, I gathered my fabric supplies; yellow duck cloth, fabric paint, a foam brush, paint tray, and my new stencil.

I’d suggest marking both the center of your fabric and the center of the stencil.  Making reference points for a repeating pattern would be a good idea, too.  Eyeballing this design wasn’t difficult, but a more intricate design might be.  So, remember that when making a stencil.  Then, starting at the center, I worked my way toward the edges.

Fortunately, the fabric paint dried quickly, but I did cut the edges of my stencil to make overlapping easy.

After the paint completely dried (about 20 minutes later) I cut two pieces of yellow fabric to make an envelope closure style pillow.  Now we’ve got a completely custom pillow on the couch.

Time to start thinking about curtains, but that could be an entirely different post.  So many options, so little time.  What have you stenciled recently?  Walls?  Pillows?  Maybe you’ve been sewing?  Whatcha making?  Or are you starting curtain planning?  Let’s discuss.

A Trip to Yosemite

Published on by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

Over the weekend, we took a quick trip to Yosemite.  Not the national park, but the paint.  Several weeks ago, I asked for your color suggestions for our entertainment center.  I also mentioned the plan for gray walls (Wood Smoke by Glidden).  White is always the safest option for us, and I like crisp white cabinetry.  But all white seemed boring.  So I decided to paint the backs a fun color.  Of course blues and greens are my favorite, but something different would be, well, different.  After asking Ben what he thought of yellow backs, he said he didn’t mind either way.  I set ahead on my quest to find the right yellow paint.  Actually, I considered a few yellow paints for the guest bedroom so I had it narrowed to a few swatch cards.

Yosemite Yellow by Ben Moore seemed the perfect mix of yellow, gold, and slightly muted.  Still yellow, but not bright sunshiney day yellow.  Or Big Bird yellow.

Our Ace Hardware stores carry Ben Moore paint, so I grabbed a sample can while out running errands.  At home, I got to work.  First, I primed the bare wood.

Then I brushed the bold color on the backs of each cabinet shell.

Two coats of color, then I painted the rest of the insides with white satin paint and hauled them upstairs.

I hoped Ben would put them on the entertainment center if they were sitting in the living room, but they are about 1/4 inch too tall.  We’ll have to bring them down to the garage, cut each down a little, then carry the cabinets back up.

I’m glad I painted over the red, or we’d have a little ketchup and mustard action going on.  Ha.  Gray and yellow have been a hot combo for a long time, and I’m happy to add it to our house.  Getting excited to get these up, add shelves, and accessorize.

Have you been accessorizing lately?  Or painting something sunny yellow?  What is your favorite way to add color to a room?

Blowing Smoke

Published on by Our Humble Abode19 Comments

Roofing has taken priority over the bathroom, and while I’d love to make progress in there and call it done, I’m waiting for Ben to work on the trim.  While he was on the roof sweating his butt off installing shingles, I decided to get something done.  I looked around the house and decided to finally paint over the red accent wall in the living room.

If there’s one thing I know about my personal decorating sense it’s this: I am not a red person.  In stores, I never gravitate toward anything red.  Not clothes and not home decor.  There’s nothing wrong with red, I just prefer blues and greens.  Heck, I can appreciate orange and yellow, but red?  Notsomuch.

So this red accent wall was on my list.  What spurred this painting session?  For one, I couldn’t stand the red any longer.  Two, I picked a paint color and I could kill two birds with one paint can stone.  Cover the red and test the paint color before painting the entire room only to realize I don’t like it.  And three, it would be easier to paint around the entertainment center before Ben installs the upper shelves.

Even before moving in, I decided I would use Glidden’s Wood Smoke for the main areas.  It was my second choice when I repainted our living room at our first house.  On the sample card, Wood Smoke looked like a medium dark warm grey, just what I wanted.  I could easily wrap the color around to the family room and down the hall.  The boys and I hopped in the car and headed to Home Depot to pick up a gallon of Wood Smoke in a satin finish.  Because we have two little (dirty) boys, I buy satin for the easy wipeability.

We got home and I immediately started painting.  Like I had hoped, the paint covered the red well in one coat, but the nooks in the textured walls called for a second coat.  And here we are now:

You can see I didn’t get rid of all the red.  But that will change soon.  When Ben built the lower cabinet boxes for the entertainment center, he also built two upper shells.  He added backs (which I’ve already painted) so it would have been a waste of time to paint behind that.

When we find the time to remodel the kitchen, most of the wall from the right side of the bookshelf over to the door will go.  Who knows when that will happen, but I’d rather live in a space I like until then instead of staring at the red.

Now that we’ve given the paint a test drive, I’ll have to buy a few more gallons to paint the rest of the room.  Still haven’t figured out how I’m going to paint over the stairs.

And after I paint the living room, I’ll work my way to the family room.

Hopefully I can talk Ben into hauling the painted shells up to see the accent color in action.  Any guesses what color I chose?  Have you been painting this weekend?

Gimme a Giveaway Winner: Thirty One & A Sampling

Published on by Our Humble Abode7 Comments

I’m so happy today is Friday.  Already, it has been one of those mornings.  We’ve got guys on the roof delivering shingles, a dog and two kids who don’t want to listen, and projects to work on.  Hopefully the winner of the Thirty One bag, Lisa P, is having a better day.

We’ve been busy lately.  Two days ago, after sharing this bathroom mood board, I bought a sample can of Ben Moore’s Chicago Blues.

And tested it on parts of the vanity.  I like it.  Now I’ve got to caulk the seams and prod Ben to finish the top part so I can paint everything.

After cleaning out my paint brush, I load up another with polyurethane to coat a left over slab of Bubinga for the entertainment center.

Don’t worry, it won’t be this glossy.  I had finished applying the second coat just before taking this picture.

This is what it really looks like.

We chose a fast drying oil based polyurethane in a satin finish for durability.

On Wednesday night, Ben drove a few hours to pick up another load of insulation.  And he has ordered 200 more sheets, so this is about half of our order.

Eventually Ben will wrap the house with this insulation to make it more energy efficient.  Until then, we’ll have a pool room (and pool) full of foam.

What have you done this week?  Please tell me you’ve got fun plans for the weekend?

The Guests Are Coming!

Published on by Our Humble Abode4 Comments

In a few weeks.  But I got in a mood to clear things out, so I focused on the basement.  Last time you saw it, we literally had dropped unnecessary crap stuff down there.

I’d like to say it got better, but it didn’t.  We just added more to the room.  Like 45 sheets of foam insulation.

I can’t move the insulation, but I can organize things and put some of it in a better place.  Like the trash, er, under the stairs.  Yes, the stairs sound much better.  I’d hate to have to part with any of my junk.  Shuffling things around, condensing like items to a single box, and moving it under the stairs took about an hour.  And we have room to flop the two king mattresses on the floor for our guests.  Lap of luxury, I tell ya.

Bulky and heavy items are around the corner because I could barely drag them on my own, let alone across the basement.

Fueled by my desire to condense boxes, I pulled a few boxes of frames up to the main level to get some art on the wall.  First on my list, add some art to the boys’ bedroom.  This big blank wall needed some attention.  Because I can’t paint yet (we’ve got to remove the popcorn ceiling and install new trim first) I decided to hang some art.

Having several boxes of art to choose from, I picked my favorites and started hanging.  I didn’t put too much thought into the placement, just held things up and nailed it in place if I liked it.  It’s not necessarily the best way, but I can always fill the holes when we decide to paint, so I had nothing to lose.  Because this was a ‘slap something on the wall to get it out of a box and make it look like we live here’ effort, I used an easy hanging method.  First, hold the picture up to the wall.

Use a pencil to mark a small line across the top of the frame, and another small tick mark to show the rough center.

Measure the distance from the top of the frame to the hook.  I found it easiest to use a ruler for this part.

Make another mark on the wall, measuring down from your original set.

Erase your top set, pound a nail in the lower mark, and hang your picture.

The less measuring I have to do, the better.  And I didn’t have to make templates, which is nice, too.  Keeping the frames up helped me figure out what I wanted where, while seeing it in relation to the other frames in the group.

And here it is now.

I’ve got to get a pack of Command adhesive strips to prevent Everett from pulling the frames closest to his crib down.  I did strategically place the non glass fronted frames closest to him for safety.

I didn’t stop there.  Armed with another box ‘o frames, I moved down the hall to work on our family gallery wall.  Same process, but I couldn’t hang two frames because we’ll have to take down the ugly sconce.

Sconces are abundant in this house and I’d be happy if we got rid of 90% of them.  A few larger pieces of art adorn the walls, too.  The Savannah cut out map is temporarily in the living room.

I’m working on our city map right now for a matching set.  Of course I’ll have to get a set of frames to go with, but I think the pair will make a nice addition to the empty dining room on either side of the French door.  My sense of size must be off in this house, because all the ‘big’ art from our first house looks tiny here.  Looks like I’ve got plenty of crafting and painting to do.

Have you added art to your walls recently?  A gallery wall maybe?  Large pieces?  Maybe you’ve cleaned out your basement, too?  Let’s share our successes.